potting up

Our 2026 Garden: Yellow Celery – I hope this works!

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Well, it was time.

The yellow celery (Golden Boy celery) had outgrown their tray. They needed potting up.

The question was, how to do that without damaging their roots?

That’s the down side of scatter sowing such tiny seeds. Especially when the germination rate was so high!

I decided the best way to do it was to set them into a seed snail roll.

As with the onions, I wanted to use potting soil rather than a soilless seed starting mix. That meant, more sifting. Which had its own challenge. Wearing a dust mask again was out of the question. I just can’t wear a mask anymore, and trying to last time was really awful. Yet not having some sort of protection was also out of the question because of how much dust sifting the dry potting soil would raise up.

My solution turned out to be pretty simple. The clear plastic garbage bag I use to protect my work surface is large enough to cover the entire bucket, and have enough slack that I could grip the handles of the colander I am using as a sifter and shake it. Yes, small amounts of dust did come out from below, but this was at floor level and it wasn’t an issue.

Before I started, I emptied the old, cracked tray I was using to collect the big pieces. This is what I got.

The depth of the soil barely reached my second knuckles. Meanwhile, just look at all those pieces that got sifted out! Totally insane. This bag was purchased last year, and I’ve heard that a lot of people were having the same issue. A few sticks is pretty normal, but nothing to this extent. It wasn’t even just one brand, either. Hopefully, the companies have gotten better at making sure their raw material is properly composted before bagging it up and sending it out!

That done, it was time to prepare the seedlings.

The first picture is the “before” shot. You can see how dense they are. The tray is bottom watered, and roots are showing out the opening. Roots that would be quite entangled. How to get the seedlings out and apart, then transplanted, gently?

In the second picture, you can see what I decided to do. I had a tray (a thoroughly cleaned and repurposed meat tray that we’ve had for a few years now) that was wider and flat. I carefully moved the whole clump over into the tray, then very gently started to loosen the seed starting mix to untangle and free up the roots a bit.

Then I got some hot water and thoroughly moistened the sifted soil. The seed starting mix the seedlings was in was really quite cold. Not good! I wanted to transplant them into soil that was at least a bit on the warm side.

I had prepared a strip of packing material – this time, using a clear repair tape I happen to have, instead of painters tape, to join three sections to make one long strip. I started out by laying a thin layer of soil over about 3/4 of the strip, as I wasn’t sure just how much of it I would need to use. Then it was time to VERY carefully and gently pull apart and set out the seedlings.

I was able to get all of them in, and did add more soil to the roll to fit them all.

The remaining seed starting mix got added to the bucket of sifted soil. I added more hot water and mixed it all up before adding another layer of soil to the roll; just enough to cover the roots.

Before rolling it, I added strips of masking tape to the end, so it just needed to be lifted into place, with the tape already handy to close up the roll.

With the two layers of soil in there, the result was a pretty thick roll. I could use the plastic underneath to hold the soil in at the bottom, but there wasn’t much that could be done at the top, and soil was falling out. Once it was taped closed and the roll set upright, I found a few seedlings had fallen out with the soil. I found some gaps and carefully set them back in. I then used some of the soil that fell out to fill in the top of the roll and support some of the seedlings that seemed to need it more.

Now, it’s back in the tray under the shop light. Both trays were empty of water, so I added warm water to the trays to maintain bottom watering.

While I was doing all this, I had the heater going. It’s aimed under the shelf I have the trays on. The thermometer is kept at the far end, and the temperature was only about 13C/55F. Holding my hand under the shelf, though, I could feel it was a lot warmer just under the trays. So I set up the thermometer next to the tray with the snail roll, which is at the far end from where the heater is.

The first picture shows the “potted up” celery back in their tray. After setting up and leaving the thermometer for a while, I got a reading, which you can see in the next photo above.

It’s just barely touching 25C/77F! This is great, as cold is the big issue here. The ambient temperature really should be about 20-24C/68-75F

Since the heat is under the trays, that will warm up any water that is in them which, in turn, will warm up the soil and seed starter mixes. Not by a lot, but enough to hopefully keep the chill off the roots. Plus, it will be better for the fresh pepper and eggplant seeds I sowed to hopefully replace the ones eaten by a mouse or whatever it was.

The hygrometer reading is low, though. Ideally, it should be between 50% and 60% – even 70% for some plants. Hopefully, the bottom watering and occasional misting helps counter the ambient humidity at least a bit.

The celery seedlings now have a nice deep roll to spread their roots into, so they should be good in there for a while.

Hopefully, they will survive this! I seem to remember that I used the entire packet of seeds for this, so there’s no trying again if they don’t make it.

Well, we shall see, soon enough, I guess!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: “potting up” the onions, and setting things up

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Okay, I got some good progress today!

My first goal was to “pot up” the onions in their seed snails. For this, I wanted to use potting soil, rather than more seed starting mix. I have a bag of potting soil from last year with plenty still left in it, but I knew it was really full of sticks. Which meant I needed to sift it, first, because there was no way it could be used in the snail rolls as it was.

I got out a bucket and a colander that I use for harvesting in the summer, and started sifting in batches. The potting soil was bone dry which made it easier to sift, but also meant there was a LOT of dust. Even misting with water didn’t really help much. I did try to use a dust mask, which is difficult all on its own, since I can’t wear masks anymore. It was either breathing dirt without it, or struggling to breathe with it. Definitely a no-win situation. It didn’t actually help much, to be honest, but it was better than nothing.

I was blown away by just how many sticks I sifted out.

That pile on the side? That’s what I sifted out of what you see in the bucket. I poked my finger in to measure, and it was up to my second joint, so about 2 inches deep. Good grief! It was almost more sticks than soil!

The next step was to moisten the sifted potting soil. I used hot water for that, so it wouldn’t be a shock to the plant roots. It took a remarkable amount of water to moisten it, and I was just aiming to get it wet enough to be able to stick to itself.

Then it was time to get the onions ready.

This is how they looked to start with. These rolls all fit into one bin, and the seedlings are looking pretty good.

The length of them did make unrolling the snail a bit of a challenge! They were tangled together, and wanted to twist around each other as I unrolled the snail.

In the first photo above, I unrolled the first seed snail. These were bottom watered, and you can see that the soil is moist all the way through, and the roots are all the way to the bottom. Some of them seemed a bit crowded, so I did adjust a few of them to space them out a bit. In the second picture, you can see where I’ve added the potting soil on top. From there, it got rolled up and taped closed again.

It was a lot bigger, of course. Only two could fit in the bin I was using, but I did have a second, slightly smaller one, available.

Here are the “potted up” onions. In the second picture, you can see that one of the snails is a lot smaller. That’s the bunching onions. It’s a good thing those didn’t need as much soil, because I was scraping the bucket to get every last bit out for that roll. I really didn’t want to have to sift more!

These are now back in the living room. They are the only things I have space for there, this year.

In order to do this, I had to completely clear my work table. That meant taking away the trays, lights, heat mats, and everything under and around them.

With the onions done, I could then arrange the work space to be ready for the next batch of seed starts. I have the top shelf from a plastic shelf that was too tall to fit in the old basement, and it was used last year to hold trays higher up. That’s what I am using it for again now.

My poor little peppers and eggplant.

Hopefully, the new seeds I sowed yesterday will germinate – and won’t get eaten! I had some concerns about not having heat mats under them anymore, but before I set up the shelf, I made sure to create a wall of cardboard around the back and at one end, then moved the heater so that it was blowing under the shelf. That made a big difference, and the warmth is kept under the shelf enough to warm the trays from below. Not that the heater is on all the time, but even when the furnace is on, now that the opening between the basements is uncovered again, there is heat blowing in and the cardboard, etc. holds it around the plants surprisingly well.

Which you can see better in this next picture.

The insulation leaning at one end it just there until it’s needed later; the cardboard forms a “wall” behind it, out of frame. I’ve got the flaps of the cardboard box under the back legs, so I had to put something under the front legs to level the shelf. Then I set up the insulation pieces, which protect the cutting mat from warping, and the heat mats, ready and waiting. With the seedlings so close to the shop light, the plant lights aren’t needed for now, so they’re just clamped to the table in the front. There is no place to clamp the lights to use them on top of the shelf, anyhow. Everything gets plugged into a power bar with USB ports that I have set up above my work table.

As for our next seed starts, I don’t think I’ll be using the seed trays again. They are all smaller seeds, and for the space, I think I will do more seed snails. I wouldn’t me making them as deep was what I used for the onions, though. More like a third of that height. I have lots of that packing foam available.

I need to remember, though: do not use painters tape to attach them together to make a longer strip. One of the onion rolls started to split at the tape while I was rolling it back up again. It doesn’t like moisture. I’ll have to see what alternatives we have.

That won’t be needed for another week or so.

For now, I’m just glad I don’t need to sift more of that potting soil for a while!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: eggplant and peppers

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A couple of days ago, on checking the seeds I’ve set to pre-germinate, it looked like some were just starting to show radicals. Nothing ready, but it seemed they soon would be.

So I grabbed one of my deep celled trays and prepared it in advance. These trays have 21 cells, and I’m looking to have 1 row of each of the seeds I have pre-germinating right now. The seed starting mix in the cells are all pre-moistened, ready and waiting.

When I tried pre-germinating seeds last year, I let them sit for probably too long. Their roots started to go into the damp paper towels and had to be very carefully pulled free. From what I’ve been seeing online, they really should be potted as soon as the radicals appear.

So that’s what I’ve already done with the luffa.

Yesterday, that first seed I saw that looked like it was starting to show its radical – a Caspar Eggplant – had started to germinate. Just the one. So I planted it into a prepared cell, then topped it with vermiculite, partly so I could easily tell which cell has a seed planted in it.

Today, I found another eggplant, plus some Sweet Chocolate peppers.

I would prefer to have these on another heat mat, but I only have one. The light fixture above them, however, does put off some heat. With smaller seeds closer to the surface like these, it will actually be enough to affect them.

I did have to raise the light fixture another inch to fit the large celled tray under it, but that should be okay. I’ll keep transferring seeds over as they germinate. With these larger cells, I should be able to avoid potting them up for some time, if at all.

As long as the pre-germinated seeds survive the transfer, I should have 7 plants each by using this tray. If I’d been using the Red Solo cups, I can fit 9 cups in each of the bins I have to hold them, so that’s what I would have been shooting for as a total. Seven should be enough, and I am not expecting 100% germination rates, nor 100% transfer survival rates.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: first luffa!

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Before all the running around, getting my mother’s apartment empty before the end of the day, I made sure to turn on the lights and check on the pre-germinating seeds. It hasn’t been very long, so I really wasn’t expecting anything. So I was very surprised to see my first radicals! On luffa seeds, no less!

Two of the four seeds have germinated! This is really amazing. Last year, seeds from this same packet took forever to pre-germinate. They were the last things to do so. This time, they are the first!

So I potted them into a couple of Red Solo cups. I made sure to thoroughly pre-moisten the seed starting mix in the cups, first, but forgot to use hot water for it. The damp soil was pretty chilly, so I set them on the heat mat, with the heater running next to them for a while. I didn’t want to shock the little radicals with water while planting them!

Hopefully, they will survive!

The Re-Farmer

Potting up and look what I found!

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This morning, my daughter helped me get all our plants out of the cat free zone (aka the living room) to the table I set up for them outside. The living room doesn’t have very good light unless things are right in front of the window, and there just isn’t space for the large pots that we have. Plus, the living room has become an oubliette, and what goes in there tends to get forgotten about! It’s a good thing we’ve got mostly succulents, and they can handle getting dried out rather often!

Getting the plants out is not an easy task. I can carry the pots well enough, but we’ve got the makeshift door to the living room that my daughter would open and close for me, making sure no cats dash into their forbidden zone. Then I had to make my way to the front door. The cats, of course, were very curious about what was going on, so we were wading through cats to get to the entry. Then there are two steps I need to go down. Normally, I need to use the arm bar for any steps in the house. No such option with a plant pot in my arms! Thankfully, the washing machine is right there, so I could put the heavier pots on it. Then my daughter could squeeze past and open the door to outside for me, where we had to run interference on a Sir Robin. The little bugger is fast! He almost got into the house!

After many trips, we got all the pots out and I could start repotting, as well as giving things a thorough soaking.

It didn’t take me long to realize I didn’t have enough potting soil, nor enough pots. At least not prettier pots. I’ve got lots of greenhouse and nursery pots, suitable for the garden or food forest, but not really for house plants.

I got our smaller succulents repotted – one of them was in a pot that was so old, the plastic was starting to crumble and crack, every time I moved it! We also have the coffee tree that I got for the girls a while back. It was a sort of cluster of trees when I got it, but they all started dying off. We were down to two, when I brought them out today, and one was dead. The other, however, had burst into new life, with bunches of new leaves! It didn’t need a new pot, but it did need an immersion soak for a while.

When I did as much as I could, I decided I needed enough stuff to make it worth a shopping trip. The garbage dump is also open today, so I did our dump run first. I really hate doing dump runs now. The area in front of the pit is worse, every time I got, and it’s getting to the point that there’s hardly room for vehicles to get in and turn to back up to the pit. Normally, they use a front end loader to push the stuff along the edge further into the pit, but it’s just not getting done.

Bah.

Anyhow.

I ended up finding what I was after, in three places. My first stop was Canadian Tire. I thought I might find the potting soil there, but what they had was not the right kind, and they were sold out of quite a bit. I did find some other things that we needed, though, plus I got a couple of extra bags of stove pellets. One for the litters, one for the garden, as mulch.

From there, I went to the Dollarama, and that’s where I found the pots I was looking for, and much more reasonable prices. The challenge, though, is finding pots stable enough to hold large, heavy jade plants. Most are really narrow at the bottom, and get quite tippy, but I found some square ones that were only slightly narrower on the bottom.

Then it was off to the Walmart. They had a large display of bags for the garden outside, and I found large bags of the potting soil I was after. I was very tempted to pick up some peat and more manure as well, but not today.

I grabbed two of the biggest bags of potting soil

Then it was inside to pick up a few more things, including more canned cat food for the outside kitten soup, and kibble for the inside cats.

By the time I was done and home, it was getting close to feeding time for the outside cats. Since I needed to get them away from the truck that was pulled up to the house, I went ahead and did that early.

After I parked the truck, I spotted someone!

The toritie… calico… tortico is back!

It has discovered the joys of kitten soup, too.

I did eventually catch glimpsed of the fluffy orange kitten, with the white and grey, that always seem to stick together. Those two have become fairly regular visitors to the food bowl, but I haven’t seen this … toritico, since we first spotted the kittens, not long ago. I think there is still one more out there, possibly a calico, but I’m not sure.

Then it was back to potting up the plants.

Which took way longer than expected.

I probably could have used more pots.

Ah, well.

Here are the before and after pictures.

There was one large jade plant in a very tiny pot. That one was pretty easy, as it just got transferred to a bigger pot. The other two big pots where something else, entirely! For starters, there are a lot of individual plants in those pots, largely due to broken branches regrowing. They were also a lot floppier, as neither of them could get the full sunlight they needed.

There are now ten jade plants, plus two tiny pots of little jade plant babies. Nine of those came out of the two big pots. I could actually have gotten more, but I chose to pot some smaller trunks together.

With some of the pots, you can see black “pipes”. There were four of them in one of the big pots. Those are spare parts from plastic shelves that I set up in the old basement. The ceiling is too low for the full height of the shelves, and the unused vertical pieces came in very handy to add support the jade plant when it started falling over under its own weight. Then I discovered that they worked really well to water from below. So now, I’ve split up the pipes between four pots.

You can see three pots with orange paracord in them. That’s what I used to tie some of the more bendy, floppy stems to vertical supports. Once they have had lots of sunlight for long hours, the should get strong enough to support their own weight. There’s one pot that could have used some supports, too, but I ran out of anything of suitable size.

The biggest, square pot didn’t get fully repotted. I took out the smaller side stems, but left the biggest ones, and just worked in fresh potting soil at the top.

Two of the aloe vera just needed to have their soil refreshed and topped up. One pot, however, had two plants in it – plus three babies! So now there are four large pots and three tiny pots.

The big, purplish succulent in the rectangular pot was bigger than I thought. It really could have used a longer pot! This plant lays down on the ground and sends new roots out, all along the stem. It also propagates very easily, so there are a couple more in another pot, along with the tiny survivors of another fuzzy leaved succulent.

With so many pots now, there’s no way we have enough room for them all. I’ve started offering them out and, so far, have one taker. Hopefully, they will take several pots! If we got the jade plants and aloe down to just one pot of each, that would be great!

They’ll be staying outside for the rest of the summer, so hopefully, we’ll find new homes for them before they have to come back inside.

When this was finally done, it was starting to get pretty late. I did the evening watering, including the new food forest additions. It was getting pretty dark by the time I was done!

It’s now coming up on midnight, and I haven’t even eaten supper yet!

I am so ready for bed.

Food first!

😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: potting up, and protective covering

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Okay, we got some useful garden things done!

First up, the transplants.

In the first image, you can see the seedlings that need potting up. They all should be much bigger than this, but it’s just not warm enough, even with using the heater and the heating pad, in the basement.

With concerns about the outside cats potentially knocking the transplants over when we moved them out, I decided to use some storage bins to hold the Red Solo cups I was going to re-use to pot up into. They’ve been stored in the sun room all winter, so they had to get a cleaning of cob webs and whatever other debris managed to get on them. Thankfully, the old basement is where the laundry used to be, so we still have the old laundry sink that I could soak them all in, then scrub the ones with drainage holes in the bottom to transplant into. I also pre-soaked the seed starting mix with hot water, so it still be at least not cold, by the time the cups were filled and the seedlings transplanted.

These bins hold only 9 cups in them, so that basically became my default for the maximum number of transplants to pot up into. Which worked out really well. With the Black Beauty tomatoes, there were only 4 large and strong enough to pot up. With the Chocolate Cherry, there was only 5 to pot up, so they got to share a bin. The Spoon tomatoes and the Sub Arctic Plenty both filled one bin each. The Sweetie Snack Mix peppers and the Turkish Orange eggplant both got one bin each, too, with almost zero “extras” that didn’t get transplanted.

In the second photo, you can see them after they were all potted up, before I topped them with vermiculite. The potted up seedlings are small enough that I could use the lids on the bins, but I had only 2 of them handy at the time. The next photo is after the vermiculite was added. Then I got more lids for the bins from the sun room and my daughter helped me get them out of the basement. Which was actually quite dangerous. We started with me taking them through the old basement and up the stairs to where my daughter was waiting at the door, one bin at a time. She would grab the bin at the door (keeping the cats from dashing downstairs) and take it to the old kitchen, while I went to get the next bin.

The old basement stairs are narrow; each step is about half the width of a typical step. It is also steep than most stairs are, and there is very little space at the door. Which means I could only go to the third step from the top before I ran out of space. Even going sideways and carrying the bin on one arm, I couldn’t reach the door knob, so having my daughter open the door was an essential. Once she had the bin, I could go higher and close the door, but just going up and down these stairs is simply not good. I go down them backwards, like on board ship or using a ladder.

After a few bins, my daughter kicked me out of the basement and we traded places. Apparently, I sounded like I was in a lot of pain. Which I was, but I wasn’t going to say anything, since I know it’s not any better for her!

In the last picture, you can see all the bins and trays now set up on the freezer in the old kitchen. I was so tempted to put them into the portable greenhouse. The thermostat in there was reading more than 40C/104F! Pretty impressive, considering we never got above 4 or 5C today (39 or 41F). And that wind!! Yikes! The problem is that we’d just have to take them back inside after a couple of hours, and I didn’t want to do that today. We’re still forecast to have -6C/21F tonight, though we’re not expected to reach those temperatures until 6am tomorrow, and I know it will drop below freezing inside the greenhouse, even with the heat sink. They will go into the greenhouse tomorrow, after I get back from running around.

Once that was done, I grabbed a late lunch, then headed to the post office to pick up a parcel. On the way back, my cell phone started ringing. I don’t have hands free, so I couldn’t answer it. When I got home, I found a message from the home care coordinator asking about something strange my mother had told the morning home care aid about her puffer, and having already taken it in the hospital.

???

I called back and left a message telling her as much as I knew, then called my mother. I hadn’t gotten through to her this morning about her telephone doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, so I told her about that, first. She wasn’t impressed that it was in the morning, but it’s at about the time she gets her morning meds, so she’ll be up, anyhow – and I intend to be there, too. I then asked her about the puffer. She told me a completely different thing from what the apparently told the home care aid. She also seems confused about the type of puffer they used with her while she was in the hospital, and the original type she was using before then – which she has started using now. She had an unopened refill from before she went to the hospital, and the other type was done, so she started taking it on her own. I have no idea where she had it stashed away. Then I found out she’d already taken it three times today. I told her, she’s only supposed to take it once in the morning, then again before bed. Not several times throughout the day. Plus, we already talked to her doctor about it. This was an experiment to see if it would help with her breathing at night. It didn’t, and she turned out to be developing pulmonary edema, which she no longer has after being in the hospital for a couple of weeks.

Things were still confused, but we agreed we would talk about it when I’m there tomorrow, and she could show me what she had. I then called the home care coordinator back and got her right away. We talked for a while and confirmed my mother told different things to them than what she told me. I then found out they were giving her two puffs in the morning, but not in the evening (with the disc type of puffer, a dose is one puff, while the other puffer, a dose is two puffs, which is why the pharmacist and I decided to fill the prescription for the disc type). So there’s a mix up right there, too. Not that the puffer has been helping her in any way, but a neighbour of hers has asthma, so she decided she needed a puffer, too, and the doctor was willing to test it out with her rather than go through the years it would take to refer her to a specialist and get all the respiratory testing done.

Hopefully, we will get that straightened out tomorrow.

After I was done on the phone, it was time to get out and see what I could do to protect the winter sown raised bed.

I have a cover for the bed, but it needed some maintenance work first, so I brought it closer to the garage, where my tools where. One of the things that needed to be done was secure two sections of the mesh. The jute twine it had been tied together with before had degraded and broken apart. I’d already had to replace the twin in the other join and used paracord for that, so I did the same thing again.

The hoops supporting the mesh are sections of pipe that turned out to be rather too strong. They are held in place with strips of metal strapping, but would get pushed downwards – usually because of a cat jumping on it! So I wanted to get those nice and snug, then screw them into place.

I had helpers.

Syndol and Judgement decided the mesh was a night place to sit!

After the hoops were secured, I brought the cover over to the raised bed, but had to get a daughter to help with the rest, because of the wind. We got the cover on the bed, then opened one of the 8’x12′ plastic I’d picked up to cover it.

It was a lot thinner than I expected. Definitely not 7mm, which is what the guy looking up the information for me said it was. I suspect he didn’t quite understand what I was asking for.

Still, it will work for now.

We made sure to water the bed before putting the cover on (and I had to fix yet another hole dug into it). I noticed there are more sprouts coming up, so getting it covered to protect it from tonight’s cold will be a good thing!

After unfolding the plastic, we rolled and tucked the excess under the frame as best we could, but that wind was still threatening to blow it off. After looking around, I found a couple of sticked I’d joined with twine threaded through sections of a hula hoop to create a support for ground cherries flattened by the wind, a couple of years ago. That did well to drape across the top of the cover. We also found some lighter old boards to set on top as well; you can see the end result in the last photo above. Hopefully, it will be enough, but with how strong the winds are, I’m not entirely sure!

If it does hold out, it will protect the sprouts from tonight’s cold – and I plan to leave it on to also protect the bed from the cats! When it’s less windy, I’ll see if I can find a better way to secure the plastic, too. It’s meant to be temporary, though, so we’ll see. When the plastic is no longer needed, I have to find a way to close up the ends of the cover, so it can still be used to keep the cats out.

Since the coldest time of the night will be around the time I’ll be feeding the outside cats before heading to my mother’s, and then I’ll have to hit our own pharmacy in a different town when I’m done there, I’ll have to get my daughters to keep an eye on things and, when it starts warming up, move the transplants into the portable greenhouse. We’ll probably need to leave the door tied at least partly open so it doesn’t get too hot in there. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 9C/48F, but if it could get as hot as it did in there at our current temperatures, it’ll get even warmer tomorrow. By the weekend, we’re expected to get highs above 20C/68F. Hopefully, before then, we’ll be able to get more progress on the trellis build. We’ll also have our Costco stock up trip in a couple of days.

Things are going to be busy over the next while!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: potting up and wind damage

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Well, our plans to set netting over the beds I prepared yesterday got kiboshed. It was just too windy!

We did get some other stuff done, though.

Today, my daughter was available to help pot up some more pre-germinated seeds.

We got 4 of the 5 Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon seeds potted up, as well as a couple of Honeydew. There were still 2 Honeydew seeds, and the Kaho melon seeds, that were not germinated, so we ended up combining them into one tray. I’d gotten rid of the one Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon seed that didn’t germinate, as it seemed like it was not viable, but the remaining Honeydew seeds look like they might still germinate. I’m not sure about the Kaho seeds, though. They may simply be too old.

With the pre-germinated seeds potted up, there wasn’t room in the tray for the container with the remaining seeds, plus the container with the Zucca melon seeds, so they got stacked. The large Zucca melon seeds would need longer to germinated, but it does seem like it’s taking too long. I’m not sure we’ll get any at all this year. We shall see.

My daughter and I then went through some of my herb seeds to figure out what else we could be starting inside. In the end, I decided that I will buy transplants, instead, for the ones we want. I also seem to be missing some seed packets! I’ve no idea what happened to them.

We also talked about some of the flower seeds. I’d picked up some Baby’s Breath for my daughters, as my older daughter in particular really likes them. They looked them up and, apparently, they are considered invasive in our area. Which I find strange, since we already have some in a small flower garden where my mother had planted them, ages ago. They barely survive and are certainly not spreading! It’s part of the reason I got more seeds.

Once we were done, my daughter ended up staying in the basement for a while longer to use the exercise bike, so we could keep the heater on for longer. Later, we both headed outside to feed the cats, then go through the garden beds. I wanted to make sure she was on top of the plans I had, in case they had to take over for me for some reason.

She was very happy to see that her tulips are coming up, and we even spotted a few grape hyacinths emerging. No sign of the snow crocuses, though. We pulled back the black tarp to check out where I was thinking of planting the asparagus and strawberries, and it does look like the weeds and crab grass have been killed off well enough to use the space. The only issue will be the roots from the nearby elm trees, and I’m really hoping we can finally cut those down this year. In trying to clean the area up, I found stumps that showed others have tried to clear them away in the past, and they grew back, so I’ll have to take that into account when we finally get those taken down. It still blows me away, how much their roots have been getting into the garden beds and choking things out.

We checked on the beds that I want to cover with the netting, and had to refill more holes dug by the cats. Very frustrating, that we couldn’t cover them because of the wind.

Speaking of the wind, in the next photo of the slide show above, you can see an area in our spruce grove I was finally able to get to. I tell that we lost a few trees over the winter, and saw some that look like they came down within the past day or two. Cleaning up in there is going to be a huge job!

We checked on the netting I put over the bed at the chain link fence yesterday. Much to my surprise, one of the supports at an overlapping section had been completely pulled up and almost took a few others with it! It seems like the extra netting with the drawstring that would normally be the end of the row cover got caught somehow. Hopefully, that won’t happen again, and there was no damage.

The portable greenhouse was getting some wind damage, though.

In the last photo in the slideshow above, you can see the tear along the zipper. It has gotten bigger – big enough that cats could easily fit through, if they wanted. I’m not sure how to reattach it to the zipper. I did add some clear duct tape above the tear, in hopes it will prevent it from tearing more. We also found a tear in one corner where the tie downs are attached. The loop of fabric the cord was tied to actually tore loose from the plastic. The loop is part of a tie that is fastened to the frame itself on the inside, so it can’t go very far. The clear duct tape came in handy to cover the hole and, hopefully, prevent it from getting worse. I know the covers on these little greenhouses don’t last long, but we don’t even have any plants in it yet! High winds were why I’d hoped to set it up in a corner closer to the house, but the ground is just too uneven there.

I’ve been looking at 6mm greenhouse plastic online. What I’d really like to do is get a roll of it, but that’s well out of budget right now.

I keep looking at various notifications on my weather apps, telling me things like, light rain coming soon, or, rain will end soon. The problem is, we’ve had NO rain at all. According to the weather radar, we’ve got a system right on top of us, and we’re supposed to get rain for the next couple of hours, yet I’m not seeing a drop of rain out my window. At this rate, I’m going to have to hook up the hoses and start watering the winter sown beds! I might even have to fill the rain barrel I’ve set up with the hose, to have warmer water for the garden beds, because we sure aren’t getting any rain to fill it! Nor are we expecting any, for weeks.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a cooler day than today, though with the wind, today felt downright chilly. I’m really hoping the wind dies down, so we can get those nets set up. Given my pain levels today, it’s probably good I’ve got an enforced day of rest.

My husband, sweetheart that he is, ordered some Tai Fu lotion (not an affiliate link), that came in today. We’ve used this stuff, in balm form, in the past and it helped, but we were a lot less broken back then. I’m looking forward to trying it when I go to bed tonight. I hope it helps. Lord knows, the prescription stuff I tried a few years ago didn’t do much, and I’m hurting a lot more these days, then at that time. Between the lotion, and today’s enforced rest, I’m hoping to be able to get some work done tomorrow!

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: new acquisitions, potting up and protecting the garden beds

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While I was waiting for the clinic to call about the cats, I was able to find a bunch of things for the garden.

While at the Canadian Tire, I just couldn’t resist.

I picked up some bare root strawberries, and asparagus crowns.

The asparagus that was have now, which has been drowned out for the past couple of years, is a purple variety, so I grabbed a package of Purple Passion to basically replace them. They had a couple of varieties of green asparagus, and I chose Jersey Giant. Each package has 5 crowns in it.

We already have the Albion Everbearing strawberries that did so well last year, except for when the deer kept eating the greens. I got another everbearing variety – Ozark Beauty. I also want to try the White Carolina strawberries again. We tried them a few years ago, but not one of them survived.

I am thinking of planting these in a section of the main garden area that has been covered with a black tarp for a couple of years, now. We had grown squash and pumpkins in there, previously. I want to move the tarp to cover the rest of what used to be the squash patch. Hopefully, the asparagus will do better there. I’ll probably interplant them with the strawberries, too.

But not yet.

Something else I got but didn’t get a picture of were some 12′ (I think) lengths of tubing. They’re more flexible than the 5′ lengths I tried before. I plan to use one of them, cut in half, to make a netting support over the 4′ square Albion strawberry bed, so we don’t have to worry about them getting eaten by deer again! I might work on that tomorrow.

The first thing I did when I got home, though, was pot up some pre-germinated melon seeds. The four Sarah’s Choice seeds were ready to go!

I had just enough pre-moistened seed starter mix left to fill 4 cups to plant them in. The cups have drainage holes in them, and they and the other seeds are now in a tray over the heat mat. I took the old heat mat out completely. It was cold, and no longer working.

There are a few other seeds starting to germinate. Nothing with the Zucca melon. I expect to be planting more pre-germinated seeds in a couple of days. I want to give some of the seeds more time.

With the old heat mat removed and the new one shifted over, I also moved the tray with the seedlings over. There are still a few blank spots, but enough sprouts are up that it shouldn’t be on a heat mat anymore – but I do wish that old mat was still working though, because I think they would still do better with one.

That done, I headed outside again.

I’ve noticed that the cats have really been digging around in the winter sown garden bed at the chain link fence. While I was at the Dollarama today, I picked up some row covers that I hoped would work out.

This bed is narrow, so those metal supports would be fine for it. It was the mesh that was important. It’s open enough that the wind can blow through it – the mosquito netting we’ve been using gets turned into a sail rather quickly! – and rain can get through, but it’s fine enough to keep the Chinese Elm seeds from choking everything out, once those start to drop. Plus, the ends can be closed up, which will keep the cats out.

I wasn’t sure how many I would need to cover this garden bed, so I got 5, just in case. In the second photo, you can see some of the damage the cats have been doing.

Setting them up with the wire supports was a bit of a challenge! The wire is supposed to be run through evenly spaced pockets in the mesh. That was the first problem! The wire is thin enough to pass through the mesh. It was hard just to get it through the opening of the pockets! The other end, meanwhile, kept getting caught up in, and through, other sections of mesh.

The set came with a solution for threating the wires through the pockets, though I doubt it was intended as such. Each kit has a bundle of 5 supports. They are held together by fitting the ends into a white plastic cap, one for each bundle of ends. I used one of those caps on the end of a wire support and, as long as there was enough tension to keep the cap from falling off, the wire slid through quite easily. If the cap did fall off, it could be pushed back through the pocket to the wire.

It took a while to get the hand of it, though. The wires and the mesh kept wanting to get all tangled up with each other. Plus, every stick or twig or leaf on the ground seemed to automatically get caught in it! What I eventually figured out was to first make sure the netting was bunched up in the middle of the wire, then stab one of the ends into the ground next to my leg. At least a little bit. I was sitting in the shade, so while the ice and snow was melted away, the ground was more frozen than in other places. It was enough to keep the wire upright, though, and I could just add the next ones as they were done.

I set up the first two assembled kits at each end of the bed. The kits have a drawstring at each and to close them up, but I needed to overlap several of these to ensure no gaps. Once the ends of the beds were covered, I assembled two more kits to fill in the space. Once the ends were closed with the drawstring, those got set in place with ground staples. In one area, the two kits overlapped enough that they didn’t need anything else, but another join got secured with more ground staples.

I think this will work out very well for now. I could probably remove that mosquito netting entirely and use it somewhere else. If the winter sowing survived, this netting can stay until things start getting too tall for it. The mess easily slides up and down the wire supports, so it’ll be easy to reach under to weed.

The bed was incredibly dry, though, so I used the water from the heat sink in the portable greenhouse to water it, then refilled the container. With sort of defeats the purpose of the heat sink, but there are no plants in there to protect right now.

When it was time to refill the container, I also prepped something else I found in the Dollarama.

Coconut fibre bricks! It’s been years since I’ve seen these. I’ve got one of them in a bucket of water to expand until tomorrow. I plan to incorporate it into the soil that’s in the pots I’ll be using for the luffa inside the portable greenhouse. It will be a while before the luffa can be transplanted, I’ve got time to get those ready. With the coco fibre in there, it should help keep the soil fluffier, and hold moisture more evenly. I’ll save the second brick to amend soil in one of the garden beds, later.

The garden bed at the chain link fence is not the only ones the cats are damaging. After I finished refilling the heat sink in the greenhouse, plus the watering cans, I checked out the main garden area. The garlic bed and the summer squash bed have both been dug into. Some of the garlic was almost completely dug up! We’re going to have to cover them.

Tomorrow.

For now, though, they have the supports in place.

These are the parts and pieces from a gazebo tent that was broken when a piece of tree fell on it. I had a bunch of shorter pieces – all pieces that were broken in half – that I put around the garlic bed, as it won’t need a lot of height. The tent pieces all have holes in them that had screws or pins running through them, which are prefect for holding twin in place. I ran the twin through to make Xs across the bed, as well as straight across and the sides. I did the same with taller supports I put over the bed sown with summer squash.

We have a couple of types of netting that is large enough to fit over these. We’ve got black netting that is more open, but for that, we’ll have to put something on top of the support posts, so they won’t tear through. There’s also the mosquito netting I’ll be moving off the chain link fence. We have other netting, too, but they are for trellising, so the openings are large enough for a cat to fit through.

The roll of bale twine I used on this has been sitting in the sun room all winter, and the cats have been pulling out the middle and playing with it. By the time I got things untangled while threading it through the support posts, it was starting to get quite chilly out there! As I write this, our temperatures had dropped just below freezing. According to the short range forecast, though, we’re expecting overnight lows of -6C/21F. At those temperatures, we’ll want to put some sort of protection over the winter sown beds. Something more than netting! That’s the down side of having removed the mulch, so the ground could thaw out. I will probably spread some of the mulch back lightly over the beds again. The beds are even looking like they could use a good watering, too! We didn’t get a lot of snow this winter, so things are pretty dry right now, and there is no rain in the forecast for some time. What rain and snow we’ve had lately hasn’t been enough keep these beds from drying out.

Tomorrow, we’re looking at a high of 15C/59F. That will be a wonderful temperature to get things done outside!

As long as I don’t overdo it. I got chilled enough while working the twine through the supports, I still haven’t warmed up, even after a hot meal and a hot cup of tea! My entire body is stiffening up and starting to really ache.

Time to pain killer up and get to bed. Hopefully, the painkillers will be enough to let me get some sleep!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: potting up pre-germinated squash

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Well, I went and did it. I potted up the very enthusiastically growing winter squash. I even did the luffa. Of all the seeds I started only 1 luffa hasn’t germinated yet, and it still might.

I’ve decided I will go the Costco shopping tomorrow and, while in the city, try and find a second heat mat to put under the winter squash tray. If they’re out of stock… well… we’ll see how it goes!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: potting and potting up, and stuff

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Today I was going to be helping my mother with her grocery shopping, so I took advantage of the trip, leaving a bit early to swing by a hardware store. I didn’t find everything I was looking for, but found other things I needed, instead. Then I swung by another store to pick up something for my mother I knew she was intending to skip this time, before finally going to the grocery store. I was intending to pick up a couple of their prepared hot meals that my mother likes so much, for our lunch. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any this time. They did have pieces of hot rotisserie chicken, though, so I got some and other ingredients for our meal. We were running low on kibble again, so I bought an 11kg bag that I hope will last us.

After taxes, it cost $50, which is totally insane.

My mother was happy with what I got her for lunch, which was nice. As we were eating, I kept waiting for her to bring up about the situation with the exterminators coming in at the end of the week. We went over her shopping list, then discussed whether she was up to going to the store with me, or just giving me the list to do the shopping for her. In the end, she decided to stay at home. The local senior’s centre has social activities in her building on Tuesdays, which she loves, and all she needs to do it walk down the hallway to attend.

I finally brought up that we needed to talk. I could tell by the look on her face, she new exactly what I wanted to talk about. It was a look of rather scornful humour that I see way too often. I explained to her that the public housing department is required to do this, and they really could evict her if she doesn’t go along. She kept smirking and scoffing in response, (all this for just one bug?) before bringing up the things she is convinced an exterminator stole from her. Particularly the old passports. She had four of them together, she says, and now there’s just two. I didn’t even think to ask, why would someone not only go digging through her boxes papers to find them, then take only two of them. Particularly since the exterminator is in and out very quickly. I reminded her that she’s accused people of stealing before, only to find the “stolen” item later. It’s entirely possible she decided to put them someplace “safe” and forgot where, as happens to everyone. I also brought up a few things she does that are far more of a safety and security thing than someone using 70 year old passports that look nothing like modern ones to make fake ID, but that just had her going off on a rant that completely contradicted her concerns about “scam people”.

I managed to get the conversation back to the exterminator visit – and found out hers is not the only apartment that’s going to be treated. I took a moment to check my email and found a response from my sister. It turned out she had also suggested that my mother just get a motel room for Thursday night, but she refused. My sister’s house is not very accessible, and my mother didn’t want to stay at her place, anyhow. So my sister was planning to come out at 7am on Friday morning! With that confirmed with my mother, we worked out that I will come out on Thursday afternoon to bag her fabric items and move furniture away from the walls in most of her apartment. My sister will have to do the stuff in my mother’s bedroom when she gets there, since the bedroom is so tiny, it can’t be done in advance and still have space for her to sleep. Plus, of course, her bedding needs to be bagged.

That finally worked out, I headed to the grocery store with her list. As I was getting her stuff, I noticed they had some sale prices on some things that were even better than in the city, and decided it was worth going back, later. I got my mother’s stuff and was at her place just as the social event was being set up and my mother was already in the lounge, so I took care of putting everything away. She didn’t like that I used the main doors (the other people would see her shopping), though. I used them because they have the automatic door openers that I can activate with my knee, rather than putting the bags down and fighting with keys and very heavy doors. After I put everything away, I started going down the hall to the lobby to say my goodbyes, only to have her meet me and tell me to leave out the other doors! 😄😄

Which was fine by me, but I found it very funny.

I went back to the grocery store for the third time (the cashiers were laughing at seeing me again!), got a few things that were sale. I got about $160 of stuff that would otherwise have cost me about $300 at regular prices in the city. More, if they were regular local prices! A quick stop at the gas station, and I was on my way home. I only had one more side trip, as my husband message me to let me know he had a notification that another package had arrived at the post office. As I was getting it, though, the postmaster had another package she hadn’t make a pick up slip for yet.

I love it when packages come in early!

By the time I got home, though, I was totally drained. While I took a break, my younger daughter headed outside to weed the third raised bed in the west yard for me.

With how things have been going, the past few days, I’d neglected to check on the squash seeds that were still pre-germinating. I remembered to check them this morning, and found little squidlings! So once I was done taking a break, I went to get them planted.

Squidlings! 😄😄

I had three 5″ biodegradable pots left from last year, so I used those for the three biggest seeds, and 4″ pots for the rest.

Because the seed leaves were already pushing themselves out of their shells, I planted them so that the leaf portions were partially emerged from the soil.

The previous batch of seeds I planted are still on the heat mat, and I can see little hills forming where the seedlings are starting to emerge, but these ones are far enough along, they don’t need to be on a heat mat. I did set the pots in water, though. The soil was premoistened, as always, but I want those pots to absorb water, so they don’t dry out the soil.

The gourds, meanwhile, have finally been moved to the mini greenhouse frame in the window.

The next thing that needed to be done was to pot up the early peppers from their tiny tray.

Yes, one pot looks completely empty. There was one cell that I didn’t think had any peppers germinating, but two seedlings started to show up this morning. I wasn’t going to leave just one cell in the tray, so I transplanted the stronger looking one, with as much of the soil around it as I could include. It’ll probably not survive being potted up, but you never know!

Most of the cells had just one seedling in them, but a few had two, and one had three. I thinned them to have just four seedlings (including the one that you can barely see in the vermiculite) per variety. With the hot peppers we already have, plus the Sweet Chocolate peppers, we have way more than we need, and can afford some losses.

At this point, we have pretty much run out of space in the living room for seedlings – and we don’t have anywhere near as many as we started last year! Tomorrow is supposed to be a warm and dry day, so I’m planning on snagging a daughter to help me empty the sun room, clean up the messes the critters left for us over the winter, then set things up for the transplants. The sun room is staying warm enough overnight that I think it’s safe to start moving them out of the living room set up.

Looking at the 10 day forecast, I’m seeing days forecast with highs above 20C/68F! At those temperatures, the sun room will probably be hitting closer to 30C/86F, so if we are we are able to start putting transplants there this week, we will have to make sure to have the ceiling fan going, and the doors wide open during the day.

The bed my daughter weeded today is also bowing out at the sides, to I’m hoping to fix that, tomorrow, then work some sulfur into the soil.

Oh, that reminds me; while at the hardware store, I found they had a sulfur powder available. This can apparently be dusted directly onto the plants, or added to a watering can, rather than being worked into the soil like the granular stuff we got. That might be worth getting later on, but I want to see how the beds do with the granular sulfur worked into the soil, first. Getting a bale of peat would be higher on the priority list right now, though.

For all the running around I was doing today, at least we got a few things accomplished at home, too!

The Re-Farmer