One of my goals for today was to modify one of the wire mesh covers for the main garden beds. I will be planting in this bed soon, and have set up the soaker hose in it for now.
I had one board left of what we used to make the long sides, and used it to make end pieces just over 3 feet long, so it will fit in the narrowest part of this bed. The lengths of hula hoops are woven through the wire and their ends are screwed in place. It’s still kinda floppy, but it won’t collapse completely.
We might still add chicken wire to the ends of the cover, to keep small critters out. Of course, it won’t stop the woodchuck, since it can just dig under it, but I hope to at least reduce the chances. I did see it briefly this evening, dashing under the garden shed when I came around the house. I have not seen any new nibbled on plants today, thankfully.
I have to go digging around to see if I can find more of this wood, so I can do the other wire cover as well. It’d be good if I can find enough to make a third cover, but I doubt it. We’ve picked over the area we found those boards in pretty thoroughly.
The board on the ground is something I found in the barn. This bed is a bit wider than the others, so I plan to lay the board down the middle, so that we’ll have something to step on, to make it easier to tend the bed.
Now that this has the end pieces, it will be easier for one person to move it aside to do weeding, then put it back again. It was the “put it back again” part that was the most awkward, without a second person to help.
If all goes well, we will have some radishes and chard planted in here tomorrow. :-)
The girls did the evening watering while I was doing this, and called my attention to something that I did not see this morning.
Our beans are showing flower buds!
So awesome! It looks like we’ll have more of the purple beans than the green or the yellow.
While flower buds are forming here, we have flowers blooming somewhere else.
This is part of the area at the edge of the spruce grove that I cleaned out this spring, partly to get materials needed to build the squash tunnel. With all the little trees and dead branches cleared away, they finally have enough light to be able to bloom. I expect this to happen more, as we continue to clean up the spruce grove.
When we first moved here, we worked out a plan: the first two years, we would focus on cleaning up the house and inner yard. In the third year, we would start on the outer yard, and then in the following years, we would start working on things beyond the outer yard, as warranted. In the first year of working the inner yard, we would clean up the maple grove, which we did. The second year of working the inner yard, we were to clean up the spruce grove. Then things happened, and we only got parts of it done. As time goes by, however, we’re realizing just how much bigger of a job the spruce grove is. This is now an area we’re going to have to chip away at, little by little, as we can. We need to work on the outer yard more, in the process. Particularly since we plant to build permanent raised bed gardens in the outer yard.
We still have a multi-year plan to get this stuff done. It’s just been adjusted quite a bit! Plus, with our starting to garden ahead of “schedule”, the time and resources we have available has had to shift, too. As much and things need to be cleaned up, and we have to get the junk hauled away, doing things that will actually feed us has become more of the priority. It was always the goal. It just went from a mid term goal, so a short term goal!
With today’s expected heat, I was out in the garden by 6am, and ended up staying out there for almost 3 hours, watering and weeding. The watering was started after replacing the connectors on three hoses.
I’m a goof, but it did work.
When I bought the connector repair sets, I got what was left on the display, and didn’t even think to look at the sizes. They are for 1/2 inch hoses.
We have 3/4 in hoses.
No matter. The clamps they came with could tighten enough to properly seal them. They will do while I am on the lookout for the right size connectors.
The little flexible piece I got for the tap, to prevent kinking, leaks. In several places! I guess I got a cheap one, though there wasn’t much choice. It still leaks less than it did before. One of the leaks is at the tap itself. Every single hose we’ve ever hooked up to that tap, leaks there. I plan to replace the tap itself, eventually. Meanwhile, there is some very luscious growth happening around the blocks we have under the tap. :-D
When I headed out again this evening, I got to break in the new action hoe.
What a fantastic tool!
I first tried it in one of the onion beds. It did well, but the onions are planted in a three row grid, and it just didn’t fit in between them, so there wasn’t a lot I could do with it, there. Mostly, I used it in the space in the middle, where the purple kohlrabi failed to grow.
It was at the Mongolian Giant sunflowers that it really did the job!
The soil here has always been rock hard, and baked bone dry. Right now, the only soft soil is the layer we put down for each row, and that was just a few inches deep. That anything we’ve planted here is growing at all is pretty remarkable. This thing worked like a dream!
Now, don’t get me wrong: it was still really hard to work around the sunflowers.The soil in between the rows is even harder now, as we walk between the rows to water things. It wasn’t just the hard soil, but also the very fibrous roots from the plants that were already growing here, and now enjoying regular watering for a change. This hoe was able to cut through those roots, and the rock hard soil at the edges of the paths. I was then able to pull out the cut weeds and their roots, before hilling the loose soil around the sunflowers a bit.
I am very impressed with this thing! The tool I was using around the corn before worked well; better than a regular hoe, but not as good as the action hoe. It was one of the unusual tools we’ve found around the place. The head of it is shaped almost like a mattock, except… not. LOL The “hoe” part of it is longer and narrower than a regular hoe, and it has a two pronged spike on the other side that I believe is a weeding tool. I’ve never tried to use that end, yet. It works really well at cutting into the hard soil. Better than a regular hoe, as least. Unfortunately, it’s quite old, and the head sometimes pops off the shaft.
I was doing one last row with the action hoe in the next corn bed, when my daughters came out to do the evening watering. My older daughter had finished watering the beds closer to the house with the hose, and when she came to continue watering where I was working, she told me about something awesome she found in the Montana Morado corn.
Silk!
Our very first corn to start showing silk!
If these are going to be maturing so unevenly, we may need to hand pollinate the silk, just to make sure they do get thoroughly pollinated. It would be pretty hit and miss to rely on the wind to pollinate the corn, when there might be only one or two corn plants ready to be pollinated at a time.
I am so happy that this corn seems to be working out so well!!
Today is supposed to be the last day of our heat wave. After this, we are dropping to more average temperatures. The expected high had been 38C/100C for a while, then it went down a few times. By morning, we were forecasted to hit 34C/93F, which we did hit. I don’t know what the humidex was. The forecasts for thundershowers tomorrow have shown up, disappeared, then showed up again, several times today! As I write this, it’s past 11pm, and we’re still at 28C/82F. The overnight low is expected to be not much cooler, but we are also supposed to get some rain, too.
I’ll believe that when I see it. From the looks of the weather radar, any rain or storms sweeping through are going to go right past us, and hit the city. But if we get even a little bit of rain, I will be happy. Even with all the watering we’ve been doing, twice a day, things are still really dry. I could really see that while weeding. Even at the start of the day, which the ground still looked damp from the previous evening’s watering. While hand weeding among the beets in the old kitchen garden, I had the hose set to mist, so the water would make it easier to pull the weeds out by the roots. I’d already watered the bed before I started weeding, yet when I pulled up the weeds, I could see how dry the soil still was.
When we build our permanent beds, having some sort of watering system would be very useful. We do have sprinklers we can use, but I’d rather have something less wasteful, like a drip system.
But that is something to figure out later. For now, we make do with what we have, and right now, that means watering twice a day with roughly 300 feet of garden hose and watering cans! :-D
Today, we were able to make an unexpected trip to do some shopping, thanks to my husband’s disability payment coming in early. Top of the list was to replace our broken vacuum cleaner! :-D
Of course, with making a trip to the city, even if it’s the smaller, closer one, we were going to take advantage of it and get other things we need.
I’m happy to say that we not only found a new vacuum – marketed as being particularly good for pet hair – we happened to catch a sale and got it at half the price I’d budgeted for!
We were also able to pick up more mesh for the squash tunnel. They didn’t have the same type we’d used before in stock, so we got more chicken wire. I don’t think the squash and melons care what shape the mesh they’re climbing is. ;-)
Another one of the things I really needed to get was a new pair of work shoes. Not only have I worn my old ones out to the point they’re falling apart, but the cats have discovered how to take the insoles out and have been tearing them apart!
Considering the sorts of things I’ve been doing for the past while, I also wanted to get steel toed shoes.
Much to may amazement, the very first pair that I tried on was perfect! I’d actually looked at casual shoes first – in the men’s section, because women’s shoes don’t fit my feet – hoping to get a pair of slip ons. I normally get a men’s size 9, triple wide, but I couldn’t find any wide ones. I couldn’t even get my toes into a size 11! So I wasn’t holding out much hope with the work shoes. Particularly since none of the boxes were marked as wide. So getting it right on the very first pair, and for them to be so incredibly comfortable, was like Christmas!
Then when we went to pay for our stuff, my daughter stole the box and bought them for me for my birthday. :-D
No, it’s not my birthday. It’s not even my birth month, yet. But that’s how we do things. :-D
I also got myself an early birthday present.
A 10′ x 10′ canopy tent, to replace the one that broke last year. That one was so handy when we were painting the picnic table, and didn’t have to worry about it getting rained on or whatever, I really wanted to get another. It’s just a Walmart cheapie, but we’ve had a couple of them in the past, leaving them behind when we moved. According to the box, they’ve improved the design, and added a feature to make it easier to set up with just one person.
This evening, I set it up.
And promptly discovered a problem with one of the new features.
This handle in the middle is made so that, once you have the canopy on and the legs set to the height you want, all you need to do is push up on it and it will open fully and lock in place.
Have I mentioned that I’m short?
I’m not THAT short, but still…
I had the legs at the lowest level, yet when I pushed up on the handle, I couldn’t get it far enough to lock in place. Not only that, but the entire tent would start lifting, instead! :-D I did eventually get it, of course, but I had to jump to do it.
I suspect this was designed with the average height male in mind! :-D
But I got it, and that’s the important part!
Which means we can now paint the kibble house. :-)
There is plenty of space for it! :-)
Nutmeg seems distressed that the floor is gone! :-D
You can see part of the floor in the background.
The two sections of the floor boards got a thorough scrubbing to take off many months of muddy paw prints! :-D
The rest of the kibble house got scrubbed inside and out, including the muddy bottoms of the legs.
Once it’s dry, it’ll be ready for painting.
By the end of the day, my new shoes got a pretty decent workout!
I’m really glad to have gotten the steel toed shoes. Very handy, just in case I almost, *ahem* sort of, just about, *cough* maybe, could have dropped a kibble house on them.
Just a few pictures of the garden beds that I took while doing my morning rounds.
This is the newest bed in the area where the old wood pile used to be, and these beets were the first ones planted, so they are larger than the others. Well. Some of them are. We are curious about the one end there they are smaller, and not as many came up. There is no sign that deer have been eating them – the onions seem to be working! I recall that we had issues with birds digging in the garlic beds. I wonder if they were digging in here, too? I don’t know.
The onions are yellow onions we bought as sets locally, when it looked like the ones we started from seed might not make it.
Luffa, actively climbing the mesh of the squash tunnel! So far, they are the only ones long enough to reach/climb the supports.
I was thrilled to see this, nearby.
Several Halona melons are starting to bloom! So awesome! Nothing on the Pixie melons or winter squash, yet.
This bed has the two types of carrots – Kyoto Red and Napoli – that came in pelleted seeds. This allowed us to plant them further apart, so no thinning will be needed. That also meant that, even though they started coming up quite a while ago, their thin, feathery leaves were hard to capture in a photograph! :-D
These are the Norstar onions we started from seed. Size wise, they are much the same as the ones started from sets, including the red onions that share this bed with them, however none of the others are starting to bulb as much as these ones are.
Looking ahead to next year, sets are definitely easier than starting from seed, and they don’t take up the space indoors that seeds do, but I think the ones started from see seem to be doing a bit better. We shall see when harvest time comes.
Speaking of harvest, the spinach is starting to bolt. The three varieties we have are all supposed to mature at different rates, but all three are ready for harvest, now! We’ll pull the biggest plants first, and leave the smaller ones a while longer, simply because there is so much. I dug out more window screens from the shed and washed them, so we can use them to dry spinach in the sun room. Doing it in the oven worked, but the trays are smaller, and we can only fit two in the oven at a time. We have four screens in total, and we’ll be able to fit a lot more leaves on them.
We finally have a decent amount of lettuces, though some blocks don’t seem to be doing as well as others. After the spinach is cleared out, we plan to do more lettuces in those beds. Just on one side, as we will be planting more spinach for a fall harvest, later on. The lettuce seed packets were in a Ziploc bag and spilled, so most of them are now mixed up, but that’s okay.
The greens to the left of the blocks, past the plastic, are 4 varieties of beets, that my daughters planted. Not visible is the larger L shaped bed, in which we planted all the remaining beet seeds, including from last year, all mixed up.
The potatoes are doing really well! If those bags weren’t twice the height they started off at, I would think they hadn’t been “hilled” at all!
I am really happy with how the garden is looking, though we do have some failures. None of the purple kale came up at all, and it looks like the purple kohlrabi is a total loss, too. There *might* be some white kohlrabi coming up in the old kitchen garden, but I’m honestly not sure if what I’m looking at are kohlrabi seedlings, or weeds. There’s only a couple of them.
The strawberry spinach seems to be a loss, too. We thought they had started to sprout, but now it looks like there’s nothing but weeds. If they did sprout, they didn’t survive. It looks much the same with the poppy seeds, except for one little patch. We’ll see how they survive! They’re still really small. Ah, well. Whether they make it or not, I plan to get more for next year. Possibly in another variety that I’ve found, too.
It’s only June, though. I’m quite looking forwards to seeing how things grow over the next couple of months!
This morning, it was time to add to the potato grow bags.
They were topped up with a mix of grass clippings and garden soil, and the bags were unrolled a bit in the process. Some of them look like they could have done with more, but I must say, it was pretty awkward to top these up. The row against the fence was hardest to reach, of course. I really need to remember how short my reach it! :-D
The mulch and soil had to be added a handful at a time, carefully spread around the sides of the bag, where there turned out to be quite a lot more room than I expected. I tried to put more soil than mulch in the middle, between the plants, compared to around the sides. As early in the morning as it was, the heat and humidity was already up there, and I was just dripping with sweat. Much of it getting onto the inside of my glasses. :-/ So as soon as I was done topping them up, I headed inside, saving the watering for later. This afternoon was our early birthday and Father’s day celebratory pizza night, which involved a couple of hours of driving to get it and bring it home, so it wasn’t until evening that the potato bags got watered.
This evening, we fertilized our garden beds for the first time this year. We found an all purpose, water soluble vegetable fertilizer while cleaning up the old kitchen, and I’d bought a tomato and vegetable water soluble fertilizer as well. Both have a higher nitrogen percentage, which is needed for our nitrogen depleted soil. There’s only so much the new garden soil can contribute. My daughter used the tomato and vegetable one, with a watering can to mix it in, and did the front garden beds, except the potatoes. I did the potatoes using the hose with the fertilizer attachment on it, before moving on to the garden beds on the north side of the house. I particularly wanted to make sure the corn, squash and gourds got a good feeding, but everything got at least a little bit of fertilizer. We even have some left over to do it again in a couple of weeks.
Today was also a day of critters, including some surprises, but that will be for my next post. :-)
Today was set to be a scorcher, so when I did my morning rounds, I took the time to water all the garden beds before things got too hot, even though they got a thorough watering last night.
When I got to the spinach beds, I saw evidence of skulduggery!
The sacrificial spinach, at the ends of a couple of rows, were duly sacrificed.
I moved that pinwheel over from one of the beds with the wire mesh covers, after the fact. Not that they seem to be accomplishing much, anymore!
No surprise, when I finally went inside and checked the trail cams, that a deer was captured, wandering through the corn beds, on the way out of the yard. Considering that the deer did not even pause to nibble on anything, I’d say the sacrificial spinach did its job! ;-)
Late this afternoon, when things were supposedly getting cooler again, the girls and I finished the squash tunnel.
Almost.
We got the cross pieces put in place, then brought over the wire mesh for the vines to climb.
The roll of wire mesh I got was 50 feet long, and that was enough to cover 3 of 4 sections. At only 4 feet wide, there are gaps at each post, but we can weave twine between the sections of wire mesh, if it’s necessary.
My original thought was to use U nails (also called staples) to attach the mesh, but we ended up only needing to attach it to the bottom cross pieces. With one, we used wire saved from a previous roll of wire mesh that had been wrapped around it to keep it from unrolling. In cutting the first length, the second length had one end with the wire ends sticking out, and we were able wrap the end around the cross piece, then just twist the wire ends around to hold it in place. Other sections were tied in place with twine.
We just need to buy another roll of this mesh, and we can finish the last section. The main thing is that the end where the luffa is growing, now has something for them to climb.
The girls also noted that one post seemed to need support, so they added the rope and peg to hold it in place.
It’s a good thing this is meant to be temporary! :-D
By the time we were done, we were totally baked and headed inside to cool down for a while. We were at “only” 25C/77F with a humidex of 28C/82F but we were also in full sun, and there was no breeze. At least we could pop into the shade of the nearby lilac hedge, every now and then.
While I was doing the evening watering, the girls brought over the last of the straw and mulched around the squash tunnel. You can see in the photo that some of the luffa was grown long enough to reach the mesh, already. Hopefully, they will soon be making their way up the side on their own.
This whole thing really is rather slipshod and wonky. I look forward to when we have our permanent raised garden beds, and can build something more solid, elsewhere. But this will do for a year, maybe even two, depending on how our plans to plant trees in this area progress. Well, Not where this tunnel is, I don’t think. There are telephone lines buried somewhere under here.
Anyhow.
I’m glad we finally got this done. At least as done as possible until we get more mesh for that last section. The forecast has changed again. Tomorrow, instead of thunderstorms, we’re expected to hit 31C/88F and maybe get some showers at some point. While I was doing the watering this evening, I used the water to make doing some hand weeding easier, and I could not believe how dry the soil was. I’d hate to think how dry it would have been if I’d decided it was damp enough this morning, and skipped the watering! The added mulch at these squash, gourds and melons will help keep their moisture better, at least. I look forward to having more mulch to add to the other beds as well.
Meanwhile, I hope we have some happy little squash, gourds and melons!
It was a hot and windy day today, and my younger daughter and I ended up making a quick run into town, but we did get some decent progress in the garden.
My older daughter braved the hottest part of the day and added more soil to the 15 summer squash mounds.
I waited until it was cooler.
I added a stake near each plant. The stakes are some of the smaller poplars we cleared our of the spruce grove, trimmed to about 3-4 feet in length. In the foreground of the photo, there is a metal bar stuck in the ground. It has a point at one end. I can’t remember at the moment, where we found it, but it was a happy find! I used it, and a mallet, to make holes in the ground. Then the stakes, skinny end down, were pushed in as far as I could, beyond what I managed with the steel bar, then the soil carefully stomped down to secure it. As close to the plants as they were, that meant mostly just on one side. Once those were in, the area was mulched with straw. The idea is to secure the stems of the squash to the stakes, as they grow, and pruning the bottom leaves, little by little. We shall see how that works!
Also, I really need to get this area mowed, before the next rains come!
I had found some trellis netting, so my daughter finished the last sections of pea trellis with that, along with adding soil to the summer squash. The peas are getting tall enough to start climbing! The peas I planted later, to fill the gaps left by those that did not germinate, are sprouting, too. I’m really looking forward to having fresh peas! I can’t remember the last time I had fresh-from-the-garden peas.
If you look to the left of the photo, you can see what is a problem in this area: all those tree seedlings! They are spreading through root systems, like quack grass. Usually, I would have mowed over them by now, but we’re going to have to cut them back by hand this year.
My younger daughter, meanwhile, went all out and thinned all three spinach beds.
Yes, this was taken after the beds were thinned!
The furthest one, under the netting, is the one that got the most deer damage, but parts of it are doing well. You can see at the end of the closer beds, the smaller spinach at the ends the deer got at.
With the spinach she gathered, I currently have two trays drying in the oven, and made myself a huge spinach salad for supper. The reason we went into town was to get ingredients to make spinach dips. Both cold and baked versions. :-) I’m really looking forward to that!
This last one is just to show how well the potatoes have been doing! At this rate, some of them are going to need topping up, soon! I’m very excited to see how productive these will be at the end of their season.
With today’s progress, my goal for tomorrow is to get working on that squash tunnel. The luffa needs something to climb! :-D
Today, I built what should be the last garden bed for the year. This one is for the climbers.
Here is what the space looked like when I started.
The original plan was to use the remaining chimney blocks, like the one in the photo, as planters along the chain link fence, but they remain in the basement until we can figure some thing out, and it is not a priority.
We’ve been saving up our cardboard, and had just enough to create a barrier layer, which got a thorough soaking.
The next layer was the straw, which is also the mulch to cover the path between the new bed and the flower bed beside it. I was able to get some of the straw at the bottom of the bale that has had time to start breaking down, too, which was great! This layer, like all the layers, got a thorough soaking – after I beat it flat with the back of a fan rake.
Then, because we had some, I emptied our kitchen compost along the fence line, which got tromped on before a soak.
There wasn’t much. We don’t get a chance to accumulate much for the compost pile. It tends to get used right away!
We still have grass clippings, so a thick layer of it got laid down.
We’ve been keeping our compost-safe paper for shredding, and I had a bag full to add for another layer. After giving it a soaking, my daughter tromped it down for me, while I went to get a load of soil. This was from the nearby tarp covered pile in the outer yard. When I pulled back the tarp, I just had to call the girls over to take a look!
The white tarp allowed enough light through for the weeds to start growing, and grow they did!! They were huge!
These are mostly lambsquarter, which are supposed to be edible and very healthy. Better than spinach!!! At least that’s what the breathless Pinterest images that have started to show up in my feed are all exclaiming. Maybe some day we’ll try them, but for now, they are growing in places we want other things to be growing (or, in the case of our soil pile, nothing to be growing!), so we’re pulling them. Still, it was something else to see how big they got under that tarp! It actually is encouraging, since we plan to build polytunnels and high raised beds in the outer yard, eventually.
Finally, a thick layer of garden soil was added to the new bed, with a trench down the middle to hold water. My daughter did catch me before I made the new bed too wide. With the one we made for the tomatoes, we’re finding it a bit hard to reach, even though we ended up narrowing it down when we added more soil for the transplants. We’ve noticed the same issue with the beds of spinach, carrots and onions. They’re only about 3-4′ wide, but they are low beds right now, and we’re short. It’s hard to reach the middle while bending down so far; our balance goes off kilter. Especially for my daughters who, unlike me, have not had their generous proportions surgically reduced. That really affects center of balance! It would not be an issue with the tall raised beds we plan to build, but we need to remember that, for low beds, they need to be narrower. Especially if we can reach from only one side, like these along the fence.
One thing that was an unexpected issue is that the chain link fence on this side is higher above the ground at the bottom than on the other side of the gate.
Which means that the damp cardboard flaps against the fence couldn’t quite hold the soil in some places! Which is fine. We’ll work around it.
After filling the trench in the soil with water to soak it, I brought over the cucamelons that have sprouted (most did not, but that’s okay; we planted way more than needed!), as well as the gourds. The bucket and plant pot have the cucamelon tubers in peat that I dug up from last year, to see if they would grow this year. Time to dump them out and find out if they survived!
They did not.
Aside from a few wispy root clumps and what may have been the dried outer skin of a tuber, I found nothing. They had completely decomposed.
Well, that just left me with some peat I could make use of.
So I widened the trench I’d made before, added some peat to it, and watered it again.
Then it was time to do the transplanting.
The cucamelons were all in their own Jiffy pellets, so they were easy to space out. I planted even the tiny ones. If they make it, great. If not, at least they had a fighting chance! Our cucamelons from last year were quite prolific, even in less than ideal conditions. This location gets much more light, so I expect them to do even better, here. If all grows well, this fence will be completely covered with climbing vines!
Of the gourds, the pot that had 2 Ozark Nest Egg seedlings had sprouted a third! I’d forgotten I’d planted 3 seeds in the cups. The pot that first sprouted still had only one, plus there is the one Thai Edible Bottle gourd. These are in Jiffy pots, so the ones with just one seedling in them got planted whole. The one that had three in them, I gently broke it open along one side and sort of unrolled the contents to separate the seedlings. One of them just sprouted today, so it’s unlikely to survive, but who knows? It might do even better than the others. :-) I believe in you, little sproot!
That done, I had some more transplanting to do. I’d put the last of our Norstar onion seeds into a Solo cup, and they not only sprouted, but are starting to form bulbs!
The girls and I had talked about where to put them, and the border of the asparagus bed seemed the best place.
The onions are shallow growers, and there’s plenty of space between them and where the asparagus are, so this should be fine. At this stage, I doubt they will reach full maturity, but they will help deter critters and insects. There were more seedlings than would fit here, so I added the last of them in front of the Mosaic Mix tomatoes. There had been some bunching onions transplanted there before, but they were the tiniest, wimpiest ones that we probably shouldn’t have bothered with, and only 3 were still alive. Which is fine. There are more bunching onions in front of the Spoon tomatoes. We’ll see how these ones do!
That’s pretty much it for the transplanting. We should probably plant the one Hopi Black Dye sunflower that finally sprouted. Since there’s just the one, I’m thinking of planting it somewhere else, like in the old kitchen garden. The pink celery will go into a pot that we can move in and out of the sun room, as needed, but they are way too tiny to do anything with, yet.
Which means that tomorrow, it’s back to the other garden beds. The pea trellises need to be finished, the squash tunnel needs to be worked on, and the summer squash needs a garden soil top up, before getting mulched with straw. Somewhere in there, I need to actually mow around the main garden beds. It’s getting pretty out of control around there! For the old garden area, I’m seriously considering using the weed trimmer, instead. It’ll take longer, but I won’t have to worry about hitting rocks or lumps of soil with the lawnmower. Also, of course, weeding. Especially in the corn and sunflower blocks. All the stuff that barely grew there before have had the most moisture and inadvertent tending since… ever, and they’re really liking it! :-D
The main thing is that, aside from the pink celery and that one sunflower, we’re done the transplanting! Anything else that didn’t germinate by now, isn’t going to. We won’t be tending those pots anymore.
Aaaannnndd….
It was getting late, so I paused and took the pink celery seedlings indoors, then went ahead and transplanted the one Hopi Black Dye sunflower in the old kitchen garden, in the bed we planted the poppies in. So that’s done now, too!
I tried to do another post last night, but simply could not load the WordPress editor, our internet was so crappy. My husband tells me it was working fine when he got up at 2am, which suggested that their system was overloaded, on top of the weather wreaking havoc on our signal. Satellite can only handle so much traffic at once.
It seems to be working well now so, to start, here are the photos I meant to post last night. :-)
I just had to share this little cluster of family adorableness!
This is part of a strange thing that’s been happening lately. Nicco (the grey and white) is the cat all the other cats seem to bully all the time, poor thing. Including bullying by Beep Beep (at the top), her adopted mother, but Beep Beep is still very much a yard cat in attitude, so she bullies pretty much all the cats. ;-) Lately, however, Beep Beep has been hunting Nicco down for aggressive cuddles and grooming. In fact, as I write this, they are mashed together, asleep on my bed, with Beep Beep using Nicco as a pillow.
The sudden love and attention is wonderful to see, but then there’s Turmeric.
If Turmeric sees Beep Beep and Nicco snuggling, she will go over and squeeze herself in between them. Sometimes, it’s to join in the grooming and cuddling session, but usually, it’s to try and nurse on Beep Beep.
Who is letting her!
The kittens are a year old now, and Beep Beep was never shy about weaning them. For the spice girls, they found solace in “grandma”, who would let them nurse on her.
Very noisily.
Irritating, but when we introduced new yard kittens as part of our ‘population control program’, and she let the new babies try and nurse on her, how could we stop it? She played a big part in getting the new babies settled into the colony. ;-)
Any that attempted to nurse on Beep Beep, however, would get smacked away. Eventually, they stopped trying, even on “grandma”.
Until now.
That Turmeric is trying to nurse again, after all this time, is maybe not that surprising, but Beep Beep allowing it certainly is! So is her sudden affection behaviour towards Nicco.
I wonder if it is some sort of reaction to her not having kittens this year, for probably the first time in her adult life? Normally, she’d be nursing a new litter right now.
Curious.
Meanwhile…
We had furry visitors last night, of the smelly kind.
After taking some pictures, I used the hose to drive them off. The big one went running to and under the storage house, but the little one disappeared around the cat house. I went around and fired the hose off at it again, and it ran off towards the storage house… then turned around and ran back! I got some video of it, but was never able to upload it (maybe I’ll succeed today). I kept trying to spray towards it, but it was willing to get wet, to get food. I don’t normally try to spray them directly, if I can avoid it, and this little guy was clearly very, very hungry, and I just couldn’t do it. I left it alone and let it eat.
Some hours later, I heard cats fighting, so I went outside to check. I never found what cats were fighting, but I did find this.
Two skunks in the kibble house!
Neither of which was the little one. That one was over here.
I have a container with water next to the steps that the cats like to use, and I think Little Stinky was drinking from it.
So, we’re now up to three skunks.
I did use the hose to chase them away. The two big ones in the kibble house did not get along, and as they ran under the lilac bushes over where they get under the storage house, I could hear one of them grunting and growling at the other. The little one by the stairs didn’t want to leave and tried hiding under the lilacs, but I think that has as much to do with the grumpy skunk as the water.
Hopefully, we won’t be getting more stinky visitors!
Meanwhile…
We had more rain during the night, but by this morning, we were bright and sunny again, though still quite windy. Of course, while doing my rounds, I checked all the garden beds and kept an eye out for more fallen branches.
The tomatoes are doing fantastic. I don’t think we could have picked a better spot for them! They get the sunlight they need from their southern location, while still getting protection from the driving rain from the trees above. They got plenty of rain, and are showing lovely new growth, with no signs of damage at all.
These roses were a surprise to see this morning. This rose bush is in front of the sun room, at the stand-alone rail between the door and the laundry platform. My mother had planted it there to help shade the sun room, but it keeps blocking our paths. When we were hauling loads of soil to the old kitchen garden, I tied the bush back, so we could get through without fighting it all the time. It worked out so well, I left it like that. It’s a mass of greenery right now, and these flowers are tucked away under the bulk of the branches, having burst into bloom overnight. The other flower buds I see are still quite small. There are more roses of this time in the old kitchen garden, and they not blooming yet, either, so these hidden roses were a pleasant surprise.
I had another surprise I didn’t get any pictures of. While checking on the Montana Morado corn (some of the smaller stalks look a little beaten down by the rain, but all still look very good), I passed the little kiddie pool we’ve been using to mix soil. There was still a bit of soil on the bottom I wasn’t able to get out when I was transplanting the Crespo squash. Just a smattering, sitting at one side. I’d added water into the pool, just to keep it from blowing away, but of course there’s more water in it now.
This morning, I found a frog floating in it.
We’ve found drowned frogs in the bird bath before, because once they get into containers like this, they can’t get out again, and that was my initial thought. Dead frog. I grabbed a garden tool to fish it out, only to have it dive down and try to burrow into the bit of soil on the bottom. I knew the frog wouldn’t be able to get out of the pool on its own, so I tried leaning a stick across for it to climb. That seemed too light, so I tried a brick. That would have worked, but the poor little frog looked like it was having a hard time, so I managed to get it out. I don’t now now long it was stuck in there, but it was looking really tired as it tried to get away from my hands, eventually letting me lift it out. I think it was quite happy to be on solid ground again!
I left the brick in the pool, leaning against the side, just in case something else falls in. We’ll bail the pool out until it’s drained enough to tip over without breaking it, later.
I like frogs. We’ve been seeing them in the garden, quite a bit. :-)
One of the last things I checked this morning was the potatoes, and found another garden friend.
A pretty little ladybug, on a potato leaf.
I’m happy that most of what we’ve been finding among our plants have been beneficial critters, like frogs and ladybugs, and not the problem critters! Even the skunks are good for eating grubs that would otherwise be causing damage, and so far, other than a tulip, they’ve been digging in the lawn, which does just fine when the divots are put back later.
Now that the weather is turning again, we’ll have lots of work to catch up on in the garden. Especially weeding, but we also have one last bed to build for the cucamelons and the late sprouting gourds, along the chain link fence. We also have pink celery sprouts, but they were started so late, and are so tiny, I don’t know that they’ll ever be transplanted outdoors. We might be able to grow them in containers, though. Then they can be moved into the sun room in the fall, to give them a longer growing season. We shall see! I definitely want to get more seeds for next year, though, and start them indoors much earlier.
Here we are, so early in our gardening season, and I’m already thinking of next year’s garden! :-D
Yes!!!!! We managed to finish transplanting tonight!
I thought we might have to move beyond the squash tunnel, but since these will be trained to climb, we were able to plant them closer together than we normally would, and they all fit. Also, I was sure we had the little pumpkins to transplant. I was wrong. None of them germinated. We didn’t plant many to begin with, but I’d hoped to have at least one!
At the far end of the squash tunnel, we have 4 luffa vines on one side, and 3 dancing gourd on the other. Next to them are the two varieties of winter squash, and the two varieties of melon.
There are a lot more melons than anything else (I REALLY love melon!), and that’s even with several cups that never germinated. There are some cups with summer squash in them that never germinated, either, which is why we have only 15 transplants. We all really love summer squash, so we would have enjoyed more, but it’s still a bit more than we had last year.
Now that the squash tunnel’s transplants are in, they, and the summer squash, will be getting a mulch of straw as soon as we are able to get back to it. Then I’ve got to get those bottom cross pieces in, so we can attach the mesh for them to climb.
That done, it was time to finish the new corn block. I’d put a fairly deep layer of grass clippings down, first, so I wanted to put a fairly deep layer of soil. Plus, the garden soil tested high in nitrogen, which corn uses a lot of, so I wanted to make sure it had at least that for the transplants to start in.
After the soil was in place, I made a trench in each row to plant into, then thoroughly watered the trench with water from the rain barrel.
Doing the actual transplanting was rather cringe worthy. I keep hearing from others that corn doesn’t handle being transplanted well, their roots don’t like to be disturbed, and so on. At the same time, I have heard from zone 3 gardeners that only start corn from transplants and never had an issue. Still, I really would have loved for the toilet paper tube plan to have worked. I don’t know of anyone who has tried to grow Montana Morado in Canada, never mind in our province, nor can I find anything online about it, so this is all completely experimental.
The biggest, healthiest looking corn plants tended to be the ones were all 4 seeds in the cups germinated. Except for when they were taken outside to be hardened off, the cups with their drainage holes were all in a bin that had water on the bottom, so they could take up water from below. Which means that there were strong roots at the bottom of the cups, and with anything more than 2 plants in a cup, that meant having to tear the roots apart to separate them.
I am really, really hoping they survived this.
They are, however, all in! I even managed to get some in the little half row I wasn’t sure if I’d be using. I went ahead and planted the little ones, too. Considering they tended to be a single plant per cup, they might actually end up doing better!
Also, the flash makes it look darker than it actually was. I did still have enough light to see what I was doing.
After they were transplanted, I gave them a gentle watering with the hose. It was amusing to see a flashlight coming through the increasing darkness. My daughters hadn’t realized I’d stayed out to finish transplanting the corn, and one of them came out to check on me. :-D Which was handy, because that meant I had help putting things away. The washing of the cups and trays, however, will wait until tomorrow!
The only thing left to do with the corn is put a mulch in the paths between the rows. More to keep the new soil in place while watering than anything else.
Now that this is done, the girls and I can head into the city tomorrow, and I won’t be angsting over getting the transplants in the whole time we’re out! :-D
I’m tired and in a world of hurt – and really, really appreciating having my husband’s bath chair to use in the shower! – but I am very happy. :-)
The Re-Farmer 