seedlings

Our 2021 garden: more firsts!

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Okay, this is getting ridiculous!

I don’t think the needle on that thermometer can go any further. What do you think that’s at? 65C/149F? Closer to 70C/158F? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that thermometer get that high.

Of course, the weather apps didn’t show temperatures that high. One of them allows me to look at historical weather. Our average temperature for June is 22C/72F, and our record high for the month was 37C/99F, set in 1995. I’m pretty sure we did beat that, today. The average low for June is 12C/54F, with a record low of 0C/32F, set in 2009.

This is the thermometer in the sun room.

This is with the inner door open, the screen window in the outer door open as wide as it can, and the ceiling fan going at its highest setting, and it still got to about 37-38C/99-100F. There are still a few trays of seedlings (and cups of dirt I’m pretending to expect things to germinate, still) in the sun room while I take the rest out to harden off. The trays outside got misted several times during the day, but a bunch of the squash and melons were really droopy by the end of the day. For all the misting they got, they still dried out quite a bit, so everything got a thorough watering before they came in for the night. Except the corn. They get put back into their bin, without the outer cups, so I put water in the bin for them to absorb from below.

When the girls went out as things started to cool down, they checked on the netting over the lettuces and beets. They ended up flipping one side up over the other, because there were so many insects caught inside. Including several of these guys.

This snowberry clearwing moth decided to just sit there and chill instead of flying away!

We also had a visitor, as things cooled down.

Madam Stinky came over for a snack! Later on, we saw a second one in the kibble house with this first one. I am loath to chase any critter away from food when it’s not doing any harm, but it’s really not good for them, and there is potential for harm. I think they are both hungry mamas. It’s certainly the time of year for them to have babies. When I used the hose to spray them away, the second one, which is quite a bit bigger than this one, did NOT want to leave! It kept grunting at me and trying to go back to the kibble house, until the water finally drove it away.

They’ll be back tonight, I’m sure! :-D

Before it had cooled down enough to start the evening watering, I checked on the garden beds to see how they were handling the heat. Especially the new transplants. I’m happy to say that the tomatoes and sunflowers were doing just fine. Only the bunching onions were starting to get a little bit wimpy.

While checking other beds around the transplanted sunflowers, I spotted little bits of green and pink.

We have beans!!!

These were not there when I checked them this morning, but both the yellow and green bean beds had sprouts, some still carrying their brightly coloured inoculated seed covering. The Royal Burgundy didn’t have any sprouts, but when I came back later to water them, even that bed had sprouts just starting to break through the soil. I’m so excited!!!

While watering the sunflower transplants, though, I got an even bigger, more exciting surprise.

This is a Hopi Black Dye sunflower seedling! I had to check and double check to be sure. I marked the spacing to plant them with flags, which are still there, so I could use them to confirm that yes, these are in the right places and everything. Considering how long it took for just one Hopi Black Dye seedling to sprout in the tray, I am totally stunned that they are already sprouting after being direct sown, just 5 days ago! All I can think is that the seeds we tried to start indoors were just too cold to sprout, even in the warmth of the sun room. Now that I’ve started to take the tray outside, to harden off the cucamelons sharing the tray, we might get even more of them.

The heat may be hard on humans and animals, but some of our plants are just loving it!

Hopefully, the extra watering they all got will help the ones that maybe don’t like the heat quite as much. :-D

After the watering was done, and things had cooled down a bit more, I did decide to do one transplanting job done today, but that will get its own post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: firsts!

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We had a solid rainfall last night. With the sunflowers, tomatoes and bunching onions just transplanted yesterday, I was concerned over how they held up. I was happy to see that the tomatoes were looking very sturdy, and even the little bitty onions were looking stronger. It was the sunflowers that I was most concerned about, but they were also looking strong. Even the couple that were looking wimpy as they were being transplanted are standing strong, though the twine supports we added certainly helped that.

While moving seedlings out of the sun room this morning, I included the tray with the cucamelons. Not many of them germinated, but they are so prolific, we should still have lots. This same tray is where I’d planted the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers.

I had a surprise waiting for me.

The very first Hopi Black Dye seedling has emerged!! At this point, I thought for sure they were gonners. If I’d had any idea that they could take this long to germinate, I would have started them back in February!

I have no idea if more were germinate, or even if any will reach a point where it’s worth transplanting them. It’s so late in the season, but then, we do that the others that were direct sown, and who knows when those will germinate!

Meanwhile, we have another first this morning.

Our first harvest of spinach! Yes, we’ve been sneaking the odd leaf every now and then for a while, but they’ve reached a point where they need to be thinned out, so this morning I grabbed some from each bed. I could have had a lot more, but I could only reach so far under the two beds with chicken wire over top. Later on, when I have a second person to help out, we’ll move the covers off and thin them out properly.

After I finished cleaning the spinach, it was all I could do, not to just sit there and eat them all! Instead, I’m not eating some in an egg dish my daughters made for me for lunch. :-)

Things got hot really fast this morning, and it’s only going to get hotter. We’re supposed to hit 29C/84F this afternoon, 34C/93F tomorrow, which risk of thunderstorms, and 35C/95F with chance of thundershowers the day after. If we do get storms, we have enough things to use as cloche to protect the tomatoes, but I don’t know how we’d be able to protect entire rows of the sunflowers.

This type of weather is the sort of thing the squash would actually like – if they were already well established outside! We’ll continue making beds and transplanting, but will have to take steps to be able to protect them from storms as well.

For now, I’m just excited about our new sprout, and fresh spinach!!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: growing and blooming

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Wow, what a difference a day makes! After yesterday’s heat, our 9C/48F (feels like 5C/41F) is a welcome, if slightly chilly, reprieve. Welcome especially for the rain we got last night! I didn’t have to do any watering this morning!

These are the purple pea seedlings. Definitely not a high germination rate, but it’s possible more will sprout yet. With these, the entire packet was planted, but with the others, we still have lots left. If there are still lots of gaps left in a week, we can successive sow more.

The forecasts have, of course, changed again. We’re supposed to stay wetter and cooler for the next while, and next week, there’s even an overnight low of -1C/30F predicted. But just on the app on my phone. The weather app on my desktop still predicts a low of 5C/41F for that day. We shall see.

It was cool enough that I did not plant the beans this morning. It will wait till later in the day.

The Saskatoon bushes are in full bloom right now! I haven’t seen a lot of pollinators yet, but I hope we’ll have lots of berries this year.

It’s too cool and blustery to more our transplants outside. I want to harden them off, not kill them! The inner door to the sun room has been left open, though, and the window is open in the outer door, so that will cool the sun room down and, along with the ceiling fan, allow for more air circulation.

I rotated the bin the sunflowers and purple corn are in, and adjusted the lights above them to a higher level. I don’t know what to think of the sunflowers. They look really leggy, but these are also a giant variety of sunflower, so this might actually be normal for them.

The corn next to them is doing quite well. Here are the rest of them…

There are still 10 cups that have no germination yet. We are still seeing new seedling popping up, though, so they may still come up. They really responded well after I found a way to put the aquarium lights above them.

The purple sunflowers still have zero germination. These are the ones that were planted in the tray of Jiffy pellets. I don’t know what to make of that. Especially with how quickly the Mongolian Giants germinated. At least the other seedlings are doing well, overall, and more of the squash and melon seedlings are slowly emerging. We should have a decent amount to transplant next month!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: morning progress, and changes in plans

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My morning rounds now includes watering all the garden beds. Though we have had rain in the forecast, so far we’ve only received the lightest of smatterings. Hopefully, over the next few days, we’ll get some real rain.

I had a lovely surprise when I came into the sun room this morning.

SO many more of the Mongolian Giant sunflowers and Montana Morado corn are germinating! The corn is just little points of green, barely visible in most of the cups.

In the pellet tray, I think I even saw a cucamelon sprout starting to break through.

It’s getting close to time to start hardening off our bigger seedlings for transplanting. :-)

I can now say, with absolute certainty, that all three spinach beds have sprouts. :-) I might even have, just possibly, maybe, seen our first pea sprout this morning, too! :-D

When done checking the trail cam files, I headed back outside until it got too hot for manual labour in the sun. My computer’s weather app says we’re at 16C/61F that feels like 15C/59F, while my phone’s app says we’re at only 9C/48F with a RealFeel of 12C/54F! There is no way we are only 16C out there, never mind 9C. I have no doubt it’s at least 20C/68F out there right now. I’m thinking of picking up another outdoor thermometer to set up at the pea trellises.

One of the areas we needed to work on is the block for the Dorinney corn. I was loath to just start adding soil on the chopped straw. It would end up in the paths in between and we’d end up walking on it, and I just don’t want to waste that precious dirt! :-D

Then I remembered all that mulch I put around the sunflowers last year. A thick layer of grass clippings I kept adding to throughout the summer. I figured that would work well to put on the paths as a mulch to walk on, while it would also serve to hold the soil in the rows.

Once I started gathering up the grass clippings and laying them down, I realized this partially broken down mulch would work much better under the soil, than the straw.

So this bed will now be reversed. The grass clippings will have the soil added on top, while the chopped straw will serve to hold the soil in place, and keep the grass/weeds down in between, as well as helping keep any moisture. We lost a row in the process, but I wasn’t sure we have enough of these seeds to fill the entire block, anyhow. If we have more, we can just add another row to one side. Before we add soil, though, the area will get another thorough soaking. We can just reach this area with the hose. I should see if I can set up the sprinkler. I don’t think we’ve got enough hose to set that up where it can water the whole block, though.

In the background, you can see the row of sunflower stumps, where I took the mulch from. I didn’t even get as far as where the rows of sunflowers overlapped in the middle, and after finishing laying down mulch in the corn block, I still had enough mulch in the little wheelbarrow to add it elsewhere.

The girls saw carrot sprouts and took off the plastic covering this bed, so I added a light layer to the surface to protect it. Especially if we do end up getting that predicted rain.

I also put a light layer over the Strawberry Spinach bed.

In preparation for planting the asparagus crowns, I soaked the trench, put the cardboard back to discourage any of those roots we didn’t clip or dig out from growing, then soaked it again. Later today, we’ll put the crowns to soak while we start adding soil and preparing it for planting.

We’ve reached that point in the season, where we are switching from going out in the afternoon, when it was finally warm enough to work in the garden, to splitting our days between the cooler mornings and evenings, while avoiding the hottest parts of the afternoon. The problem with that is, the hottest part of the day tends to be around 5pm, so we’re easily losing at least 6 hours of daylight productivity. Long range forecast says we’ll be hitting 30C/86F in four days – and we’re still in May! At least it’s expected to cool down gradually after that, but we’re still going to be in the high to mid 20’s for another week. We’re also supposed to get rain. I’d say “more rain”, but what’s been predicted so far has been missing us, as usual. :-/ We shall see how it goes.

The hard part is going to be waiting until after the last frost date before planting/transplanting. I think direct sowing a bit earlier would be safe, but after losing so many transplants last year, I don’t want to take that chance again, this year!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: new growth

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Okay, so today, we didn’t end up hauling dirt. Partly because we need to take a bit more of a break from that. We’ll just have to make up for it, tomorrow. The Dorinney corn can wait another day or two before direct sowing.

Before I get into another reason why hauling dirt wasn’t going to happen today, I finally remembered to take photos of our seedlings, while I was spritzing and rotating them this morning.

We’ve got some summer squash, winter squash and melons growing. The melons are almost all the Halona variety, but one little Pixie melon is starting to push its way through!

They were too small to even try for a photo, but the pink celery is starting to sprout, too. Still nothing with the gourds.

I did have quite a surprise, though.

Quite a few of the Mongolian Giant Sunflowers were starting to show! That’s the photo on the left. On the right, those two, tiny, barely visible specks?

Those are the Montana Morado corn! I can’t believe how quickly they’re starting to sprout!!

While watering outside, I pulled the plastic back on the carrot bed in the big garden to give it a bit of a soak and thought I might have seen some sprouts. I put the plastic back, but made sure to ask the girls to check again when they were doing the evening watering. Sure enough, there were sprouts, and they took the plastic off. The Strawberry Spinach was checked, and they had sprouts, too. I’m not positive, but I think I could even see flashes of green in one of the spinach beds while I was watering it this morning. :-)

After we were done with our evening garden tending, the girls and I went to look at the crocuses, hyacinths and tulips. There are so many tulips pushing their way through the leaf litter now! They were planted under some plum trees, and I noticed the trees are starting to bud!

I love trees that bloom before they start forming leaves. They are so dramatic and spectacular in full bloom!

I aaallllmost got the camera to focus on the minuscule spider in its web!

In between all this, my younger daughter and I made a trip into town, which included a stop at the post office on the way home. We got packages!! More on that in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Filthy felines and seedling surprise

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It was a gorgeous day to do our morning rounds, and the yard cats were taking full advantage of it. :-D

It’s a good thing we’re not trying to keep the grass alive around the cat’s shelter. :-D This spot is where a smaller old dog house was, when we first moved here, and the cats roll around in the spot so much, no grass or weeds are growing into it. :-D

As you can see, the based of this linden tree is another favorite spot they like to roll in!

They get so, so filthy! Enough to turn and orange cat black! :-D

In other things, I found a nice little surprise this morning.

The third dancing gourd seed has sprouted!

I honestly forgot how many seeds I planted in there.

The main reason we used peat pots to start the gourds is so that we can just bury the pot into the garden and reduce transplant shock. Which means thinning out the seedlings. The problem is, most of the seedlings we’ve got so far are looking really strong and healthy! Among the luffa, there’s really just one sprout that is smaller and would be thinned out, but the rest are doing so very well! I want to plant them all! :-D

We’ve got over a month before we can transplant any gourds at all, so we’ll see how they are and make decisions then.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: expanding onions

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After seeing how much the K-cups were drying out, I had to find a way to move them out so they can be watered thoroughly, without over watering the Jiffy Pellets.

At our last city shopping trip, I picked up a couple of cheap little baking sheets, to make it easier to move the red solo cup transplants later on. I wasn’t sure if it would fit on the shelf with the other tray, but I figured I’d give it a shot.

It fit. :-)

Because I have a heat source below, both trays need to be on the same shelf, so I’m glad it worked out.

I discovered an unexpected potential problem after taking out the K-cups.

As you can see, trying to keep the K-cups hydrated left the Jiffy pellets really damp. The algae growing on them should not be a problem, though. The potential problem is that, protected by the larger K-cups, the seedlings have roots growing through the mesh of the Jiffy pellets – and you can see where one seed grew out the side!

With the K-cups moved away, those roots are now exposed and will dry up.

What to do? I didn’t want to move them and cause more damage to their roots.

Well, it’s a good thing I don’t like to throw away anything that might be useful. Even old Jiffy pellets.

When I started squash and gourds last year, with their large seeds, I planted one seed per Jiffy pellet. I ended up with a lot that did not germinate, and they’ve been sitting, all dried out, in an old ice cream pail, ever since.

Except for the ones the cat dig out. They really, really like to bat them around and tear them apart. Which is disconcerting, in the wee hours of the morning and I don’t have my glasses on, but I can see enough to tell there’s a pile of brown on the floor. :-D

Well, it turns out I had juuuuusssttt enough left to fill in the spaces.

Two spaces were bits and pieces of Jiffy pellets, rescued from the cats. :-D

I added more water to the reservoir below for them to absorb and expand a bit, and the roots can grow into them.

I did transplant the one growing out the side of a Jiffy pellet into another one that didn’t have anything in it.

I didn’t expect growing onions from seed to be this troublesome, but I guess that’s to be expected when resources and options are limited! The water also has half-strength vegetable fertilizer dissolved into it, so I hope that helps.

We’ll see if the spindly seedlings make it!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: just a little trim, and strong babies!

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Thanks to some feedback from Kensho Homestead, I decided to go ahead and trim our bulb onion seedlings this morning.

Though our temperatures dipped below freezing lat night, the sun room remained nice and warm. I didn’t even bother putting the plastic cover over the mini greenhouse to keep more of the heat from the ceramic heater bulb in.

Now that they’re trimmed, you can really see the difference between those in the Jiffy pellets, and hose in the K-cups. They’re both peat, so the growing medium is not the reason.

This tray was designed for the pellets, and to water from below. The bottom of the tray has channels for the water, with a felted mat on top, then a molded tray that holds the pellets, while also keeping the bottoms in contact with the mat below. The K-cups have drainage holes, but they don’t seem to have enough contact at the bottom for watering from below to work well, and they dry out much faster. At first, the ones in the K-cups were doing better, but now it’s the ones in the Jiffy pellets that are noticeably stronger and healthier.

I did water them after this photo was taken, making sure to get the K-cups thoroughly wet. I’m trying to think if I have something I can transfer the K-cups to that will let me water them from blow. I think it’ll be the only way to keep them well watered, without over watering the rest.

Lesson learned: don’t mix two very different starter “pots” in the same tray. I used the K-cups because I only had enough Jiffy pellets to fill half the tray. I should have just used half the tray with the Jiffy pellets, and found something else to put the K-cups in. The K-cups do work well – as long as they can be adequately watered.

Meanwhile…

The luffa are coming in strong and healthy, and doing very well!

Perhaps too well!

I used these pots, so they can be buried directly into the ground when it’s time to transplant them, with no root disruption. Which means we’re going to have to reduce each pot to just one, strongest plant. It seems like such a waste to discard strong seedlings, but if we separate them out to plant more of them, that will create the root disruption we’re trying to avoid!

Three plants should be more than enough for our needs. Especially since we don’t even know if they’ll get the time they need to reach full maturity before first frost in September.

I bet they’d do great if we could find a way to grow them in pots in the sun room! LOL Pretty sure they’d overgrow that corner rather quickly, though. ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: onions – to trim or not to trim?

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I remembered to get a photo of our onions in their new location in the sun room.

I ended up removing the plastic on the mini-greenhouse frame, so it wouldn’t get too warm, and so there would be air circulation from the ceiling fan.

This is early enough in the morning that the room is still “dark”, but once the sun comes around, it gets many hours of sunlight. The ceramic heater is just enough to keep the seedlings from getting chilled overnight. We’re supposed to get snow starting tomorrow night, at with point I might put the plastic cover back on.

There should have been trays for three types of onions in here by now, but the shallots died off and I had no seeds left to try again, and the reseeded bunching onions are still in the aquarium greenhouses inside, for a while longer. By the time those are ready to be moved over, we’ll be bringing the tomatoes and gourds into here, too.

I have a question for those who grow onions from seed.

Should I trim these?

I’d read that onion seedlings should be trimmed when they reach about 6 inches, to about 3 inches, while they await transplanting. I would have done it by now, however, I’ve since heard from people who say to NOT trim them, because then you get smaller bulbs. They were pretty adamant about it, while others were just as adamant about the opposite.

I’m inclined to trim them, but I wanted to hear from anyone with more experience than me with growing onions from seed. I am more than eager to listen to the advice of others!

Did you trim them, or not?

What do you recommend?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: we have tomato babies!

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Little bitty sprooooots actually showed up a couple of days ago, but they were so tiny, I didn’t bother trying to take a picture through the glass of the tank.

So far, only the Spoon tomatoes have started to show, not the Mosaic mix, though some of the bunching onions emerged even earlier.

I unpacked the second light for the tank – this was the one that originally came with the tank kit – and set it over the red solo cups. It’s sitting partly on the wood of the mesh frames, to better light up the inside of the cups. That wood is way too wide, really, but it’s what I had available.

Sometimes, I will also put another light fixture on the tank covers, too. While it does have a full spectrum bulb in it, it’s more because it’s an incandescent bulb, which provides a bit of heat. The onions don’t need it as much, but from everything I’ve been reading, tomato seedlings need more warmth.

I look forward to when things warm up and we can start moving seedlings to the sun room (after Ginger has completed his convalescence in there!). By then, the tomatoes and, later, squash seedlings will get all the heat they need in there!

The Re-Farmer