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Our 2025 Garden analysis: transplants

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

In my last post, I talked about the winter sowing we did. A definite head start, with a short growing season like ours. Still, things needed to be started indoors, too.

We “lost” a lot of beds that would have been available for transplanting to winter sowing, which limited how much we could start indoors. We also had some re-arrangements in the house that meant I could no longer use the living room, and the aquarium greenhouses, to start seeds indoors.

I had to use our basement.

Not the old basement, which is actually pretty warm. The “new” basement, which has more space, but is pretty darn chilly!

Here are a series of videos I made of our seed starting sessions, beginning with the things that needed the most time.

For winter squash, we went with four types. Baked Potato, Mashed Potato, Sunshine and Arikara – all new varieties for us. The Arikara squash are a rare variety, so I particularly wanted to grow them for seed.

Next on the list where peppers.

This year, we went with a Sweetie Snack Mix with orange, red and yellow mini bell peppers for my family to snack on. We’re still in the “let’s find a variety we really like” stage, and trying new things.

Pre-germinating seeds has been another game changer for us. We’ve had years were we’ve planted and replanted things several times before getting germination. This way, only seeds that have already germinated get planted, for a much higher success rate.

This year, we also got a portable greenhouse, so we could start taking the transplants outdoors earlier – mostly because of space issues – and to make it easier to harden them off when the time came.

In the following video, it first shows the kitchen garden winter sown bed getting its own little greenhouse cover, and then the assembled portable greenhouse.

By the end of it, you could already see we were having issues, as the cover started to tear, even as we were putting it on!

The next seeds to pre-germinate were tomatoes.

This year, after going over our seeds with my daughters, we went with four varieties. The Black Beauty and Chocolate Cherry, we’ve grown successfully before, and the family enjoys them. New was the Sub Arctic Plenty. These are a super short season variety that we could technically start outdoors, since they are supposed to mature in less than two months, but they got started indoors, too. Last of all were the Spoon tomatoes. Those were mostly for me, as they’re the only tomato I can eat fresh without gagging (I’ve since learned this is a reaction to one of the chemicals in tomatoes, much like with people who find cilantro tastes likes soap). The seeds have gotten very expensive, so I want to grow these specifically for seed saving, too.

Something I somehow did not get pictures of were the melons I started. I started pre-germinating those at the same time I potted up the pre-germinated tomato seeds.

I used up some older seeds and started Kaho and Cream of Saskatchewan melon. I also started older Sarah’s Choice melon and new Green Flesh Honeydew seeds. Last of all, I started some older Zucca melon seeds as well.

The Zucca melon and the Kaho watermelons didn’t make it. None germinated. The others did, though, and I was able to pot them up.

Starting seeds indoors in the cold and dark basement was a real challenge. A challenge made more difficult, as one of my aquarium lights, which are grow lights, since they were for aquarium plants, too, needed replacement bulbs. They need a size that I simply could not find locally, so I had to order them online. I was able to get them from Veseys, which also had them at a very reasonable price.

Still, with heat mats, lights and even a heater, we were able to manage it.

It took a while for some of them, but the pre-germinated winter squash seeds all made it. In fact, most of the seeds did really well. It took quite a long time for the eggplant and peppers to germinate – those were direct sown rather than pre-germinated. The colder temperatures did seem to set them back a fair bit.

I was more than happy to be able to get them out of the basement and into the portable greenhouse as soon as possible!

We were still having cold nights, though. I had a thermometer in there for a while and, in the morning, it was just as cold in the greenhouse as outside. To try and combat this, I dug out an old, black garbage can – one of many we’ve been finding around the property! – and set it up to be a heat sink – covered to make sure no critters fell in! The idea being that water inside the black container would absorb heat during the day, then slowly release it during the night.

I can’t really say it worked that well. Partly because it turned out to have a leak and, after several days, it would need to be refilled.

During the day, it got insanely hot in the greenhouse and, other than tying the door flap open, there’s no way to release the heat.

Yeah, the heat was off the scale on the thermometer in there! It got so hot that, on many days, I had to move the trays and bins of transplants outside and into the shade, so they wouldn’t cook.

Like the chitted potatoes, but that will be covered in another analysis post.

In the picture with the transplants, you can see that I did buy some this year. I decided not to start any herbs indoors – I just didn’t have the space for them, and my results have been hit and miss over the years. In the picture, I got on each of lemon thyme, English thyme, oregano, Greek oregano, lemon balm and basil. Later on, I also picked up two transplants of sage.

Then there was the wind.

Even with the structure being secured at each corner, we had one wind storm that was bad enough to knock it half over!

The old garden hose was draped over the top of the greenhouse to reduce flapping in the wind, which was an issue well before this particular wind storm knocked it over. I later set the bags of manure strategically on shelves to add more weight and keep it from being blown over again.

Thankfully, most of the transplants survived.

Eventually, they were being taken outside of the greenhouse to harden off, not just to keep them from being cooked. They recovered very well.

The one thing that wasn’t doing well was the luffa. Of the four seeds, three pre-germinated but only two survived to be transplanted into pots to live in the greenhouse for the summer.

As you can see in the slide show above, one of those surviving luffa was super tiny.

The stove pellets are something I like to add as a gentle mulch. When wet, the pellets expand into sawdust and are less likely to squish or smother young seedlings. They also hold moisture quite well. I find they’re also good to mulch in hard to reach areas. I can reach under leaves or between plants and drop a handful of pellets where it would be more difficult to use grass clippings, leaves or straw.

In the end, I found myself with what were probably the best transplants yet. It was looking to be a great start for transplants this year! Aside from the sad luffa, they were all strong and healthy plants, by the time they were ready to go into the garden.

Once the ground was warm enough.

Which took a long time, this year.

Winter Squash

This first slideshow is of three types of winter squash that were planted in one bed. I set protective collars around them to help with the still-coldish nights, but also to protect them from rolling cats, slugs and other critters.

I later set up a soaker hose but, in the end, I found it easier to use the protective collars to water them. Protective collars went around all the transplants except the peppers and eggplant.

With the drought conditions we had this year, I found that the collars really helped. I could water into a collar until it was full, then move on to the next one. By the time I finished watering from one end of the bed to the other, the first collars were drained of their water, and I would do it again. Most of the summer, I would water a bed in this way three times, twice a day. By the third pass, the water would finally be draining slightly slower. It was more efficient to water this way, than to water empty, mulch covered soil around the plants.

The Arikara squash had three survivors, and they went into their own little bed in the East yard.

Last year, in this bed, I had finally successfully grown Crespo squash. The vines got so huge, they even spread into the cherry tree suckers nearby and started climbing them! The bed got amended as much as I could, and I had confident expectations that another variety of squash would do well here again.

The three squash were transplanted with a cover of mosquito netting to keep the cats out. The netting was a bit too small, though, and didn’t cover it very well. Still, it was enough to protect the bed until things were big enough. I didn’t want it covered for too long, so the squash could be pollinated by insects. Later on, I would direct sow corn among them.

Melons and Spoon Tomatoes

Last year, we had brought the logs to frame a low raised bed, but didn’t get a chance to finish it. I was able to do that this spring, and that’s the bed that got the melons and Spoon tomatoes.

First, the melons.

I found some metal posts at the dollar store and first used those to create a trellis for the melons. In past years, they turned out to be far to heavy for the plastic netting I’d used, so I figured something stronger was in order!

In planting the Spoon tomatoes, I put a pair of bamboo stakes in each protective collar. Later, I added cross pieces to make a trellis to secure the Spoon tomatoes to, as I knew they could get quite tall and leggy.

I also direct sowed beans beside the tomatoes, and will talk about those in another post.

More Tomatoes

The other three varieties of tomatoes all went into one of the East yard garden beds.

In the first picture, you can see just how much growth there was with the winter sown bed in the background. That greenery is almost all lettuce!

You can also see that the Chinese elm seeds have started to drop.

The attempt at solarizing didn’t work. It did warm up the soil, though, and the weeds were much easier to pull at that size.

In the end, I had 9 Sub Acrtic Plenty, 5 chocolate cherry and 4 Black Beauty tomatoes to transplant.

I added a large, plastic coated metal plant stake into each protective collar, then wove in bamboo stakes to great a strong trellis. I knew the chocolate cherry could get quite tall. When we grew Black Beauty before, they didn’t get as tall, but were so heavy with tomatoes, I had to add more structural support to their trellis, because they were pulling it over! I wanted to make sure these had a good, strong frame to hold their weight.

Sweetie Snack Mix peppers and Turkish Orange eggplant

Next, the peppers and eggplant went into the wattle weave bed in the old kitchen garden.

The Sweetie Snack Mix peppers all fit into the short side of the L shaped bed. The Turkish Orange eggplant were planted around the tiny fruited strawberry plants that were already starting to bloom!

In cleaning one of the beds, I found some sort of flower. I decided to transplant it in this bed, too. Later, I added a second, different, flower of some type I found. Once they bloom, maybe next year, we’ll know what they are!

The peppers and eggplant all got wire tomato cages for support. Those came in handy, later, for other reasons!

The Herb Bed

Finally, there were the herbs.

This tiny bed had been prepped in the fall, but was pretty over grown already. You can see the walking onions outside the bed are doing really well already, too!

The cats also like to sit on top of the mesh, so before anything else, I added supports to it, then added a bamboo stake that was given to us, weaving it through the top. It was meant to keep the top from sagging under the weight of cats, but has turned out to be a fantastic handle.

This little bed is the perfect size for a few herbs. It even had room for a couple more.

Spur of the moment, I got some discounted sage and tucked them in as well.

So, everything went in and was looking good, though things were getting pretty late by the end of it. We had plenty of hot days in May, but the nights were too cold for the transplants, and the soil didn’t get much chance to warm up. I recall we even got a frost well past our old average last frost date. The last of our garden didn’t get in until the end of June.

It did not bode well for how the summer would go.

How things grew

Drought.

Heat waves.

Smoke.

A triple whammy that affected everything. I’m amazed we got anything at all.

Winter Squash

The winter squash was hit particularly hard, and not just by weather and smoke.

Those strong, healthy winter squash in the main garden area started blooming very quickly, even while still small. Just male flowers, but that’s not unusual.

This, however, was a first.

All the winter squash in that bed were hit with these tiny insects. Thrips, I was told they are. They were really bad. In the end, they were dealt with using a spray bottle with dish detergent in it, after washing most of them off with a hose.

None of the winter squash did well. After the first flowers appeared, they just stagnated. It was ages before they started blooming again. Plants that should have gotten big enough to completely fill and cover their beds barely covered their protective collars.

It took even more time before any female flowers showed up, and I made sure to hand pollinate as many as I could find. Usually, I had to open up a spent male flower to be able to do it, though sometimes, not even that was to be had.

By then, it was so late in the season, we started having to worry about cold nights. Not quite frost, yet, but cold enough to set them back. I really wanted to give what few squash had finally started to develop, the best chance they could. Thankfully, we did have a long and mild fall, but not mild enough for the squash.

I found a way to cover the bed.

We added jugs full of water to act as heat since, too.

It seemed to work.

It wasn’t much, but what we had were surviving.

We got times when the days would be cold enough that I didn’t uncover them at all during the day.

After a pretty severe frost, I finally decided to open it up and see what survived.

None of the Sunshine squash made it, but we did have some Baked Potato and Mashed Potato squash to harvest, including one decently large Baked Potato squash. That one was pretty close to the size they are supposed to be. We had something to harvest to try out, at least.

Then there was the Arikara squash.

They, too, stalled and stagnated. The corn that was planted with them, however, did better than the corn in the larger bed, so we could rule out soil issues. The above photo was taken after I’d salvaged the trellis from the melons to make a fence to keep critters from eating the corn before we could.

As with the other winter squash, the Arikara squash seemed to do well, then stalled, then started to grow again, then stalled.

When it got late enough to harvest the corn and pull the stalks, they had started to grow again, so I left the fencing.

In the above picture, you can see frost damage on the leaves – and flowers! There were even female flowers developing!

It was too late by then, but they continued to surprise me by starting to show new leaves and buds even after the entire plants looked like they had been killed off by frost.

Melons and Spoon tomatoes

Then there were the melons and Spoon tomatoes.

I took these pictures of progress on covering the paths with wood chips, but you can see the melon and Spoon tomato bed in both images.

The melons just… didn’t. Some tried to bloom, but the vines seemed to die back a bit, possibly from transplant shock, and then that was it. They never got better, even if a few did try to bloom.

The melons were a total loss.

The Spoon tomatoes, however, were a surprise.

The first surprise is that they stayed short and bushy. Every time I’ve grown them in the past, they got quite tall for such a small plant, and needed support. That’s why I made the bamboo stake trellis for them that I did. The absolutely stagnated, like everything else.

And yet, they were incredibly productive! I couldn’t believe how many tiny tomatoes we got off of these! Granted, they are so small that it takes about 50 or more to equal one small slicer tomato, but it was enough.

Yes, I did collect some just for seeds.

We also lost a lot of tiny tomatoes into the bed while picking them. When the frosts were coming, my daughters pulled them all, then all three of us sat together, picking off only the reddest tomatoes to keep, and the rest went onto the compost heap. Of the next couple of weeks, even with the frosts, I saw all those tiny green tomatoes turning red!

Not only will we probably have self seeded Spoon tomatoes in that bed, but in the compost pile, too!

More tomatoes

Then there were the other tomatoes.

*sigh*

One of the things I had to do was put netting around the bed.

The cats kept going in and trying to use is as a litter box.

I also interplanted them with beans as nitrogen fixers and a living mulch. Plus, some self seeded carrots showed up.

As with so much else in the garden, they did not do well. Everything stagnated, and nothing grew to their full potential.

The Black Beauty tomatoes were already something that takes a long time to ripen, but when we grew them before, they got large and bushy and were loaded with tomatoes. This time, we had hardly any show up.

The Chocolate Cherry did better, but still nothing close to when we grew them before.

The Sub Arctic Plenty barely grew at all. They did produce a few tomatoes, though.

Very few. These are a bush type, but they should have gotten much bigger and bushier, and produce more.

Having said that, we did eventually get Chocolate Cherry and Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes to harvest. Just a bit, here and there.

In the end, we had to harvest the last of everything before a frost hit, bringing them in to ripen indoors.

In the above first picture, there’s the last of the ripe Spoon tomatoes, along with the unripe tomatoes, that we brought in for our last real harvest. This included dry radish seed pods and Super Sugar Snap peas for seed saving.

Sweetie Snack Mix peppers and Turkish Orange eggplant

Then there were the peppers.

The plants actually did pretty well, though they didn’t get as large and bushy as they should have. One thing I did that I believe helped was prune the ornamental crab apple tree of branches overhanging that bed – discovering a whole bunch of hidden dead branches in the process. It took a very long time, but they did start producing, and we even harvested a couple of mostly ripe peppers off the plants.

When the cold nights and frosts threatened, the wire tomato cages allowed us to cover them with old bed sheets we repurposed for the garden.

The pepper plants handled the cold surprisingly well, though. As with the tomatoes, most of these got harvested while still green, and brought in to ripen indoors before the hard frosts hit.

The Turkish Orange eggplant also stagnated and took a long time to start producing fruit, so it was very late in the season before we started seeing orange among the green.

Some did fully ripen on the plants, though!

It was so late in the season, I was collecting carrot seeds, too!

As with the peppers, the last of them were harvested green and brought in to ripen indoors. The plants themselves were not at all cold hardy. Yet, they surprised me. Even after I cut their stems at soil level to more easily harvest the unripe eggplant, I later found that they were sending up new growth!

Over time, as they ripened, we were able to use the peppers and even had enough to dehydrate a small bag’s worth.

As for the eggplant, we tried them out and they were okay tasting. Not particularly tasty, compared to other varieties, but that could have been because of the difficult growing year. One of my daughters, however, found that after eating them, with the skins on, her lips went numb. She’s never had this reaction to eggplant before. There’s something in this variety that she’s allergic to!

The Herbs

This was absolutely a success!

In the first picture, you can see the herb bed in the background, still green and producing, after several frosts, while the other beds are being winter sown. Everything except the basil, which got killed off with the first light frost. It was fantastic being able to pop into the garden and harvest a few herbs, any time we needed.

We were still harvesting as needed until it finally was time to mulch the bed for the winter. Even then, I mulched around the plants first, and we kept using them, before fully mulching them before the snow hit. The thyme, oregano, lemon balm and sage are all herbs that, in milder climates, are perennials. With proper mulching, these might actually survive the winter.

For a time, it did seem that they were stagnating, too, but there was a different solution for that. They weren’t getting enough light. We’d pruned the ornamental crab apple tree at that corner before, but much of it was grown back. After cutting way a major branch, the herbs, and even the winter sown kitchen greens bed, suddenly were getting so much more light!

I’m glad I bought the transplants, though, rather than trying to start them myself indoors. I don’t think I would have had as much success, otherwise.

Now we have one last transplant to talk about.

The luffa.

*sigh*

As with everything else, they stagnated. One grew a fair bit more – enough to actually climb up the greenhouse structure, and even bloom.

The other one also, eventually, started to grow, but these were both failures. They’ve grown better for us, out in the open garden beds, than in the greenhouse!

Final Thoughts

Starting seeds in the basement: we have no choice on this one. In fact, we are currently working on making space and figuring out how to bring the aquarium greenhouses into the basement, so we have have better control over temperature and light. The problem is, the big tank and the shelf it’s on are quite large, and we aren’t sure how we can get it around the bottom of the stairs without breaking anything! Also, one of my heat mats died, so we’ll need to get another.

Pre-germination: no change there. We will continue to pre-germinate as many seeds as possible

The portable greenhouse: I really loved having this, but we have a major issue. By the end of the season, the winds basically tore it apart. Plus, we’ve had a couple of cats jump up onto the roof, adding more holes. The cover is completely toast. The frame it still good, though, so we will probably look into getting better quality greenhouse cover material and basically make a new cover for it. Currently, it’s covered with a large heavy duty tarp and being used as another winter shelter for the cats. With no door flap, because that is gone.

Winter Squash: we will always be growing winter squash of some kind. This year’s failure had to do with things out of our control. I’d like to try this year’s varieties again, but another time. We’ve got other varieties to try in 2026 already. I’m still looking to grow the rare Arikara squash for their seeds, too.

Melons: same as with the squash. Growing conditions just killed them off this year. We have new melon seeds and new varieties, so we will be growing melons again.

Tomatoes: My daughters have suggested not to grow Spoon tomatoes again. Too many tiny tomatoes to pick. 😁 We have new varieties to try, including another tiny variety 😄, so next year we will likely have another three or four varieties again. Just not a lot of each.

Peppers: my daughters suggested that we just grow the Sweet Chocolate peppers we grew a couple of years ago, as they were enjoyed. I did pick up a different variety noted for having thick walls, so we might be doing two varieties of pepper next year.

Eggplant: with a daughter that has a reaction when eating the Turkish Orange eggplant, we won’t be growing those again. I did, however, get a white variety to try next year.

Herbs: total win, here. We plant to have many more herbs in the old kitchen garden, and we do have seeds to start indoors, but buying transplants is always a good option, too. Plus, with this particular little bed, we might even have our first perennial herbs – if the heavy mulch helps them survive the winter!

Luffa: Yes, I will be trying luffa again! I am determined to grow sponges. We’ve come so close in the past!

What we could really use is a polytunnel or a more permanent greenhouse.

All in good time!

As for this year’s transplants, they started out strong once they got out of the basement. It just was such a difficult year. We had modest successes, at least, but nothing that would feed us for any length of time! As my SIL once said, of their own garden: if we relied on our garden to feed us, we’d starve! One of our goals, however, is to grow and store enough produce for 4 adults from harvest to harvest. We can’t afford years like this too many times!

We were not the only ones that has such a bad gardening year, of course. Lots of people on my gardening groups really struggled.

Hopefully, next year will be better.

We will, however, be learning a lot from this year, to help make that happen!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden analysis: winter sown beds

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Our 2025 garden started in 2024, and not just by planting garlic in the fall. Inspired by a video from Gardening in Canada, I decided to give winter sowing a try. Now winter sowing in milk jugs, etc, but actually direct sowing into garden beds in the fall.

You can see where I did these in my October 2024 garden tour video.

This was a pretty risky experiment. After going through my seeds, I decided to make mixes of seeds and broadcast them. This gave me a chance to use up old seed, but it also cleaned out all the seeds I had in some categories, both old and new.

The garlic I planted was from saved cloves. Besides that, these are the seed mixes I made and direct sowed before the ground froze.

Seed combo 1
Root vegetables		Seed combo 2
Summer squash 		Seed combo 3
Kitchen garden 		Seed combo 4
Tall and climbing		Flower combos
Carrots: Uzbek Golden and Napoli
Beets: Bresko, Merlin, Cylindra and Albino
Turnip: Purple Prince
Radishes: French Breakfast, Champion, Cherry Belle and Zlata
Onions: saved seed (mix of red and yellow bulb unions)
Note: left over seeds from this mix were planted in a final bed with saved Jebousek lettuce seeds added in		Sunburst pattypan
White Scallop pattypan
Magda
Green zucchini: Endeavor
Yellow zucchini: Goldy














Swiss Chard: Bright Lights and Fordhook Giant
Spinach: Space, Lakeside, Bloomsdale and Hybrid Olympia
Kohlrabi: Early White Vienna and Early Purple Vienna
Bok Choi: Hedou Tiny (saved seed)
Shallots: saved seed
Onions: saved seed





Sunflowers: Mongolian Giant and Hopi Black Dye
Peas: Dalvay shelling peas (not saved seed) and King Tut purple peas (saved seed)
Bush beans: Royal Burgundy
Corn: Montana Morado (saved seed)
Onions: saved seed






Main garden area:
Nasturtium: Dwarf Jewel Mix
Butterfly flower: Orange Shades (milkweed)
Forget Me Not

Maple grove:
Western Wildflower Mix











In making these mixes, I had some Uzebek Golden carrot seeds left, 1 out of 2 packs of Hopi Black Dye sunflower, onion and Dalvay pea seeds left. All the rest, I used all the seeds I had. I really cleaned out my inventory in the process!

This is the video I made featuring the winter sown beds this past spring.

Let’s start with the complete failures, first. 😂

Summer Squash mix.

I was really looking forward to these. Unfortunately, not a single one germinated.

No, I can’t blame the old seeds.

I blame the cats. Mostly.

After the mulch was removed, the cats decided that this bed was a great place to roll around in. If anything survived the winter, I never had a chance to see them before they were crushed. In the end, my daughter and I completely redid the bed, digging a trench and planting potatoes. Which did much better, sort of, but I’ll cover those in my direct sowing post.

In the garlic bed, I was left with some space at one end of the bed, so I broadcast a bit of the root vegetable mix there. That, also, got completely rolled on by the cats – and I even saw things starting to sprout there! I did direct sow summer squash in that space later on, which I will also cover in the direct sowing post.

The winter sown summer squash, though, were a complete loss.

Tall and Climbing (mostly) mix

This mix went into a newly redone bed in the south yard, at the chain link fence. The fence would have provided a trellis for some things. The bush beans were there as nitrogen fixers.

I planned ahead on this. Knowing that this bed could be completely suffocated by seeds from the nearby Chinese Elm, I got mesh tunnel kits to protect this bed. These were dollar store purchases, and it took four of them to cover the entire bed from end to end.

As far as protecting from the seeds, they worked great.

They couldn’t handle kittens, though. Kittens that decided the mesh was great to play on, bending the wires under their weight, and to get under. They would use the bed as a litter box, but also just run around back and forth, playing. Or in a panic when they couldn’t find a way out again. The few things that started to germinate were completely crushed. Even the seed onions I found and transplanted along the edges were pretty much destroyed.

It was incredibly frustrating, and the bed was a total loss.

Self seeded lettuce; the only thing that survived in this bed!

The netting survived, but many of the wire supports were so badly bent out of shape, it wasn’t worth trying to straighten them out again.

The Flower combos.

There were two areas I winter sowed flower seeds. One was a purchased mix of wildflowers native to Western Canada. These are the sort of thing I would like to have growing among the trees, so it went into an area on the edge of the maple grove.

Unfortunately, yes, the cats caused damage there, too. The prepared soil was softer there, so they’d use it as a litter. The area was large enough, though, that if anything survived, there was still a chance.

I honestly don’t know if any survived. Nothing came up, but part of the issue in that area was the drought conditions and the fact that I simply didn’t water it regularly in the spring. It’s entirely possible that there are still surviving seeds in there that might germinate later on. I’d sown mixes of seeds in two other areas in the maple grove that also didn’t take, but since then, things have come up that I haven’t seen there before, so it’s entirely possible this will happen again.

For 2025, though, nothing seemed to have come up at all.

The other flower seeds went into a small bed at the end of the high raised bed, where I’d grown pumpkins last year. This one, I was able to water more regularly.

Yup. You guessed it.

Cats destroyed it. By the time I was able to cover it, it was too late. Nothing survived.

Starting over with flowers: much better!

I did replant that bed with more nasturtiums, Cosmos and some memorial asters, keeping them covered until they were too big to fit under the cover, and large enough that I didn’t think the cats would go into them anymore.

The nasturtiums did pretty well, though they were much smaller than they should have been. They bloomed and we were able to collect seeds from them. They did pretty good, but did not thrive to their full potential.

The Cosmos got really tall and looked great, but they were among the things that stagnated. It took so long before they bloomed that, even with a mild fall, they never finished blooming, and there were no seeds to collect.

The memorial asters were also much smaller than they should have been, and took a very long time to bloom. They were, however, also protected by the Cosmos, when the temperatures started to drop and frost hit. The Cosmos protected them enough that they were able to go to seed.

Some of the seed, I allowed to drop to self seed for next year, but I collected others to direct sow in other areas next year.

Now let’s look at what did work – and these really made up for the losses!

Kitchen Garden mix

This mix went into one bed in the old kitchen garden. As things started to warm up, I dragged over a cover to put over it. This allowed me to first cover it with plastic, to create a mini greenhouse, which was later replaced with mosquito netting. This cover is strong enough to withstand the weight of cats!

The first things to show up in this bed was the spinach.

Lots of spinach.

More than we could keep up with, spinach!

Some varieties bolted rather quickly, though.

What got me really excited, though, was the kohlrabi. I’ve been trying to grow it for years and, with the old seeds I had, I honestly wasn’t expecting much. For the first time, we actually had kohlrabi to harvest! That was what really won me over to winter sowing. The only other time I came close to succeeding with kohlrabi, they suddenly got completely destroyed by flea beetles.

Another reason for the mosquito netting!

Different things showed up as the season progressed and space opened up. The kohlrabi did overshadow other things, like the Swiss Chard, though we were still able to harvest some from under the kohlrabi leaves, too.

What I didn’t see until they bolted was the Hedou Tiny bok choi (which I kept misspelling as hinou instead of hedou). They were already from saved seed, and only a couple of plants seemed to survive the shade of the kohlrabi, so I left them to go to seed.

The most resilient in this bed were the chard. We harvested those as cut and come again plants, and they just kept going and going! Even when I finally had to clean the bed up and prepare it for new winter sowing, we still had harvestable leaves.

The “fail” of the bed were the onion seeds. Actually, the bulb onions and shallots seeds, both from our own saved seed, were a fail in all the beds. Those really need to be started indoors in January or February. Heck, I could be starting them now, and it’s still the first week of December as I write this. We just don’t have a long enough season for them to be direct down. I had hoped, however, that they would start to grow enough that we could harvest the greens. The kitchen garden bed was the only one that actually had onions start to grow. In fact, when it was time to redo the bed, I found so many tiny onions and possibly shallots that I kept the larger ones and replanted them with the winter sowing!

I also found a surprise. Two full head of garlic somehow got missed when the bed was being reworked. They were sprouting, so I ended up breaking the cloves apart and transplanting them into the wattle weave bed in the kitchen garden, as part of my winter sowing for next year.

I was really impressed with how this bed did, and the experiment helped me make decisions for next year.

Root Vegetable mix

This mix ended up being spread out over three areas. The high raised bed in the main garden area, and a small space at the end of the garlic bed, got the same mix. When it came time to use the last of the mix, in one of the low raised beds in the west yard, I added Jebousek lettuce seeds I’d saved from last year.

The three areas turned out quite different.

The tiny area with the garlic, as mentioned earlier, was destroyed by cats rolling in the soil.

The high raised bed had mostly beets, radishes and carrots show up, plus some turnip. Including one giant turnip I allowed to go to seed, except a deer ate it. So that got harvested.

I allowed most of the radishes to go to seed as well, as I was growing them mostly for their pods. Eventually, the deer started going for those, too!

They really liked the beet greens.

*sigh*

Still, we were able to harvest beets and carrots – including the orange Napoli carrots from old pelleted seeds! – as needed. What we really got a lot of, though, was radish pods. We tried those out in a quick pickle.

Which we all enjoyed. I don’t like radishes in general, but found myself snacking on fresh pods pretty regularly. It turns out that winter sown radish pods are milder than spring sown ones.

The third bed also did really well.

I did end up putting plastic over this bed as well. Mostly, though, I found I had to try and keep cats from getting under it.

The only “problem” we had with this bed is the Jebousek lettuce. Which we quite enjoy eating. There was just so MUCH of it! I couldn’t believe it! They actually got to be a weed. We simply couldn’t keep up with eating it all and I ended up pulling a lot of it and leaving it as a mulch. Only to discover they would re-root themselves and start growing again!

The radish pods did really well, though. Even after the deer got at them, they recovered and started blooming again.

In the end, the few beets that germinated got choked out. No onions germinated, that I could see. I didn’t think the carrots were showing up, other than the odd one, but when I started cleaning up the bed at the end of the season, I kept finding carrot fronds, so I left them to grow until it was time to clean up and prepare the bed for the next winter sowing.

This is what I ended up finding.

That was way more than I expected!

So that’s how the winter sown seeds went. There’s still one more bed to cover.

Garlic

As always, our garlic was planted in the fall. When I took the mulch off in the spring, they were already up and growing. I was really happy with how they did!

Unfortunately, yard cats were still an issue, and I ended up having to cover the bed (and the potato bed next to it) with netting until the garlic started to get too tall. By then, they were not at risk from the cats anymore.

I’m really happy with how the garlic did – and with being able to harvest scapes again.

We ended up dehydrating some of the scapes, then grinding them to a powder. It turned out to be a fantastic way to be able to include garlic in our cooking, and I definitely want to keep doing that.

This was less garlic than we tend to plant, but we still got a good harvest of what are probably the biggest garlic bulbs we’ve ever grown.

The biggest ones were saved and set aside to be planted this fall.

Conclusion

In the end, winter sowing like this has turned out to be a real game changer for us, and I fully intend to keep doing this from now on.

We did mixes this time, which I will not repeat. Instead, I’ve chosen seeds, from my new inventory, to plant in a more orderly fashion. Which is already done.

So, for next year, along with the garlic and seed onions, I have already planted spinach, chard, kohlrabi, purple savoy cabbage (first time trying to grow cabbage), beets, Hedou tiny bok choi, peas, carrots and dwarf peas. You can see where those went in our October garden tour video.

The other thing we seriously need to address is how to keep things out of the garden beds. Elm seeds, cats, deer, flea beetles, snails (we didn’t have a snail problem this year, thankfully – probably because we had so many frogs this year!!), etc.

With that in mind, I’ll be completely reworking the bed along the chain link fence, making it slightly taller and with supports to hold any sort of cover we want to add. Early on, I’d like to be able to put plastic over it to create a mini greenhouse environment. Later, I want to put netting over it to keep the seeds and cats out. Maybe frost covers later in the season. So the supports need to be something I can easily change things up on, too.

I’m just really excited about how well the winter sowing worked. Obviously, not everything can be winter sown, but as we reclaim more garden space and build more beds, I expect that winter sowing will make up a significant portion of our garden, year after year.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden analysis: the challenges of the year

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Okay, it’s that time of the gardening year! Time to look back at how things went, what worked, what didn’t, what we’ll try again, and what we’ll set aside.

Plans were made and, of course, plans changed as time went on. Here is a video I made of what I was planning, before starting seeds indoors.

Aside from a few things changing from my original plans, the entire year turned out to be quite a difficult one.

This was the first growing season since the average first and last frost dates were reset. “Climate” is weather over a defined region, averaged over 30 years, plus or minus 5-10 years. We crossed over that 30 year mark and the new averages for our area tell me that our last frost date range (they don’t have just a day anymore, but a span of days) is in the end of May, instead of June 2.

Yeeeaaaahhhh… No.

This year, our last frost date turned out to be well past June 2, so I’m glad I didn’t try to direct sow or transplant anything in May. May was a very frustrating month. We had some very warm days all month, but the overnight temperatures were quite cold. The soil never had a chance to warm up and stay warm at a temperature favorable for many things. Especially for transplants.

Then, we got hit with a combination of drought, heat waves and continuous smoke from wildfires. I’m honestly surprised some things did as well as they did. Many things, however, simply stagnated. When cleaning up some of the garden beds in the fall, I found that weather was not the only issue, but so was invading root systems from nearby trees!

One thing we did differently was winter sowing mixes of seeds in the fall of 2024. A couple of beds were complete failures, while others did surprisingly well. It really was a game changer for us, and I’ve already winter sown several beds for our 2026 garden.

So I’ll be doing things differently for this year’s analysis, too. I’ll be categorizing things by winter sowing, transplants, direct sowing, and food forest/perennials, before doing a last post with my final analysis and plans for 2026.

I’m hoping to get one of these out every day over the next few days, if all goes well. I’ll be going over a lot of old posts and videos in the process, so it can take quite a lot of time to put together.

Hopefully, these will be as useful for you as they are for me, as we go over what succeeded, what failed, and why – as best as I can determine! I can already say now, though, that a lot of our future gardening plans are going to involve protective infrastructure. 😄

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments.

The Re-Farmer

From a distance

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Well, I’m happy to say that the winds died down yesterday, by the time I headed out to do my evening rounds. It felt warm enough that I actually did some shoveling, including paths to the fire pit and wood piles. We haven’t been able to use the fire pit in the summer, due to drought conditions, but I’m hoping we can use it in the winter!

This morning was technically colder, but without that wind, it wasn’t too bad at all. It’s still snowing lightly and is expected to continue, off and on, throughout the day.

When feeding the outside cats and getting to the catio shelter, I spotted a grey tabby inside the self warming cat shelter under one of the floating shelves. I’m so glad it’s being used! Unfortunately, it was one of the more feral cats – Slick, I think – so my approach scared it out. It was starting to panic inside the shelter, so I made sure the door was wide open, with plenty of room for it to run out.

Later on, I saw the feral white cat with grey tabby spots in the catio shelter, and even Sprout.

I had to zoom in from across the yard to take this picture. I didn’t want to scare her away from her warm nest in the straw. I’m happy to say that both of the most feral mamas seem to be hanging out more in the catio shelter. These two have hiding places somewhere in the outer yard – or beyond, for all I can tell – so this greatly improves our changes of socializing them, or at least trapping them for spays.

I counted 35 or 37 cats and kittens this morning. I’m not sure exactly how many kittens were mashed into their favourite cat cave, but I figured at least four. I’m not sure if I double counted any. I spotted the big tom that’s started to visit us as I was going back into the sun room. I may have already counted him as a “grey tabby in the distance”, but I’m not sure.

With today’s slightly improved weather, if there is any errand running to do, I want to get it done today. I think the only trip I need to make is to the post office. There’s a couple of packages ready to pick up now.

While checking the status on the Back to Basics book I’d ordered on Cyber Monday, I saw it hadn’t shipped yet – but I also saw that the kindle edition was on a 1 day sale. $1.99 for the digital version, instead of $24.99. So I got that last night and was able to start going through it. Much of it is exactly like the older edition I have, but there are some obvious differences, too. For example, in the section on how to build various houses, it no longer has a cordwood house, but an adobe house instead. It should be interesting when I get the physical copy (I just checked this morning, and it has finally shipped) to go through both editions at the same time, and see the changes.

I’m expecting today to be another quiet day, mostly indoors. It’s hibernation season. 😄

The Re-Farmer

Brutal!

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Today was supposed to be warmer. Technically, it was. When I headed out to feed the yard cats this morning, it had warmed up to -13C/10F, which was already warmer than yesterday’s high.

The wind, however, had other ideas.

Today, we’re supposed to have winds of 30kph/19mph, with gusts up to 50kph/31mph This morning, it was coming from the south, which means it was hitting us almost dead on. Yes, we have trees to the south, but the wind funnels between the barn and the trees, and the rest is pretty open.

It. Was. Brutal.

When I got inside and checked, the windchill was at -33C/-27F. As I write this, we’ve warmed up to -11C/12F with a wind chill of -29C/-20F

When I got into the sun room, I found that all the kibble trays on one side – where the heat lamps are – were empty, but the kibble trays on the other side still had lots of kibble. We have both the inner and outer door to outside tied off so that there’s just enough room for a cat to squeeze in and out, but when the winds blow in from the south, it still gets through the doors – and right over the kibble trays. Plus, those trays are on concrete. So are the other ones, but we have pieces of rigid insulation scattered around, and the heat lamps, in the area.

Outside, I found there was still kibble on the cat house roof and all the kibble trays in the kibble shelter. From this direction, the wind actually swirls around between the three shelters forming a U shape, and snow was dusted over all the kibble. The water bowl house didn’t have snow in it, but the heated water bowl had a thick later of frost around the rim.

The food bowls at the shrine feeding station had snow in them, of course; there’s not much shelter there, so I knocked them empty and added more kibble. Not much. I want to encourage the cats to use the catio, which is quite sheltered in comparison. There was still kibble in that bowl, too. The water bowl is frozen, but it’s a metal bowl now, so I could easily knock the ice out for refilling. The cats are definitely using the catio. I just with the more feral cats would use it more, and not run away when I come close. I didn’t see Sprout this morning, but the white with grey tabby spots had gone into the catio for food, only to run away when I came back with hot water. Except it wasn’t hot anymore, by the time I was filling the bowl!

The covered greenhouse is doing much better. The thermometer in there showed about -10C/14F, and there was almost no wind getting in at all. The water bowl in there is a large, double walled plastic bowl that used to be a heated water bowl. When it died, I just cut off the cord and kept using it. With that one, I took the bowl outside and used a hatchet to chip out a “bowl” in the ice before putting it back in the covered greenhouse. When I came back with the jug of hot water, I found a fluffy kitty at it, trying to “drink” the broken bits of ice that were still in it.

I’m happy to say, I saw that kitten coming into the sun room later. It almost ran off again when it saw me, but I backed off and gave it a chance to go into the warm zone, where it stayed.

Before going inside, I did a head count. I counted 25 cats and kittens – then two more came in! So 27 cats in the sun room alone, all crowded around the three food trays and heated water bowl, with kittens jamming themselves into a pile in one of the cat caves they like so much better, and in various beds and perches. There would also have been 3-5 cats in the isolation shelter, plus 2-4 ferals that disappear into their hideouts in the outer yard. With that cold wind, they were spending as little time outside as possible!

When we have a chance, we need to open up the roof on the cat house. I think the heat bulb in there has stopped working. It could have been unplugged or something; I can’t see well enough through the windows to tell. What I can tell is that the snow on the roof above where the heat bulb is, has not been melting away. The cats take full advantage of the warm spot, but there doesn’t seem to be one right now. Not that we can open it up today. The wind would be blowing right against the inside of the roof if we open it now.

When adding straw under the shelf I added to the water bowl shelter, I took out a cardboard box the cats loved to hang out in. I’d set it on a shelf outside the bathroom window, and they quite liked going in there, but it kept getting knocked down. Today, I flattened it and put the cardboard under the big kibble tray on that side of the sun room, as insulation from the concrete floor.

Yesterday, I cleaned out the litter boxes in the sun room and today, I’m seeing they’re actually being used. At least when there’s digging involved. I’m still finding hidden messes frozen to the concrete floor in places, but they are figuring out how to use the litter. That’s a pretty big deal, with so many of the cats being more feral than not.

There’s a benefit to this!

I sent some pictures from this morning to the rescue chat group, including this one.

I soon got a response asking if the fluffy orange one – Colby – is friendly, because he would be easy to place. I explained their status as ones we’ve been able to sneak pet at times, but no. Not socialized. We have, however, made more progress with them than three years of trying with their mother!

They’d previously mentioned that long haired calicos like Kohl are quick to place, so I mentioned that she is very friendly – and that she needs someone who can take care of that glorious coat! I can feel the matts forming when I pet her. If they felt she could place her, we could grab her any time.

In the end, it was worked out that as soon as she (the same person who took other cats from us already) has her isolation room freed up after an upcoming spay, she can take Kohl, some time before Christmas. Kohl is already spayed, so that makes things easier, too.

It’s taken me quite a long time, with many interruptions, writing this post. It’s now almost 1pm. We’re up to -10F/14F right now, with a wind chill of -26F/-15F. It’s supposed to keep snowing for most of the day, too. A light snow, but we should have a few centimeters accumulated before it stops.

One of the books I ordered on cyber Monday has reached our post office. The “40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead” one.

I’m not going anywhere today. Tomorrow is supposed to be a more pleasant day to head out.

I’m going to have to remember to untuck the block heater plug and start plugging the truck in!

For now, I’m going to hibernate as much as I can, and work on some crafty projects. I have my Christmas decorations to work on but with the state of my hands right now, I’ve started to make a hat on a circular knitting loom, instead. It’s been a long time since I’ve done loom knitting, so it’s going to be a practice hat. 😁

I’m getting too old for the cold.

The Re-Farmer

What a drop! Here’s some Christmas cheer

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Good grief!

Yesterday, we had a high of -9C/16F. I am so glad I got my mother’s grocery shopping done then, because, wow, did temperatures drop!

This is what it was like before I headed out to give the outside cats food and warm water.

As I write this, it’s just turned 9:30, so it’s been 2 hours. We’re at -20C/-4F, and the wind chill is now at -36C/-33F, so it actually feels colder now than it did earlier! Our expected high is supposed to reach -17C/1F, then we’re supposed to get warmer over the next couple of days.

Today is a good day to stay home.

And for the yard cats to stay in the shelters!

Kohl’s long fur may be getting matted, but it sure it good insulation. In the next couple of pictures, you can see the cats and kittens congregating around the heat lamps. The wall thermometer in the sun room was reading about -10C/14F, which would be a bit colder than the ambient temperature, due to where it’s located. The cats have their warm spots to hang out. In the last picture, you can see the isolation shelter crowd. The thermometer in there was covered, though, so I couldn’t see what it was reading.

With all the stuff going on, I completely forgot to do my usual posts for the start of Advent. We haven’t even dug out any Christmas decorations yet. I started crocheting this year’s hand made decorations but I might have to start doing that in the living room. The cats have stolen some of the pieces. I found one, this morning, but there’s another that’s still missing.

So, to try and get into the Christmas spirit, here’s a bluesy version of We Three Kings for you to enjoy!

The Re-Farmer

Yard cats and how much does that cost???

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Today was my day to go to my mother’s to do her grocery shopping, but first, I headed out for my morning rounds and yard cat feeding.

I counted 26 or 27 this morning. In this picture, a well fed group is under the higher wattage heat bulb. When I did the evening feeding, I noticed none where hanging out under the lower wattage heat bulb, which is closer to the floor. I checked it and there was no heat coming off of it. It was plugged in, the switch was on but, nothing.

No. It wasn’t burned out.

Somehow, it was unscrewed, just enough to cut power to the bulb! The heat cover was also loose from its threads. I’m not sure how the cats manage to do this!

I headed to my mother’s earlier than usual, as I wanted to get her grocery shopping done before the home care aid arrived for her lunch assist. When I got there, she had actually started some vegetables cooking on her own. She does things in stages, so she can sit down frequently.

After double checking and modifying her list that we put together when I was there on Saturday, I headed out. There wasn’t much on it, so I was done quickly. Fast enough that I took the time to stop at a little department store along the way. I know my mother won’t be able to do a Christmas tree, and very little decorating, if any, so I wanted to get her something festive. I ended up finding a little tree set, complete with a string of lights, small enough to sit on her dining table. Then, spur of the moment, I got her a Hickory Farms set with a sausage, crackers, cheese and mustard.

When I got them out and showed them to her, making sure she knew that these were gifts from me, not something I got with her grocery money (because that would have been her first thought), she got all angry with me for getting her gifts. Especially the Hickory Farms pack. With that one, I opened the box and showed her what was in it, and saying it was something to go with her tea, if she wants, or to bring out if she has company. She was still angry with me.

Which is what I expected, really. My mother has never known how to accept gifts graciously, that I can remember. I know that she will eventually enjoy them, but will likely never admit it. At least not to me!

As I was putting her groceries away, the home care lunch assist worker arrived. Since I was there anyhow, she didn’t stay and I took care of making my mother’s lunch for her, and finishing off what she had started cooking, doing all her dishes, etc. At one point, she asked me to look for something in her cupboards (we never found it), but she has a bunch of stuff that she would like to take. These are things she brought from here at the farm – glasses, bowls, etc. – but had never used. They are, however, vintage things that we would actually keep and use. Especially my younger daughter, who really appreciates such things. They are fragile and just out of my reach, though, and we decided today was not a day to drag out the stool and start taking them down. Mostly, she’s just happy to know that they are claimed and won’t end up disposed of in some way.

I wasn’t in any hurry to leave today, as my husband messaged me to let me know there was a parcel to pick up. The post office was almost closed for 2 1/2 hours over the lunch period. Which meant I had time to do all my mother’s dishes, make room in her fridge, and prep containers of food to cool down before they would go into the fridge.

I did remember to go through my mother’s lock box. I knew there would be one bubble pack with her Sunday bedtime meds still in it. Those turned out to be the only ones in the pack. Another pack had only a Monday morning bubble with meds in it. I took both out and set them into a pill organizer she has, so the packs could be thrown away, and left a note in the lock box for the next med assist person. My mother will be getting her refills soon (which the pharmacy will no longer deliver to her, at my request; I will pick them up), so the lock box was going to need the space.

For some reason, the home care aids keep locking more and more of my mother’s pens into the lock box. They have a form to fill out, with each med assist. There should be one pen with their folder. Instead, it seems they use a pen from her table, then lock it up into the box. I’m guessing the pens fall to the bottom while the next care aid moves it to unlock it, so they don’t see it and grab another one… which gets locked into the lock box. There was one time I wanted to make my mother’s shopping list, but couldn’t find any of my mother’s pens in the container she has for them on her table. On a hunch, I went into the lock box. I found six pens in there!

While doing my mother’s shopping, I noticed some very good sales at the grocery store, so after I was finished at my mother’s, I went back to do a bit of shopping of my own. I actually bought beef today! They had a sale on tri tip that was at $6.99 a pound. That’s lower than ground beef is right now. I got a few other things, as well.

I did NOT get chocolate chips, though.

*gasp*

Good grief!!!

I was at Costco, yesterday, and their Kirkland brand chocolate chips were over $30 for a 2kg/4.4lbs bag. What gets me is not only how much more expensive the Kirkland branch chocolate chips are here, but that they are more expensive than the name brand chocolate chips – both are semi-sweet – in a 2.4kg/5.3lb bag.

I recall, two or three years ago, that there were predictions of the price of chocolate going up, due to things like weather damage, pests and disease. Add in everything else involved in production and processing going up and adding to the price, it’s really gotten insane. It takes a few years for the increase in prices of cocoa beans (they tripled) to affect retail prices, but now I’m seeing that there is a recovery and supply is increasing. Prices might start to ease a few months from now, though probably not by much. The beans may not be as expensive, but all the other costs are still going up.

That done, I still had time before the post office reopened, even with how long the drive it, so I ended up going to the local Chinese restaurant for a late lunch.

The store the post office is in is an old style general store that includes a liquor section, right next to the post office window. As I was waiting for my parcel, I started looking at the nearest display and spotted a new wine, with the label stating it was from our province. The postal clerk saw me looking and told me that the wine is actually produced locally. As in, just off the highway that runs through our little hamlet! There was a semi-sweet and a ginger and lemon, both sparkling white wines.

I ended up getting a bottle of ginger and lemon. It only cost $20. Technically, my mother bought it, since she gave me $20 in cash for gas. 😂😂 (It costs almost $30 a trip to go to her place, with the current local prices.)

I’m now debating: do we taste test it now, or save it for Christmas? 😁

With the extra stuff, I sent a message home and my younger daughter was sweet enough to come out and open the gate for me, then help bring the bags to the house. It was a bit early but, once everything was in and I still had my boots on, I took care of feeding and watering the outside cats, and doing my evening rounds, while my daughter put stuff away.

Then, opened up our parcel and go it set up, but I will write a review on that in my next post!

See you there…

The Re-Farmer

New Costco shop: this is what $563 looks like

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Today, my daughter and I made it into the city for our Costco shop, where we checked out a new location.

First bonus about this location is that we don’t need to drive through the city to get to it. It’s actually outside the bypass highway around the city. No city traffic, no frequent stops at lights, etc.

First down side: it’s near some pretty major event infrastructure, as well as some new apartments that weren’t there the last time we drove by here, years ago, so it shares entry lanes. Which includes two roundabouts.

I really dislike roundabouts. Yes, I understand efficiency of the design. I just have no faith at all in other drivers. The city we lived in before moving here had several roundabouts we had to go through regularly, much larger than the ones we had to use today, and they sucked when traffic was high.

Thankfully, traffic was not high.

When we first drove in, the parking lot looked really full. Our first stop was the gas station, which had more pumps than the other locations we’ve gone to. That went really fast.

Also, gas there was $1.139/L, instead of the $1.299 everywhere else. It cost me “only” $46.47 to fill my tank from a little over half.

As for the crowded parking lot, that turned out to be just the area closest to the entry. Once we got past a certain point and could see the rest, we found there was plenty of space to park.

The location is somewhat bigger than the others we’ve been to and, while they matched the layout of other locations pretty well, a few things were changed up. One of them was where the cat supplies were set up! We finally found it, pretty much opposite of where they are typically kept.

The shop itself was… well… okay, I have to admit. I hate shopping and I hate crowds, not that it was particularly crowded today.

I really hate it when people with half empty carts expect me, with my flat cart, to stop on a time to avoid hitting them as they wander and weave, not paying any attention to what’s around them.

Having said that, I was ready to abandon my flat cart only twice this trip.

My daughter is a sanity saver.

One of the things they have that’s different is their sushi bar, which was added on to where they have their in store made heat and eats, like Shepard’s Pie and chicken pie. I wasn’t able to check it out too thoroughly, though, because there was a lot of cart traffic and looky-loos. When pushing a flat cart, I’m just not flexible enough to get around everyone, though I still couldn’t see much even when I left the cart with my daughter and tried looking again.

Their food court menu was also different. They had sushi on the menu, but they also had their Montreal Smokes Meat sandwiches, too. The other locations dropped those from their menu, years ago. I was really looking forward to doing lunch after we finished our shopping.

It didn’t happen.

This is what $563.72 looks like.

That really isn’t much on there at all.

So, this is what we got today, starting with the non-food (at least, not for humans) items. There’s two 9kg bags of kibble – we have a good supply, but this should ensure we don’t run short at the end of the month – one case of wet cat food, a case of puppy pads, toilet paper and a dish detergent refill jug.

For drinks, there’s a case of Monster – yay! Finally in stock again! – a case of Coke Zero and a 3 pack of Oat Milk.

For meats, I got two rotisserie chickens, because it was cheaper than buying any of the uncooked chicken options. The fresh made sausage section was bigger and had new varieties, so we picked up a pack of Greek sausage, and one of Gouda and Cranberry. I also got two panini packs for sandwiches. That was it for meat. Beef prices were heart stopping. I should know better than to even look!

For dairy, we got a 4 pack of cream cheese, sour cream, 5 pounds of butter and a 2 pack of goat cheese. My daughter also grabbed some grated Parmesan, which I’ll be paid back for. We normally get blocks of cooking cheeses, but we still have plenty. I was sorely tempted to try new cheeses, though, as their cheese selection in much larger and more varied! Not in today’s budget.

In the frozen stuff, we got a box of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.

In breads, we got two 2 packs of rye bread and two 2 packs of tortilla wraps.

In the odds and sots, we got two large containers of mayo, a box of mixed instant oatmeal, a double flat of eggs (60 eggs) and a sushi platter to be supper for the girls. I meant to get something for my husband and I as a quick, heat and eat supper but I couldn’t find anything that both my husband and I can eat. More and more foods make him feel sick after eating, as if he were having a lactose intolerance reaction, even if there’s no dairy in the food. So I ended up not getting anything. It’s getting much harder to get food for him.

I was still thinking of going to the food court but by the time we were heading for the check out line, not only did I not want to have refrigerator/freezer items sitting out so long while we ate, I had basically lost all patience with being around people. In fact, we didn’t even finish going through all the food aisles. Aside from the usual cart traffic issues, I kept getting stuck behind one older couple that kept weaving back and forth in the middle of the aisles, stop suddenly, or split up and be doing the same thing in two aisles at the same time. We even ended up blocked by them again, while trying to get the the checkouts. At least I was able to get past them, though someone else was blocking the aisle from the other direction that I had to get around. We weren’t any any hurry, but I get really tired of trying so hard to not be in the way with my big flat cart, only to have to deal with people who are oblivious about being in the way. Even as lightly loaded as ours was today, flat carts are not easy to maneuver!

So… yeah. That’s all we got today. A whole 35 items.

Once we were loaded up and heading out, things went smoothly. The only down side was my not eating yet. On the way out, we’d stopped to pick up some energy drinks and I got a bag of beef jerky. That was all I’d eaten all day, and it was about 1pm as we were leaving the city. On the way home, my daughter insisted we stop for food. I was thinking a quick stop at the gas station in my mother’s town that we had to pass through; the one that has the best fried chicken, but she was thinking an actual sit down restaurant. There’s a restaurant right on the highway that is under new ownership and completely redone that she hasn’t been to yet, so we ended up stopping there and she treated me to breakfa… lunc… an early supper?

By the time we were done, it was late enough for the post office to have reopened for the afternoon, so we made a quick stop there (my expected items have not arrived, including something that got mailed more than a month ago. Thanks, striking Canada Post.) before finally getting home. Just in time to feed the outside cats after unloading the truck!

No more softening the kibble. It’s just too cold. Some of the trays still had frozen kibble from yesterday stuck to them!

Today, we reached a high of -12C/10F. Which isn’t too bad, except even the slightest breeze made it feel much colder. Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly warmer, which is good, because I’m going to my mother’s do to her grocery shopping. Overnight lows over the next while are expected to drop below -20C/-4F Looking at the long range forecast for December is just an exercise in crazy. This morning, I was seeing some pretty nasty drops in temperature over the next couple of weeks – but then seeing expected highs of up to 5C/41F before Christmas! Looking at it again now, those days are now forecast as being below freezing, but warmer than -10C/14F Around and just after Christmas, they’re now saying we’re suppose to reach highs of -1C/30F

I highly doubt that will happen.

Anyhow. That is our Costco stock up shop for today!

Now it’s time to go through and look at what got missed, because we never finished going through the store, and what we’ll need to get locally.

For now, though, I just want to stay home and not be around people.

I’m people’d out.

The Re-Farmer

I get to stay home

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night’s trip to my mother’s for her bed time med and personal assist went well. I got there earlier, which she was happy with. She also was less tired looking and less confused than the night before, which was a relief. While getting various things done, I noted that she was almost out of milk, so we started a shopping list for her. I won’t be able to do her shopping until Tuesday, though, so the plan was for me to pick up some milk for her on the way over tonight. It was the only thing she was completely running out of.

The girls, sweethearts that they are, took over the outside routine this morning, so that I could sleep in.

Well.

Try to sleep in.

Once activity starts, even if it’s just going to the bathroom at 2 a.m. or whatever, the cats decide it’s time to go nuts, so I didn’t actually get much sleep at all. *sigh*

I did do the evening routine, as usual, though, which is when I found myself being observed from on high.

Kohl is such a beauty! Someone needs to adopt that cat! Someone who can take care of that glorious fur. She’s starting to get matted again, and we can’t do anything about it until things warm up in the spring, and we can shave them off.

As for tonight, it looks like I’m getting a break. I got a call from my mother, before her supper assist arrived, telling me I didn’t need to come out. She had a “spare” set of her bed time pills in one of her old pill organizers. I’d put them there myself, some time ago. One of her night visits got missed, so they ended up the only bubble left in a week’s bubble pack. These lone bubbles drive my mother bonkers, because she thinks the home care workers should just use them, when they are not allowed to touch anything outside the days marked. What ends up happening is that there’s an extra bubble pack floating around in the lock box that no one seems to get around to finishing off when the correct day comes along. Setting these aside calmed my mother down and cleared space in the lock box. I have a little notebook I keep in the lock box where I leave notes for the home care workers, and I made sure to mention that I was the one who took them out.

When my mother suggested I not come out tonight, I brought up the other things I was going to be doing, like bringing her some milk, helping with her personal care, and basically anything else she needed that home care might not be able to do. My mother insisted she would be fine. She sounded so happy to be able to tell me I didn’t need to drive out at night again, too.

So… I get to stay home tonight! I might even be able to go to bed early and get actual sleep, too.

Tomorrow is our Costco shop. I’m planning to check out a newly opened location. It’s been open for a few weeks now, so that initial rush should be done. In confirming the location, I found an article that talked about how, on opening day, there were people who had lined up all night to get in first. Which I just don’t understand. It’s not like they had any different sales or prices.

Still, it should be interesting. It’s been a long time since we’ve been to that end of the city. Now that I think about it, I don’t think we’ve gone through that area since my older daughter and I drove through it during our move, 8 years ago!

The Re-Farmer