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Furry things, pretty things and growing things

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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

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: corn, gourds, squash and melon transplants DONE!!

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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

Our 2021 garden: good news, bad news

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Just a quick post about what I found during my morning rounds, before I have to head out. It’s a bit of a mix!

Before I go into this morning, though, here is the progress I got last night in the new corn block.

I got about 2/3rds gone turning the sod before stopping for the night. It was past 10pm by then – the temperatures were lovely, but it was starting to get too dark! LOL I am hoping to get it done today. The corn really needs to be transplanted soon.

This is what greeted me this morning, when I came into the dining room.

Cheddar and Keith, enjoying the morning breeze while watching the birds outside. :-D The cats just LOVE this set up.

The door is secured with cord, just in case. Although it is locked, sometimes it simply pops open on its own. Which is not a problem when the inner door is closed, but would be kitty disaster otherwise!

After feeding the outside critters, I started taking the plants out of the sun room. One of our disappointments was that one tray with 3 different gourds in it had not germinated. Still, I kept them watered, and have started to take the tray outside, too. This is what I found this morning.

A single Ozark Nest Egg gourd has sprouted!

It’s way too late in the season, but when the time comes, it’ll be transplanted out and we’ll see how it does. Who knows. We might have a long summer this year.

Also, do you see all those seeds scattered about? They are EVERYWHERE!!! And this is why I’ve developed a hate-on for the Chinese Elm trees. We’re going to be fighting these in just about every single garden bed. :-(

While checking out the furthest garden beds, I had a bit of a disappointment.

Four Mongolian Giant sunflowers in one row had their heads chopped off. The one that had been eaten and pulled up before was in the other row, which originally had 13 transplants in it. This one had 11. So of the 24 we started with, we’re down to 19. At least the direct seeded ones are coming up, so we do have more. As long as they don’t get eaten, too!

My daughter and I had moved the trail cam over to this corner, but it’s not the wide angle camera, and I wasn’t sure if it caught this area at all. In fact, I was pretty sure it didn’t. So I shifted it and it now faces down the corn and sunflower blocks only.

When I checked the files, I found I was right. This row as off frame. I never saw what ate the leaves, but I did find this!

We had a raccoon pass through! Until now, the only evidence we had of raccoons here was the tip of a tail going past the camera when it was facing the tulips. It just wandered through, sniffing at some weeds.

The raccoon would not have been responsible for the sunflowers, though. I’m sure that was a deer. There was one other night time video, but whatever triggered the motion sensor was no longer in frame by the time it started recording. If a deer had jumped the fence nearby, it could have walked right past the camera and out of frame before it started recording. That’s the down side of setting it to video. It takes more time to start recording than just taking a still shot. I’m not using still because the shortest time delay between triggers is 15 seconds, regardless of whether it’s set to still or video. That’s a long gap, and much would get missed. At least with video, there’s that 15 seconds (or up to 1 minute, if I wanted to) of video to catch what’s going on.

Finding the damaged sunflowers was a disappointment, but I wanted to end this on a more positive note.

The honeysuckle bush in the old kitchen garden is looking amazing! It’s in full bloom, and absolutely dense in foliage and flowers. When we dug up along the house and laid down blocks and bricks to make a path, much of the soil that was dug up ended up around the bases of the honeysuckle and two rose bushes nearby. Between that and the extra watering they’ve been getting this year, they’re all looking better than ever. I’m very happy with how great they are doing this year! Even the little pink rose bush that got broken by something over the winter (likely a deer) is doing very well, after having the tree branch that was shading it pruned away, and a garden bed built up around it. There was just one stick of it left, but it’s now full of the biggest, healthiest leaves it’s had since we moved here!

So overall, we’ve had more increases than losses, so far! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: squash tunnel, day two

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Well, I’d hoped we could actually finish the squash tunnel today, or at least get the side cross pieces at the top done, but we didn’t get quite that far.

But, progress was still made.

Most importantly, we got the supports up in the post holes.

In refilling the post holes and tamping the soil down, a few of them did need to have more soil added. A good way to reduce some of the lumps in the old garden, left from when it was last plowed before we moved here.

It’s very… rustic looking. That’s a trend now, right? :-D

And no, that middle pole isn’t actually tilted. The tree it’s made from is bent. All the pieces are wonky in shape! :-D

It’s also still very flimsy right now. Joining them at the sides with cross pieces should fix that.

It was already starting to get hot by the time this was done, so we took advantage of the morning shade to transplant the Mongolian Giant sunflowers. It wasn’t until evening that I was able to work on the next step for the squash tunnel. I cut a total of 8 of the 16 cross pieces needed at 5’6″, then trimmed matching flat pieces at each end.

I also trimmed one side of the flattened ends a bit; just enough to have a narrow flat surface on what will be the top.

The flat parts are intended to butt up against the upright and the top cross piece. It will wait until tomorrow, but the plan is to screw the cross pieces to the upright, then add one more screw through the top cross piece, down into the side piece – and hopefully not hit another screw in the process. This should give it some more stability. The other 8 cross pieces will be attached a few inches from the bottoms, which should strengthen it even more, as well as provide a place to attach mesh for the vines to climb.

There are a couple of problems we need to figure out how to get around, to finish the job. We do have a cordless drill, but both batteries no longer hold a charge, and the company doesn’t make them anymore. Until we get around to buying a new one, we have several corded drills to choose from. Getting extension cords to reach this far, though… that’s going to take a bit! We have a pair of 100′ extension cords, which won’t reach reach from the outdoor outlet on the side of the house. I remember how far I could reach while using the electric weed trimmer, and three extension cords. We’ve since gotten more cords, so I think we’ll have enough to reach around the structure.

The next challenge is, we’re short. Well, except my husband, and he’s broken. ;-) To be able to drill a pilot hole through the stop cross piece will require clambering up and down a step ladder. For our gimpy household, that is somewhat risky!

But, it’ll need to be done. With this structure, we can’t get away with tying the cross pieces on with twine, like with the pea trellises.

With 5 uprights and 4 cross pieces per side, only two cross pieces can be placed up against the overhangs at the top, so each side will have two cross pieces mounted just under the other two. Which will hopefully also contribute to the stability. If that’s not enough, we’d have to add supports on the inside of the corners, and I really don’t want to get that finicky with a temporary structure.

We may not have finished the squash tunnel, but we accomplish other things, but that is for my next post! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: finished one area, started another

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Having slept in this morning, I was back in the garden far later than I intended, and it was already getting quite hot. Thankfully, I didn’t have a lot to do to finish the last corn block, and I got it done before the shade was gone.

It’s going to be a real challenge, gardening here. Especially the new blocks for the corn and sunflowers, since we ran out of materials to layer under the soil. Thanks to the rain we’ve had, we will be able to mow the lawn soon, so we will start having grass clippings to mulch with. That will help. Especially since, once the morning shade is gone, this area gets baked. Anything that helps keep the moisture and cool the soil will help!

The next thing to do was measure and mark off where the winter squash, melons and gourds will go.

This is next to the Dorinny corn. While I didn’t need to water anything this morning, it was so hot and windy today, that I watered things this evening. While watering the Dorinny corn, I actually saw corn sprouting!!! Just the very tips, breaking through the soil. I’m very excited to see them!

But I digress…

I measured the first row of flags to be 5 ft away from the corn bed; about 1 1/2 meters. After the soil is added – and whatever we manage to scrounge up to layer under it – there should be a path of 3 – 4 feet between the corn bed and the squash.

We are also going to need to clear out some roots. It looks small in the photo, but this is a partially exposed root in what will be the inside path of the squash tunnel. The girls had tried to take out what appeared to be a small poplar sapling, which are all over this area, only to find it was attached to a thick root. We just never got back to it with the tools needed to cut through the root.

Each flag marks where we will be digging post holes (hopefully, without having too many roots in the way!). The two rows are 5 ft apart, and the flags are 5 ft apart in each row. We will need 10 upright supports that are 7ft/2m long to get a squash tunnel that will be 6 ft high and 5 ft wide.

For that, we need building materials.

Which meant doing more clean up in the spruce grove.

That will get it’s own post, next!

The Re-Farmer

Dragging on

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Let’s talk about pleasant things, first!

Here is an adorable photo of Ginger for you. :-)

Doesn’t he look so sweet and peaceful?

Not at all like the mischievous bugger I had to stop from trying to attack one of the trunks of the big jade tree in the living room! :-D

I did very quick rounds this morning, since I had to head out early, but I did manage to check on the mulberry tree.

It clearly has handled being transplanted just fine!

It’s also doing very well with the cooler, wet weather we’re having right now.

I haven’t been able to get much done for the past couple of days, and not because of the weather.

Yesterday, I called the court office to make sure today’s court date was still on. As expected, with the long weekend, our provincial government increased restrictions even more than they did before Mother’s day. They don’t come into effect until midnight tonight, though, so…

Well, I could only leave a message, as there was no answer. I had to go to my mother’s, on a related matter, so I quickly headed out in the afternoon. Of course, that’s when I got a call back, but not with an answer to my question. I called back, left another message, but never heard from them by the end of the day.

Thankfully, my daughters were able to continue working on things in the garden while I waited for the call. There’s one area ready for one corn variety, then they began working on a trellis for the peas. The plan was to do more clean up in the spruce grove, and use the poplars we’re cutting down to make an sort of A frame on the existing supports, but we haven’t been able to work in that area at all, lately. So they decided to use what we’ve got now and made pegs to hold the twine we were going to attach to the frame, instead. They didn’t get to finish it before they had to come in as the temperature dropped, but it’ll be a while before the peas will be big enough to need the support. I didn’t get any photos yet.

I headed out to the courthouse this morning, leaving early enough to get some fuel and still have time for delays, like road construction (there was some, but just a short stretch) and meet with my brother, who booked the morning off work so he could be with me. We deliberately set a time to meet an hour before court was supposed to start. Just in case.

When we got there, I saw security guards, so that was hopeful. From previously visits to the building, there were security guards only when court was in session.

Well, not this time. It turned out they were there for the court office! The first guard we spoke thought that court had gone virtual, so he went into the office and talked to someone for us, then came back with a number for the crown office, in the bigger city, for us to call. While we were still talking to him, the woman he spoke to came out with a printout for him, and it said everything was delayed until June 18, because of the increased restrictions.

So my brother and I went to his car and I called the crown, only to be told they knew nothing about any virtual court dates; that would be with lawyers only, and the court office of the city we were in to schedule. She was quite frustrated when we told her we were just at the court office, and they told us to call the crown!

We went back to the court office. I wasn’t allowed to go in until I emptied my pockets and they scanned me with a metal detector, while I got the usual covid questions. I did get asked about my Mingle Mask, but when I said I was medically exempt, they were fine with it. My brother had to quickly dash back to his car while I went in (only one person allowed into the court office at a time, anyhow). When I asked about the virtual court session, she told me only lawyers could call in to those (?!?!?!), but that they weren’t doing restraining orders, anyhow. After we talked for a bit, she got my name and the name of our vandal to look up our file. She remembered talking to someone about it and asked if I’d called a couple of weeks ago. I had not. I called yesterday. It had to have been our vandal. Or, more likely, his wife. My voice may be low, but not low enough to be mistaken for our vandal! She then went to look things up while I went to wait in the lobby.

Shortly after, my brother got back and, even though we were only going to wait in the lobby, the security guards still had to scan him, and we both got our temperature checked on our wrists.

When the woman came out again, she told me she’d got through to our vandal’s lawyer, and he agreed to a court date of July 9 – if the courts are open then.

Our vandal’s vindictive civil suit against us is scheduled for July 12.

*sigh*

I do, however, now have the name and phone number for our vandal’s lawyer – something I should have had long ago, but it’s not like anything it working the way it’s supposed to right now. The worst of this is that this is for a retraining order. It’s a safety issue for us, and it just keeps getting delayed. This is now the fifth time!

She said that, if I chose to, I could call the lawyer myself and potentially work something out privately and bypass the courts completely.

Well, I suppose that’s an option, but I really don’t think there’s anything our vandal would agree to that didn’t involve completely dropping the whole thing. Considering that he’s still calling my mother with his bizarre rants about how we’re all laughing at him, his mental state is clearly a concern.

So that was another wasted morning – and another day my brother booked off work that was wasted, too. At least we were finished early enough that he could still make a meeting.

*sigh*

I made sure to call my mother before I headed home, because I knew she’s be concerned. As you can imagine, she wasn’t happy, either, but is having a hard time understanding why the court office isn’t calling us to let us know about the cancellations. It’s almost as if she thinks ours is the only case they’ve got, or that there are very few of them. Meanwhile, they probably had a couple dozen files or more, just on this morning’s docket, all cancelled. The extra frustration is that they DO call the lawyers (more likely just their firms, really), so there’s a sort of two tier justice system. People who can afford lawyers (or are willing to go into debt for one) and those who can’t. Though to be honest, it’s always been like that, so nothing’s really changed, there.

Once I got home, I contacted my LegalShield firm. That membership has more than paid for itself! It’s been so long, the file was actually closed, but it was reopened, and the lawyer assigned to my file will call me. Given that today is the Friday before a long weekend, I don’t expect to hear from him until Tuesday. It’s possible our membership will cover some action between our lawyer and our vandal’s.

I also looked up our vandal’s lawyer. There is a Canadian website that lists all lawyers, and I found his profile – with no photo, and a different phone number from what I have. It listed him as “in good standing” and included the name of a firm. I looked up the firm, which was not linked from the profile, which turns out to specialize in criminal defense. This lawyer was not listed on their website. It’s not even a matter of there being more than one person with the same name. The guy has a somewhat unique surname, and only one in Canada showed up in my search. This is also not the same lawyer or firm our vandal has worked with before. I wouldn’t be surprised if they found a way to drop him from their case load. Still, it all comes across as very strange.

So now I wait for a call back from my lawyer. We’re also somewhat stuck indoors today. We’re getting actual rain right now. From the weather radar, the worst of the weather will be hitting the southern regions of our province, but it’s big enough that we’re getting at least some much needed precipitation. We might even get some of the storms they’re predicting to happen overnight, though I doubt it. What has been happening, though, is repeated loss of our internet. As I am writing this paragraph, we have no internet connection at all. Again. Hopefully, we’ll get enough of a connection that I can publish this, soon!

Traditionally, a lot of people put their gardens in on the May long weekend, but from the looks of the weather this year, few people will. Particularly those living closer to the Rockies, where they have been getting snow! From the zone 3 gardening groups I’m on, quite a few people had taken the chance and started transplanting outdoors, and are now struggling to save their gardens. Thankfully, everything we’ve planted so far is frost hardy. They should be okay, even without being covered. Hardning off our transplants is getting delayed, though I can at least open the inner door to the sun room. Between the screened window of the outer door, and the ceiling fan, the seedlings will get exposed to differing temperatures and some wind. Rotating the bin the purple corn and giant sunflower seedlings are in seems to have made a difference, too. The sunflowers that were looking all floppy and leggy, yesterday, are now standing tall under the lights. That’s encouraging. Now, if only the purple sunflowers would start germinating!!!

Oh, our internet is back! Time to see if I can publish this before the signal is lost again…

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: first corn block and mulberry are planted!

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My goal for this morning was to get the soil over to where we’re planting the Dorinny corn, before things got too hot. Normally, I don’t have breakfast until after I’m done my morning rounds, but I cut those short to quickly eat before I started hauling dirt. I probably should not have taken the time to eat, first! I got just over two rows done before I had to go inside. I couldn’t believe how quickly it got so hot!!

I didn’t get back to it until well into evening. While one daughter took care of the evening watering, and the other helped me prepare the corn block, things went much faster, too.

Once the soil was in place, my daughter dragged the hose over to give it a soak, while my other daughter and I checked out different locations and decided on where to plant the mulberry tree. It’s going in the strip between the garage and the road. Since we’ve already started cleaning up there, this spot will have the full sun it needs, while still being surrounded by enough mature trees to protect it from the harsher winds. We found a little cedar there, when we first started cleaning up in the area. Like the mulberry, it is not a zone 3 three. Nothing has been done to protect it over the winter, but it has survived, though it’s still very small. This, at least, tells me that the mulberry will have a chance of making it, in this location.

After picking a spot and raking away the thatch, my daughter started digging and immediately hit a huge root!!

So we moved the hole over a bit. :-D

While she dug the hole, I got the mulberry sapling, along with the rest of the pre-soaked peat we still had in the sun room, and a bucket of water. When I got back to my daughter, she had already hit gravel and was struggling to get out a larger rock. Between me with the spade and her with a trowel, we managed to get it out. Thankfully, it turned out to be wide and flat, which made it much easier to get out. Of course, for some reason, it got moved and didn’t end up in the picture. :-/

We certainly won’t have to worry about drainage here. Like everywhere else, there wasn’t a lot of topsoil. After that, it’s gravel.

We filled half the hole with the damp peat, added more water, planted the sapling with more peat, and placed a pair of bamboo stakes beside it for supports. The soil was returned and the cardboard packing material the mulberry came in, including what was keeping the root ball damp, was placed as a mulch. We even put the bigger rocks around to help keep things in place. Then I wrapped some cord around the sapling and the supports. Hopefully, this will also make sure no deer will eat it! I also picked the yellow rope deliberately. I’ve read that using ordinary yellow rope like this, strung in a rope fence around a garden, has worked to keep deer out, even though they can easily get by it. Apparently, there’s something about the yellow rope they don’t like. I figure it’s worth a try to use it, since I happened to find some in the sun room. If not the colour, then the stakes, should act as a deterrent.

By this time, my daughter that was watering things had brought the hose over as close as she could. We gave the mulberry a final watering – and then watered the cedar, too! Since we’ll be tending the mulberry now that it’s here, we’ll take the time to tend the cedar, too. Later on, I’ll bring some garden soil to place around both of them.

While I stayed to water things, my daughters put things away for the night, but I decided to go ahead and plant the Dorinney corn tonight, rather than wait until tomorrow.

After setting the seeds in water to soak, I used the handle of a trowel to make holes about a foot apart. Though my daughter had been able to set the sprinkler over the area for some time, the soil was still pretty dry further down, so I used a watering can to give the rows a deep soak before planting the seeds.

By deciding to put the soil over the grass clippings mulch, instead of the chopped straw, we lost a row – and it turned out there were enough seeds in the packet to need it! Since I’d soaked all the seeds, and I didn’t want them to go to waste, I made another row, instead. Once all the seeds were planted, I gave them another watering.

By then, the water barrel was needing a refill, so I set up the hose and hung around while it filled.

I got company.

Rolando Moon came for a visit today! I haven’t seen her in about a week, but this evening, she decided to keep us company. She even joined us while we were planting the Mulberry tree – and kept trying to drink the dirty water! At least here, she’s drinking the clean water that’s in the watering can. It’s kept filled, so it doesn’t blow away, and she had her head stuck right into the opening. Silly girl! :-D

With the corn planted here, we are done with the early planting, until the potatoes come in next week! Since those are going into grow bags, there are no beds to prepare for them. Everything else doesn’t get planted until after June 2.

As for the other garden beds, the girls checked under the plastic covering the beets and carrots in the old kitchen garden and saw sprouts, so those got taken off. The lettuces are also coming up; the seedlings are still tiny, but big enough that we can be sure they are lettuce sprouts, and not weeds! LOL My daughter planted her Black Form Iris near the poppies, which is right along where she planted her other irises in the fall. I was also able to confirm that we are seeing pea sprouts in all three beds. Just a couple, here and there, but they are clearly not weeds that have made their way through the straw and soil. There are some of those, too!

Looking at the long range forecast, we’re going to keep getting hotter for the next few days, then the temperatures will drop down to a more sane level for the last couple of weeks of May. If those temperatures keep steady through to June, there will be no frosts at all. Still, we will wait. We will use that time to finish preparing the other beds. The climbers will be doing in a bed next to the corn that was planted today; this is where we will be building a squash arch. It looks like the only gourds will be including there will be the dancing gourds and luffa, as there is still no germination in the other three types of gourds. It looks like we’ll have plenty of Halona melons to transplant. I’m seeing quite a few sunburst squash have germinated, but not very many of the other summer squash yet. I’m really excited by how quickly the Mongolian Giant sunflowers and Montana Morado corn have germinated! There are so many things sprouting in the sun room, it’s going to be a challenge hardening them all off at the same time. I’ve got the platform set up where the cats won’t get them, but there’s not that much room on it. We’ll have to work something else to use as well.

What an excellent problem to have. ;-)

Our 2021 garden: asparagus is in!

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Well, it hasn’t really cooled down all that much, but I wanted to at least get the asparagus planted.

The first thing was set the crowns to soak in water before covering the cardboard with a layer of soil, and laying out the sod around the edges to make a sort of wall to support the height of the bed. The base got a very thorough watering. Then we mixed a load of soil with peat, thoroughly soaking it in the wheelbarrow while mixing it with a spade.

That took a while. :-D

The wet peat mixture was used to create the hills for the crowns. They’re supposed to be planted 2 feet apart. With the bed being longer than 6 feet, they were staggered a bit.

They look a bit like facehuggers. :-D

The crowns were then covered with a rather deep layer of soil, and a light layer of mulch. From what I’ve read, they may need more soil added later.

We will have to make a point of watering it deeply over the next while, just to get the top layer wet through to the crowns. Wetting it in layers should help prevent them from drying out until that’s accomplished.

It’s past 8pm as I write this, and we are finally starting to cool down again. I’m going to see if I can get to bed before 3am for a change. I tried to do that yesterday, and ended up still wide awake at 4am. *sigh* Anyhow, I’d like to get out earlier in the day to continue working on the block for the corn.

Meanwhile, the girls and I have been talking about finding a different permanent spot for the mulberry. One of the best suggestions was to plant it along the north side of the big garden; we intend to plant fruit and nut trees in most of this area anyhow, so why not start now? Then I remembered that the location we were talking about has buried telephone wires somewhere in there. I had tried contacting the phone company about the location and was given the contact information for the Call Before You Dig organization. I ended up sending them an email with our longitude and latitude.

I’ve discovered why people have such a hard time finding our place in the process.

I tried several different map sites to pinpoint our location, but our physical address would not work. I finally just found us manually, and discovered that the road that goes past our place is not labelled. At all. This road has two names; one is the numerical grid number, and the other is my family name. Neither are on the maps.

All but one of the stop signs along our road with the name on them have disappeared. There had been one on one of the stop signs at the intersection near our garden, but not long after we moved here, someone broke the stop sign and the street sign on it disappeared. I am pretty sure this was no accident, since this happened after our first falling out with our vandal, but whatever. The road number was on the other stop sign, so it’s still there. I’d asked about having the road signs with the name replaced at all the intersections that are missing, but I think the councilor I spoke to (who also happens to be the guy renting most of this property) forgot about it. Anyhow. Now that I know that the road that runs past our driveway is unlabelled on any of the maps, I’ll have to find out how to get that fixed.

Meanwhile, I’ve not heard back from the Call Before You Dig people.

Until we do, we’ll avoid planting trees along that strip. There’s already a self sown chokecherry tree there. Those don’t get very big, so we should be able to leave it. The mulberry, however, gets much bigger, so we’ll have to think again about where to put it. It needs to go into the ground right away, so we can’t dilly dally about the decision!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: old kitchen garden, part two

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Part One here.

After the girls finished planting the Strawberry Spinach, they went ahead and spaced out the concrete blocks to they would run from end to end across the garden. The gaps in between were fairly large, so they had the idea of filling them with bricks and brought a bunch over.

I liked the idea, so I ran with it. With a bit of adjustment on some blocks, I could fit three bricks in between each block. Then, because we have them, I used only red and white bricks, alternating with 2 red and 1 white, them 1 red and 2 white. Soil needed to be added under them, so they would be the same height (more or less) as the blocks.

That done, I finished filling the space against the wall with larger rocks. I ran out, so I took the wagon to various spots around the old garden, where rocks had been pulled out and left against trees or posts, etc. Once those were in, small rocks were added. When I ran out of those, I just walked around the garden with the wagon, picking them as I went along, and had more than I needed in no time at all. The hard part was not picking too many bigger rocks, because I had nowhere to put them.

Once that was done, I filled gaps between the bricks with soil, and pushed more soil up against the blocks and bricks, then used a hose to clean them off. This is how it looked when it was done.

The path is uneven and lumpy, but it serves its purpose!

Of course, the cats were already using the dirt as litter. *sigh*

We haven’t even finished clearing that soil of roots, and it’s sitting on soil that wasn’t loosened. The next step will be to spread the piles of soil out, taking out as many roots as we can. At least we got what I think are the last of the big roots out. They were all under where the blocks and rocks are, and spreading away from the house, so they were getting smaller as they got further out. The ground slopes slightly downward from the house, which is why we added the retaining wall. We’ll be building up more soil at the wall, to level things off a bit, so shifting this soil downwards will just help with that.

This is what we cleared out so far. They will go into the burn barrel, since much of this is from invasive plants. We’re under a fire ban, but burn barrels should still be okay. I’ll have to check, first.

There will be another path running through roughly the center of the garden, towards the retaining wall. We have more of those concrete blocks. There were two stacks, but I found more, half buried under grass and weeds. I think we have at least 5 more of them out there. Maybe more. Hard to say what we’ll find once we start moving things!

Then we can start adding new garden soil, and finally start planting in some sections. There are flowers on the north side of the garden that I want to dig up and split, but I’m not sure where I want to put them yet. Then there are those flowers my mother now wants me to keep (I checked before I started laying cardboard down that first summer, and she’d told me there was nothing she wanted to keep. The next summer, she changed her mind!). In the photos, you can easily see them, as they’re the only green in there right now. They are invasive, but pretty, so I want to transplant some into a contained space, then get rid of the rest to free up garden space. Or maybe I’ll find someplace to plant them as a ground cover. We’ll see.

Long term, this will be our kitchen garden, and will have a combination of herbs and quick growing vegetables and greens, nice and handy for quick picking as needed. It will be a challenge, with the two big ornamental apple trees, the double lilac, the honeysuckle, and the roses. There’s a rose that was struggling, but actually bloomed last year, after we pruned the tree above it. It’s a lovely pink rose – and it got broken! I think by a deer. I’d like to transplant it somewhere where it can get full sun. The white roses are lovely, but remarkably invasive. Then there are those vines that keep making their way through the mulch and spreading!

We’ll work it out slowly, over the next few years. For now, the poppies will go in the corner near the new path, and the lettuces will go along the west end, where they will be lightly shaded by the trees for much of the day. We’ll see what else we can fit in, if needed.

For now, I’m really wishing we had a hot tub. Or one of those tubs for old people, with a door and a seat. I could really use a hot soak, but if I try to take a bath, I am not sure I’d be able to get up again without help. Being broken sucks! :-D I’ll just have to borrow my husband’s bath chair and take a not shower, instead.

Getting a hot tub really would be a good idea. It would be very therapeutic for my husband’s back, too! Not that we have anywhere to put one right now. I’m sure we could figure it out, though!

All in good time. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: got them done, thanks to a new “toy”

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I was going to have to head into town this afternoon, so I made sure to get out and continue working on the garden beds as early as I could.

I didn’t think to take a picture until after I’d hauled loads of soil onto one of the beds. Before I started on the soil, I made sure to soak down all the straw again.

Note the pile of soil in the background for later. ;-)

After leveling the soil and wetting it down, I decided to go through the piles of wood from when we had the power lines and roof cleared and lay the thinner pieces I could find around the bed. We weren’t going to do that originally, but we paid for that soil; I didn’t want to end up walking on it, and it was starting to run down the sides with the watering.

Filling this bed took at least a dozen wheelbarrow loads of soil, and it took me all morning. Which is when I threw in the towel. There was no way we could keep this up. We would just have to bite the bullet, go through the budget, and see what we could afford for a new wheelbarrow. I checked online and a local hardware store had two options in our budget in stock. So one of my daughters and I headed into town and made our first stop at the hardware store.

When I came in, I went straight to a clerk. When I told them I’d looked online and found something it said they had in stock, the clerks just started shaking their heads, saying that didn’t mean they actually did! LOL I had the link on my phone and read off about the one I hoped to get. Again, I just got head shaking! They had no wheelbarrows at all. Then they suggested I go to the place were I got my baby chainsaw. The two businesses are linked. The hardware store’s building is just too small to have much inventory, so for a lot of the bigger things, it’s all at this other place.

So we went there, and they had only 3 wheelbarrows in stock, in 2 sizes! I got the bigger one, at 5 cubic feet. It was smaller than the one I hoped to get, but it was still bigger than what we had, and 2/3rds the price of what I had in mind, so I wasn’t going to complain!

Here’s our new toy, next to the little wheelbarrow we’ve been using the most.

When we moved here, we found two wheelbarrows kicking around. This is the problem with the little red one we’ve been using the most.

It looks like someone jerry rigged a wheel that’s the wrong size. The axle is bent. It continually loosens, but if it’s tightened too much, it doesn’t turn as well because of the bent axle. Basically, it makes hauling the soil much, much more strenuous than it should be!

It’s been used so much, the bottoms of the legs are worn away!

It’s still sound, overall, so I’m thinking we could probably replace the wheel assembly and get more use out of it.

The other, larger wheelbarrow is not worth fixing.

The barrow has holes in the bottom, and the end is bent up. The metal is very thin, too. Though larger, it can’t handle as much soil as the little one.

You can see one of the holes in this picture, too! :-D I haven’t been able to tighten this wheel, as it’s too rusted. I have a spray I can use to loosen it up, but it’s really not worthy the time and effort. Structurally, the frame on this one is a lot weaker, too. It’s fine if we want to use it to haul straw or something, but using it to haul soil was really pushing it’s capabilities!

In starting the next bed, I put logs around the sides before I started hauling soil. It made it more awkward to dump the soil, but it worked out better. Here is how it looked when done, but before being wet down.

I was having a hard time finding shorter logs for the ends, and ended up using the comically large piece of maple. :-D

Finishing this bed went SO much faster than the one next to it! What a difference it made to have a wheelbarrow with a good wheel on it! :-D Though I didn’t fill it completely with each load, it still took fewer trips to fill the bed.

That done, we put logs around the last two beds that needed soil. By then, we were rifling through 3 different piles of logs, trying to find suitable pieces. Most were cut to about the same length, but we were running out of the thinner ones. Finding short ones for the ends took a bit of creativity. We do actually have a whole stack of shorter ones, but they are all way too big around.

Once we managed to find enough logs to frame the beds, we started adding the soil.

And they’re done!!! Six beds, ready for planting!

We’ll probably add logs around the first two, at some point.

Notice the pile of soil in the background?

We haven’t used half the pile yet, but we’re pretty close! I’m rather please with how much is left!

Now that these beds are done, there are no others that need to have such a deep layer of soil added over such a wide area. I did measure the beds, and they are roughly 3 – 3 1/2 ft wide by about 15 ft long. (About 1m x 4.5m) Plus the width of the logs, which is variable. When we build our high raised beds, Hugelkultur style, those logs will be on the bottom of the beds. :-) With the dimensions we have now, the permanent beds will be pretty much exactly where the current beds are.

The weather forecasts have been changing pretty much every day, with the predicted warm days being pushed further and further back. We should still be able to plant something in these beds right away, though.

Our onion starts are still in the process of hardening off.

I found a way to keep them away from the cats. We still have the broken frame of my daughter’s market tent (if we could replace the piece that broke, I would be very happy, as it was a very excellent tent), so I used that to hold the puck board cut to cover the old basement window over the winter. The outside cats have shown no interest in the set up.

Those are the last of the onions we grew from seed; I’m hoping we’ll still have some salvageable red bunching onions. While in town today, I noticed onion sets and checked them out, and was very happy to find sets for shallots! It’s only a dozen per pack (I got 2 packs), but that’s okay.

Along with the transplants, we now have sets for the shallots and yellow onions, with sets for red onions to arrive in the mail this week. Once they’re in, the transplants should be hardened off enough, and we can plant all our onions.

Now that these beds are done, the only area we need to work on for things that need to be planted right away is the old kitchen garden. We’ll be using the soil from the other pile. While the one in the old garden area is closer, it would require going over the roughest part of the crappy plow job, and through the maple grove. The distance to the other pile is all nice and flat, with only a gate to go through. I’ll take a longer, smooth trip over a shorter, bumpy one, any day!

But that is a job for tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer