Today, we’ve had rain off and on throughout, with a brief period where the sun actually came out. As I write this, we are under a severe thunderstorm alert, which is a whole lot better than the tornado alerts other areas were getting. Large swaths to the south and west of us got storm damage and at least one tornado touching down. We are very fortunate in our location. Even today, I could hear thunder, but all the storms went around us. Our weird climate bubble has protected us again!
I did get a chance to do my morning rounds, if a bit on the late side, in between rain. I was able to harvest more scapes.
At this rate, I’ll have enough to dehydrate a bunch, which will then be ground to a powder. I did that last year and it was the handiest thing ever!
Some time back, I had moved the seed tray of winter squash, melons and cucumber off the portable greenhouse frame and set it in the open on our front steps. I don’t know why I bothered, and yet…
The first image is of a Golden Hubbard seedling from the second sowing that finally germinated. The second image is a Canary Yellow melon.
Yes, I’ll transplant them somewhere, even though the chances they will produce fruit that reaches maturity is very low. Especially the Hubbard squash, which needs 95-110 days for maturity. The melon needs 80 days. We have maybe 70 days before our average first frost. Still, we have had years where we didn’t get frost until well into November. This year is supposed to have a Super El Nińo which, in our region, usually translates into heat waves and drought.
I actually poked around in the seed starting mix in the tray, and it looks like we will actually have more things popping up!
Yes, I will transplant anything that does. Chances of them reaching maturity may be low, but possible. I’d rather give them the chance. It certainly doesn’t hurt to try.
This afternoon, during that brief period we had sunshine, I got out the shake and feed fertilizer we picked up during our Costco trip. The instructions say to work the granules into the top couple of inches of soil, but that’s not really an option. Especially with the mulched beds. So I just scattered it. This stuff can also be applied in water. Between the rain we’ve been having and watering the garden in between, the plants will get something out of it. The granules are supposed to be a slow release over 3 months. Every little bit will be a help.
We shall see soon enough, I guess!
Meanwhile, I finally got around to editing the garden tour video I took on the last day of spring. I got one of my daughters to watch the video when I was done to check for any errors I missed or let me know if anything should be fixed or changed. When I messaged them to ask if one of them could come down, my older daughter was able to do it.
Apparently, it’s hilarious. She burst out laughing several times. Mostly because of the cats, but a few other things, as well. I wasn’t trying to be funny, which is probably why it actually was. It just finished uploading onto YouTube, so here it is now!
The storms that hit last night were absolutely brutal.
Thankfully, we seem to have escaped most of it, but there is massive damage to the south of us. Highways were flooded over, and people shared images of cars with nothing but the top of the roof showing, along them. One of the highways we regularly take to the city has been shut down due to flood damage. One person reporting a sink hole the size of a car. Others posted pictures showing chunks of road missing. The highway and weather groups I follow were constantly posting warnings. Funnel clouds were scene, and there has been serious damage in the city. Parts of the province are without power and will probably remain so for another day, at least.
I was up by 4am and already getting notifications and started to message with my brother about highway conditions. Thankfully, where they now live hasn’t had any flooding or major damage, that we know of so far. My husband’s sister is in one of the areas without power, and says there are a lot of downed trees.
Once it was light enough out, I went outside to check on things, fully expecting to find more dead trees had fallen, or at least lots of broken branches.
I found neither!
We were expecting an assessor from the insurance company my brother hopes to switch to this afternoon, so I made sure to open the gate while I was doing my rounds. The mostly filled in and grown over pond in the old hay yard, near that gate, was singing loudly!
There were SO many frogs, and they were so very loud!
Along with checking around the outer yard, in the barn and around my brother’s equipment, I made sure to check the garden beds. Amazingly, they were all just fine. No damage at all! The netting, etc. on almost all the beds protected them from hail, and the collars protected delicate transplants and new sprouts from high winds.
In the image after the brief video above, you can see the nice new leaves showing on the Manchurian walnut! Checking the Black walnut, one of them doesn’t seem to have survive the winter, but the others are leaving out nicely. In the last image, you can see the two rows I direct sowed recently, with the re-seeded row of Daikon radish seedlings on the left, and red noodle beans on the right. Both of them germinated so very quickly!
I was also looking around to see how the yard cats were doing. They seem to have all been able to take shelter and were looking downright content.
I have been catching Sprig on the netting over this bed repeatedly, leaning against it and squishing the garlic. So I moved the hoops from being in the soil to jamming them into the wattle weave as best I could – the ends kept trying to go completely through. This raised the net high enough to make more room for the garlic and dwarf peas – and it turns out to be able to support the weight of Sprig, too!
In the next image, you can see Misha – a beautiful furry flower among the roses, being very nervous because I was getting too close.
In the next image, I caught Curtis, mid yawn! He, Bug and The Grink have been cuddling together a lot lately.
I got the last picture of Colby – mid yawn! – later in the afternoon. He is such a beauty!
I managed to get some weed trimming done around the house. I hoped to get more done, as we’re expecting more rain tonight. I only had two fully charged batteries, though, and it took more time and effort than usual. The Chinese Elm seeds have been drifting against the edges that I needed to trim, and the driving rain packed them into solid masses. In some places, I had to get the stiff bristle yard broom out to clear the stuck masses of seeds away before I could even try to trim the edges. There was a lot of starting and stopping, as I also had to move things around to get under or around them. In some places, I had to break out the pruning shears to trim things too thick or strong for the weed trimmer line.
One thing that didn’t happen today. The insurance company assessor didn’t make it. My brother had contacted her to tell her not to use a particular highway, but suggested a different one. At first, she said it would be okay, but after that she must have heard more damage reports and wanted to reschedule to Monday. That’s when the funeral is, though, so it was instead rescheduled to tomorrow morning. Which doesn’t make much sense to me, because not a lot will change overnight. Especially with more rain on the way. We’ve also got a prescription delivery tomorrow. We don’t actually know what the conditions of the gravel roads are, other than what’s immediately around us. What is immediately around us is fine, and there’s only a couple of sections that might be of concern if there was flooding. Based on what I can see so far, though, I don’t think there would have been any flooding. Our own ditches and driveway would be a lot fuller, if it got to that point.
As I’m writing this, I can hear thunder. We’re expected to get rain roughly and hour from now, for about an hour, then more rain is supposed to be from about 5am to noon tomorrow.
The assessor is supposed to come at around 10. She’s supposed to walk around the property to look at the house and outbuildings from the outside, and the scheduled time slot is for 2 hours.
Hmmm… We’ll see if she even makes it at all. I expect our gravel roads are fine, but if she’s coming from the city, from what I’m hearing, there is plenty of damage and debris on the other two highways she could take to come out here. From what I can see on the highways map, a couple of intersections are closed down due to flooding (unlike the many miles shut down on the highway nearest us), while other small sections are marked as “incidents”, stating water on the road and proceed with caution.
I’m chatting with my brother as I write this. He says he is thinking of cancelling the assessment outright for now.
That might be a good idea. After the upcoming rain, who knows how much worse it will be! We don’t have tornado warnings anymore, but do have warnings for flash flooding and hail.
Which reminds me. I’ve heard nothing from the garage about my truck. It’s entirely possible either mechanics couldn’t make it into work, or they’ve been deluged with vehicles damaged by hail, debris or flooding. Or both.
We’re oddly relieved that it broke down when it did!
Okay, that thunder is a lot closer. I think it’s time to shut down my computer, just in case!
For anyone else under this weather system, be safe out there!
Today, my daughters took care of the morning routine, so I could sleep in, though “sleeping in” is rather different as the days get brighter so early now, and breakfast waiting for me.
I headed outside to take care of something and ended up staying out to get a few things done. One of those was to clean up under the green house frame, move it out and tiny up.
I think the cats are okay with losing their winter shelter.
The first image above is Fluffy (spayed), sleeping in the straw under the mock orange, which has become a favourite napping spot for her. We have huge progress with her. Yesterday, while I was coming around the north side of the old kitchen garden, she actually came running towards me, coming to a stop on a retaining wall block and waited for me to come over and pet her. After I got the picture above, I was able to walk up to her and pet her, and she stayed all curled up. Until recently, while she would sometimes allow pets while eating, she would otherwise not allow us to approach her. I would sometimes manage to sneak pets, but that was about it. Now, I can just walk up to her to pet her.
The second image is Sprig, in what seems to be a favourite napping spot for her. I have a giant crocheted blanket I left on the kibble house roof over the winter as extra insulation. I’ve left it there because it’s heavy enough to not be blown away by the wind, and the cats enjoy sleeping on it.
Sprig is more feral, though not as feral as her mother. Sprig hangs out close to the house and in the sun room, whereas her mother goes elsewhere until it’s feeding time, and runs off if we come to close.
While I was watering late this morning, I heard a cat fight that was a real surprise for me. Judgement, who is neutered, was violently attacking Sprig, who is intact and has not gone into her first heat. (We really need to trap her!!!) He is about twice her size and probably more than twice her weight. Why he would attack her like that, I just can’t understand!
The third picture shows where the portable greenhouse frame was, and you can just see part of Sprig, on the kibble house roof, in the photo. I had to wrestle part of the frame loose from the tall grass draped over one end before I could move it. For now, it’s set up next to the shrine, against the chain link fence. It barely fits between the shrine and the white lilacs there, and blocks one end of the path, but it will not stay there permanently. I just had to get it out of the way. Once the frame was clear, I raked up the straw and dead grass that was under it, into the wheelbarrow. It’s been pooped in by cats, so it can’t be reused as mulch or go into the regular compost, so it went to the cat litter compost pile. The pots I’d tried growing luffa in were also thoroughly pooped in, so I emptied the soil into the wheelbarrow, too, and it went into the litter compost, too.
One of the pots somehow ended up with a hole cracked into the side, with a chunk missed. I’ve no idea how that could have happened, in that location!
The rotting wooden bench that I’d had against the back of the tarp to reduce billowing in the wind is now set up against the back of the kibble house. The wire mesh frame, now leans against it, resting on broken pieces of brick so it doesn’t have contact with the ground. That was made to be a summer “door” for the old basement, so we can keep it open for air circulation in the summer, and no cats can get down. Once things get warm enough, we might do that again. For now, it’s nowhere near warm enough.
Last of all, I move the folding table up to the kibble house, and all the pots and bins, and even the black garbage can I was using as a heat sink, fit under the table.
That scrap yarn crocheted blanket on the table is even heavier than the one on the kibble house roof!
Today’s watering has finally included the main garden beds, as I now have enough hoses set up to reach them all. I found a lovely surprise. High winds had blown the leaf mulch over the onions and the row I’d planted peas, so I gently removed it as I watered, and made the discovery.
They had already sprouted when I first removed the mulch, looking rather blanched from being buried by mulch. Then we got those ridiculously cold days and it seems that they had all been killed off. I even ordered more seeds, since there weren’t a lot in the packet of this variety, so I had no extra seeds to try again. Now, it looks like the peas have recovered and sent up new shoots!
Still no sign of the rainbow mix carrots, though. Under the boards was still damp, but the only sprouts I’m seeing are a few tentative weeds. With those, I do have more seeds, I believe, so it can be resown, if it turns out they didn’t survive the spring.
Their tips were blanched when I removed the mulch, and those tips did get damaged by frost, but now you can’t even tell where the damage it. A couple of them needed a bit of help, though. Their leaves were suck in a membrane that would normally have been the cover of the stem at the base, just above ground. It was already starting to split, just from the size of the leaves, but they were getting all twisted out of shape, so I carefully got them free. They’ll be standing straight in no time.
There’s no sign of the spinach or yellow chard, but it may be too soon to tell. It’s been too dry. Now that I’m able to, I’ll be watering them daily, so if anything survive the temperature lurches we’ve been having all spring, we should see something soon. There’s no sign of poppies yet, either, but I don’t expect to, yet. The plot does show evidence of cats walking all over it, though, so that might be a problem. I was also able to water the Albion everbearing strawberries that have survived the winter.
I’ll need to hook up more hoses, so I can fill the water barrel out by the plum, gooseberry and haskap. the gooseberry’s leaf buds are starting to unfurl already, but I can barely see the haskap at all. I’d be concerned they got eaten by deer during the winter, but I never saw any tracks around there. The snow was too deep. Hopefully, if I can start watering them, they’ll perk up and start budding leaves. The plum seems to be okay and is starting to show leaf buds. The plum still has chicken wire around the tall dollar store tomato supports I set up around it, after the deer got to it a couple of times last year.
I intend to get more of those supports. They are really handy. I might even use them for tomatoes at some point. 😄
According to the forecast, we might get some rain in a couple of hours, but only a 35% chance of it, so I’m glad I did the watering. What rain we got yesterday really wasn’t much at all.
After moving the portable greenhouse frame, I noticed that the white lilacs are starting to spread into the path, toward the chimney block planters, quite a lot. Normally, I’d prune them back, but I remembered that the renter’s wife had said she would like to have white lilacs, so I messaged her today, telling her she can gab as many suckers as she wants. She accepted the offer. Once she has an area prepped, she will come over and dig them up. I just asked her to let me know when she’s going to come, so I can water the area the day before, to make it easier to dig them up and transplant them. This is the perfect time of year to transplant them, since their leaf buds are just starting to form. Once she has taken as many as she wants, I’ll prune away any other suckers remaining.
Yesterday, I’d been hearing heavy equipment and the sound of cattle and thought they might have been moved to this quarter. I asked about it, since our basket will are going to be shipped at the end of May, and I’ll be transplanting them beyond the outer yard. I’ll have to make sure they are protected from the cows for the first few years. It’ll be about 5 years of coppice training before they produce useable switches, but I can use any sprigs cut away and plant them. Which means that, every year, there should be at least a few more new basket willows started. There are two more varieties I want to try, with differently coloured bark. I’d hoped to order them for this year, too, but the budget did not allow for it. Too many truck and plumbing repairs!
I got through to the septic guy today and he will be coming out tomorrow morning. I should still be here, but will probably be leaving early to go to the post office before it closes for 2 hours over the lunch period, so I might end up leaving before he’s done. Which is okay; the payment is already ready and waiting for him. Tracking information shows my new walker is now in the city, which means is should get to the post office tomorrow morning, even though it still says Wednesday for delivery. A friend suggested I could get a note from a doctor about it, which would allow us to claim it on my medical insurance. I should be able to get that done by the doctor at the sports injury clinic during my appointment.
Things are looking very calm outside right now. I think, after I feed the outside cats for the night, I might get a fire going in the pit and char those stakes for the chain link fence raised bed. I probably won’t have a chance to get more done on it tomorrow, but at least they’ll be ready for when I can.
When checking on the new seed snail rolls last night, I saw a surprising number of chicory has sprouted. Those are in the first image of the slide show above.
This morning, I spotted some French double marigold. You can see one in the second picture. The others were seeds, pushed through the vermiculite, green seed leaves not yet exposed, behind part of the packing foam holding the roll together.
I would have expected either the chamomile or the kohlrabi to have emerged first, for some reason. I’ve never grown caraway before, so I am not sure what to expect from that roll.
Over the next week, I plan to start the 3-4 week seeds. I’ll be doing a few winter and summer squash in a seed tray, rather than snail rolls, just because of their size. Large seeds would need more seed starting mix or potting soil, and the more that’s added to the snail rolls, the harder it is to roll them up and the more gets lost from both the top and the bottom.
I’ve been out for most of today. It has been cooler, and it’s tried to rain off and on all day, so I decided not to water the pre-sown beds with the hose today. Last night, I spotted some turnip seeds under the polytunnel, but it looks like all the daikon radish that had already sprouted when I took the mulch off have died off. I wish I had enough to cover all the beds with plastic, because I don’t think the kohlrabi or purple savoy cabbage survived the cold May we’ve had this year. The garlic is doing okay, but I see no signs of the chard or spinach in between. The purple blush peas in the first trellis bed also seem to be gone, and I see no sign of carrots germinating under their protective boards. I never saw any of the dwarf peas sprouted when I removed the mulch and covered that section of the bed with mesh to protect it from cats. The protection seems to be working, but still no sign of peas. Peas are the one thing that should have been able to handle the cold spells.
Well, I’ve ordered replacement seeds for some things, and have more seeds left over with others, so I can try again when the soil warms up enough.
I need to remember to bring out the new soil thermometer I got and set it in various beds to see how cold things still are.
Until then, I need to finish off the bed at the chain link fence, then move on to the few others that weren’t done in the fall.
It’s been a much colder May this year, but there’s still time to see if the winter sowing survived the spring or not.
The first picture in the slideshow are the tomatoes, hollyhock and fennel. They are doing quite well! I’m very happy with what I’m seeing there.
The next picture is the leggy herbs, the sad little luffa, the celery that should probably be “potted up” and split into two rolls! – the marigold and cosmos.
The last picture has my surprise.
I’d rotated the trays just a couple of nights ago, so with the peppers and eggplant, the eggplant row is now in the foreground, and the California Bell Peppers are in the back.
There are three new seedlings in California Bell Pepper row, that weren’t there yesterday. There’s even at least one new seedling in the Sweet Chocolate pepper row in the middle!
Those poor eggplants are struggling, though. At least two have just withered away.
It’ll still be at least a week before I start the next back of seeds, but I might just re”pot” the eggplant and peppers into snail rolls before then. I’ll just need to sift more potting soil again, first!
We definitely have some things struggling, but over all, they seedlings are doing remarkably well for being in a rather poor environment for them!
Today ended up being a home day. Yesterday wiped both me and my daughter out completely, so we’ve been in recovery mode. Tomorrow, I will need to go out to do the last of our Easter shopping and errand running, since so many places will be closed.
When I checked on my seed starts last night, I had a lovely surprise. The first Florence Fennel seeds had emerged! I could see at least a couple of Blueberry tomato seedlings, too.
They are hard to see, but in the first photo, there are both Blueberry and Chocolate Stripe seedlings emerged.
The second photo shows an explosion of Orange Currant and Manitoba tomato seedlings.
The third photo, you can see more of the hollyhocks, including a couple lifting up their seed casings. I’ll keep an eye on those and see if the seed leaves need help getting out. The other roll has quite a few Florence Fennel seedlings showing, and I expect I might even see more by the time I check on them again this evening.
I added more water to the trays and realized it was time to “graduate” out of the plastic tray for the mixed stuff, onto a stronger metal tray. Moving the herb seedlings was the most delicate. These were sown into 5 cell trays, but the tarragon had only three cells with seedlings, so I removed two of them. The compostable material was breaking apart, anyhow. The summer savoury looks so long and spindly. I’ll probably end up buying transplants for those, but we’ll see how they do for now. Then there’s the sad little luffa!
The Golden Boy yellow celery, however, is going fantastic! It’s getting too tall to fit under the shop light. The marigold and Cosmos are doing very well up there.
After transferring everything to the metal tray, I could remove the plastic one, then poured the water I’d added earlier into the metal tray. The shelf sags slightly in the middle, unfortunately. I’ve added some sheets of cardboard under the heat mats in the middle, but it isn’t quite enough to make up for the sag. Ah, well. I just have to be careful to make sure that roll with the celery doesn’t dry out too much.
Normally, I would take these off the heat mat completely, but the basement is too cold, which means the soil is even colder. The metal tray will diffuse the heat better than the plastic, and the water on the bottom will also help equalize things – in theory, anyhow! Before, I had tried using a heater and staying in the basement while it was running, but between the heat mats and the shop light I’m running out of places to plug things in. The basement has three outlets in the entire space, and only two of them can be reached from the table. With the third one, though, I’ll be able to plug in a fan to get some air moving to help strengthen the stems. It doesn’t need to be very close to do the job.
So that is our seedling progress today, and I’m very happy to be seeing so many tomatoes. Especially with the ones where I’d used up the entire packet of seeds and have no spares! I was starting to wonder about the Florence Fennel, too.
Pretty happy with how things are going, considering the rather poor set up we’ve got this year.
My husband has to be really careful before sitting on or getting into his hospital bed. Big Rig all but lives in it, burrowing under his covers, with just the tiniest bit visible. In this case, just her nose was visible, until I got right down to mattress level!
She’s such a giant slug of a cat!
Anyhow…
Today, while checking on the seed starts in the basement, I found another first.
You can just barely see in the first image above, our very first tomato seedling. This one is an Orange Currant tomato. Hopefully, that means we’ll be seeing more tomato seedlings coming up over the next few days.
The next photo in the slide show above has the Crackerjack marigolds (left) and Cosmos (right). These are starting to get tall enough that I will soon move them up to the shelf under the shop light. The tray the single luffa, herbs and the celery that was transplanted into a snail roll has room for at least two, potentially four, snail rolls, depending on how thick they are. I might end up taking everything out of that plastic tray and setting them on another metal baking sheet, like what these snail rolls are on. Less space on the tray, but it can hold the weight of those seed snail rolls.
In the last photo, you can see the hollyhock seedlings. It looks like only three, but there are four more seedlings hidden in the roll. The seed leaves are still encased in the seeds’ outer shell, so they look a lot like the vermiculite. There are two near the centre seedling with the green of their stems just barely visible. There are two more in the outer part of the roll, center and left of centre. Honest!
I didn’t take any pictures, but the pepper and eggplant seedings are not looking particularly good. One of the eggplant seedings simply died off. It was right in a corner cell, on the far side of the tray, and I suspect it was just not warm enough for it there, even with the heat mat under the tray. With so few survivors, that’s a lot of wasted space in the tray, too.
In hind sight, I’m now thinking it would have been better to do those in seed rolls, too! Chances are, they wouldn’t have been eaten by mice or whatever it was that killed most of them, either.
Ah, well. Live and learn!
I’m just happy to see my first little tomato seedling. This variety might even be a type of tomato I can eat raw, like the Spoon tomatoes. We shall see!
My goodness! When seedlings start to germinate, some of them do it incredibly quickly!
Last night, checking on the seed starts before going to bed, I spotted a single marigold seedling that had emerged. I could also see a hollyhock elbowing its way up.
On the bottom right are the Cosmos that had already germinated. There are 11 seedlings – I think I planted only 12 seeds in there.
On the bottom left are the marigolds. I counted 7 seedlings, 6 of which there had been no sign of at all, last night.
Above the marigolds is the hollyhock roll. At first, I could see just the one seedling lifting its head (these are the seeds that the instructions said not to cover at all). When I looked closer, though, I could see three more little green elbows.
Still no tomatoes or fennel, but I’m not expecting to see any of those quite yet. Heck, I wasn’t expecting to see the flowers emerge this quickly!
Hopefully, this is a good sign for the garden this year. From the amount of snow we have on the ground right now, we should at least get a good start before the heat hits and everything dries up. I believe we are supposed to have drought conditions again this year. Which is actually the “normal” for the prairies.
Meanwhile, I watched this video from Self Sufficient Me this morning. I really find videos like this the most inspiring – the ones where things have gone all “wrong”!
Granted, an overgrown jungle like that would never happen here. We’re more likely to have everything baked and dry. Still, it comes down to the same thing: having a bad year is not being a “failure” or a “bad gardener”. It’s just a bad year. Things will never be perfect.
If we waited for perfect conditions and the “right” circumstances, we’d never accomplish anything – in the garden, or in life!
At least three lovely surprises, though two are pretty hard to see in the photo. Looking at the photo more closely, though, I wonder if there’s actually five sprouts.
These are the Dwarf Dazzler Cosmos. It hasn’t even been four full days yet, and there they are!
It should be interesting to see when the rest start showing up.
Aside from that, today has been another quiet day of domesticity. It’s been snowing on and off – just lightly, where we are – and that is expected to continue until about 2am. Tomorrow, I’m planning to “test” the truck again. I want to go into town and refill a couple of our big water jugs, and maybe pick up a few other things at the grocery store.
The grocery store that is across the street from the garage.
Yes, the truck ran perfectly well after we picked it up, but I still don’t trust Damocles, with how it would switch from working fine to breaking down for so long.
I plan to leave early enough that, if things go well, I’ll try visiting my mother afterwards, too.
Speaking of my mother…
I got a call from my brother yesterday evening. My mother had called him while he was at work.
We now know why our vandal told my brother he wanted to talk to my mother alone when they ran into each other at the TCU on the weekend.
He wants her to pay for his funeral.
He has no money, he says, so she should pay for it.
???
Not that long ago, he told her he had his own funeral all arranged, including the service at the church in town we all went to as children. He even told her that, for the gathering afterwards (the tradition out here is to rent a hall for a catered luncheon after the internment, sometimes with video displays and music), he said he wanted a bottle of vodka on every table.
Now, he wants Mom to pay for all that?
The thing is, Mom told my brother that she said yes, just to shut him up and get rid of him. We all know what his reaction would have been like, if she hadn’t. With his wife there, he wouldn’t have gotten too out of control, but it would not have been good.
Yeah. His wife was there.
Mom told my brother, nothing was signed or anything. She says he’s got plenty of money (he got a very generous buy out and was able to retire in his mid 50’s), his wife works, they’ve got land – he can pay for his own funeral. Seriously; I have to drive by his place regularly. I see the equipment and vehicles he’s got all over. He could easily sell just half of it and do quite well for himself for many years.
My mother had commented to my brother about how sick our vandal was looking. Which is interesting, because when my brother saw him just an hour earlier, he was looking pretty hale and hardy for a man that’s supposedly about to die. He’s still broad shouldered and agile, not wasting away. Which is what I see, too, when I see him going by on the trail cams. Or when he stopped at the end of the driveway in the fall and yelled at me from the road while waving his colostomy bag around, getting in and out of his vehicle, and looking quite energetic. He’s clearly putting on an act for my mother.
That his wife is part of this is an extra element of disturbing.
I’m just so disgusted with them. He still feels like he’s entitled to whatever he wants from my mother, because he “helped” here at the farm for so many years, and “helped” my late father after my mother moved out (though we now know he was verbally abusive and manipulative, on top of helping himself to whatever he wanted). Our vandal was one of the reasons my mother moved out. Yeah, he did do nice things for both of them, though he also caused plenty of problems, too, but when my late brother died, it clearly destroyed his mind. His terminal cancer diagnosis (if he actually has one; who knows, at this point) has only made him worse.
To go after my mother like that, though? With his wife!!! Disgusting.
What he doesn’t know, though, is that even if he convinced my mother to sign something, it wouldn’t matter. The doctors have already agreed that my mother’s cognitive function has dropped low enough that if she signs anything like that, it can’t be legally binding. Only my brother can sign on her behalf now. Verbal agreement doesn’t hold much either, since she’s flat out said she only agreed to shut him up; she was coerced.
I will be honest; my mother is not a nice person. These two really are very much alike in their behaviour, and it is a mutually abusive relationship. Knowing that there is an undiagnosed mental illness behind all this doesn’t make it any better. There was a time, long ago, when the person my mother could have been would emerge briefly, and she was so amazing. She is a survivor and amazingly strong. She somehow managed to keep it together for so many years and raised us as best she knew how. She deserves better than this. Especially from someone that was once so close to all of us.
Bah.
The main thing is, she made a point of letting my brother know what happens, so my siblings and I now all know why she said yes to our vandal at the time, and that she has no intention of paying for his funeral. He must still think she has millions of dollars squirreled away somewhere – and that he is entitled to it! Just like he felt entitled to this property.
What a mess.
I’m looking forward to being able to engage in more garden therapy, because I could really use it of late!
My first goal was to “pot up” the onions in their seed snails. For this, I wanted to use potting soil, rather than more seed starting mix. I have a bag of potting soil from last year with plenty still left in it, but I knew it was really full of sticks. Which meant I needed to sift it, first, because there was no way it could be used in the snail rolls as it was.
I got out a bucket and a colander that I use for harvesting in the summer, and started sifting in batches. The potting soil was bone dry which made it easier to sift, but also meant there was a LOT of dust. Even misting with water didn’t really help much. I did try to use a dust mask, which is difficult all on its own, since I can’t wear masks anymore. It was either breathing dirt without it, or struggling to breathe with it. Definitely a no-win situation. It didn’t actually help much, to be honest, but it was better than nothing.
I was blown away by just how many sticks I sifted out.
That pile on the side? That’s what I sifted out of what you see in the bucket. I poked my finger in to measure, and it was up to my second joint, so about 2 inches deep. Good grief! It was almost more sticks than soil!
The next step was to moisten the sifted potting soil. I used hot water for that, so it wouldn’t be a shock to the plant roots. It took a remarkable amount of water to moisten it, and I was just aiming to get it wet enough to be able to stick to itself.
This is how they looked to start with. These rolls all fit into one bin, and the seedlings are looking pretty good.
The length of them did make unrolling the snail a bit of a challenge! They were tangled together, and wanted to twist around each other as I unrolled the snail.
In the first photo above, I unrolled the first seed snail. These were bottom watered, and you can see that the soil is moist all the way through, and the roots are all the way to the bottom. Some of them seemed a bit crowded, so I did adjust a few of them to space them out a bit. In the second picture, you can see where I’ve added the potting soil on top. From there, it got rolled up and taped closed again.
It was a lot bigger, of course. Only two could fit in the bin I was using, but I did have a second, slightly smaller one, available.
Here are the “potted up” onions. In the second picture, you can see that one of the snails is a lot smaller. That’s the bunching onions. It’s a good thing those didn’t need as much soil, because I was scraping the bucket to get every last bit out for that roll. I really didn’t want to have to sift more!
These are now back in the living room. They are the only things I have space for there, this year.
In order to do this, I had to completely clear my work table. That meant taking away the trays, lights, heat mats, and everything under and around them.
With the onions done, I could then arrange the work space to be ready for the next batch of seed starts. I have the top shelf from a plastic shelf that was too tall to fit in the old basement, and it was used last year to hold trays higher up. That’s what I am using it for again now.
Hopefully, the new seeds I sowed yesterday will germinate – and won’t get eaten! I had some concerns about not having heat mats under them anymore, but before I set up the shelf, I made sure to create a wall of cardboard around the back and at one end, then moved the heater so that it was blowing under the shelf. That made a big difference, and the warmth is kept under the shelf enough to warm the trays from below. Not that the heater is on all the time, but even when the furnace is on, now that the opening between the basements is uncovered again, there is heat blowing in and the cardboard, etc. holds it around the plants surprisingly well.
The insulation leaning at one end it just there until it’s needed later; the cardboard forms a “wall” behind it, out of frame. I’ve got the flaps of the cardboard box under the back legs, so I had to put something under the front legs to level the shelf. Then I set up the insulation pieces, which protect the cutting mat from warping, and the heat mats, ready and waiting. With the seedlings so close to the shop light, the plant lights aren’t needed for now, so they’re just clamped to the table in the front. There is no place to clamp the lights to use them on top of the shelf, anyhow. Everything gets plugged into a power bar with USB ports that I have set up above my work table.
As for our next seed starts, I don’t think I’ll be using the seed trays again. They are all smaller seeds, and for the space, I think I will do more seed snails. I wouldn’t me making them as deep was what I used for the onions, though. More like a third of that height. I have lots of that packing foam available.
I need to remember, though: do not use painters tape to attach them together to make a longer strip. One of the onion rolls started to split at the tape while I was rolling it back up again. It doesn’t like moisture. I’ll have to see what alternatives we have.
That won’t be needed for another week or so.
For now, I’m just glad I don’t need to sift more of that potting soil for a while!!
The Re-Farmer 