seeds

Our 2025 Garden: sugar snap peas are in!

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I’m looking forward to taking some pain killers and going to bed early, though! 😄

But first, the cuteness! While feeding the cats this evening, I got to see the grublings while their mama was outside. They are getting way more active!

While getting the container out of the cat house for Caramel and her babies, I saw a surprise through the window.

Three kittens, snuggling together in the cat bed.

The sun room kitten has found her siblings!

She didn’t say, and was soon back in the sun room for feeding time, but I’m glad that she found and was immediately accepted by them.

Also, Kale and Sir Robin are 1) insanely fast and 2) determined to go into the old kitchen. As soon as the door is open, they come bounding for the doorway. It’s actually really quite dangerous for them, because they’re doing this while I’m carrying the kibble bowl with one arm, opening the outer old kitchen door (the one with the screen window, with no screen) with the other, and trying to get through fast enough to close the inner door (the solid one) and keep the cats out. They keep getting under my feet while I’m juggling all this. I’ve already accidentally closed a door on a tail because Sir Robin basically teleported from across the sun room.

Kale and Sir Robin want people, and they want inside!

So that’s what feeding time is like these days. 😁

One of the things I wanted to do today was get our push mower to the small engine shop in town. Last summer, it got harder and harder to start until finally, after stopping to refill the gas tank, I just couldn’t start it anymore. It’s possible this is related to the fact I was unable to change the air filter all summer, because there were none to be had. I finally found one this past winter and made sure to bring it with me. While I was at the counter, this was one of the things I mentioned. The woman filling out the paperwork was very glad that I brought the filter. It seems I was not the only one to have problems finding these, last year!

Along with basic servicing (oil change, blade sharpening, etc.) they will check the self propelling mechanism, which is broken, but not in any visible way, and look for anything that could be causing the starting problem. This time of year, she told me they probably won’t have a chance to look at it until next week, which is pretty much what I’m expecting. The nice surprise was when I gave my name and contact information, and she recognized me. We haven’t met in person until now, but “know” each other on local Facebook groups. When our truck suddenly lost oil pressure and started giving the “shut engine off now” warning, her husband was the person who stopped and helped us out. I made sure to tell her to thank him again for us, briefly mentioning some of the problems we found from this happening.

That done, it was a run to the grocery store to refill our 5 gallon water jugs and pick up a few things before heading home.

By the time I was able to head outside and work in the garden it was, unfortunately, reaching the hottest part of the day. Which, thankfully, was only 17C/63F. Still hot in the sun, though. Tomorrow is supposed to be 22C/72F with high winds again, then 27C/81F on Mother’s Day, then 32C/90F on Monday! Or 32C/90F on Sunday and 34C/93F on Monday, depending on which app I look at! So now was the time to get this done.

The first thing to do was finished getting all the weeds out of the second half of the bed. By now, the soil had baked hard and had to be broke up with a garden fork again, so I could get as much of the tap roots and rhizomes out as possible. I am so thankful for that rolling seat! It’s not comfortable to sit on while reaching down that far, but still much easier on the body than bending at the waste. My doctor may want me doing squats, but my knees are too unstable to bend that far for that long!

In the first photo of the slideshow above, the bed is cleared and leveled, and the centre marked out. I wanted to set trellis support posts down the middle, along the twine you can barely see in the image. The posts I used were old T posts we found while cleaning up around the property. They’re not in good shape and several of them are way too tall for this, but they’ll do. With the first one (set at the end at the bottom of the photo), I hit something in the soil below, and it just would not go any deeper. I tried using my chisel tip digging bar. That wasn’t getting very far, either, and I ended up having to use a spade to loosen whatever it was I was hitting, before I could set the post. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do with any of the others. You can see all 5 posts in the second image of the above slide show.

At that point, I had to stop, get out of the sun and take a break. Before heading back out, I prepared my seeds.

My original though had been to do a row of peas down the centre, then plant potatoes on either side. I changed my mind and decided to do two rows of snap peas; the Sugar snap peas and the Super Sugar snap peas. I prepped markers and set the seeds to soak while I continued.

I decided to use wire mesh for the trellis instead of the plastic trellis netting that I used last year. I found that too saggy. I went to the old squash tunnel that should have been taken down a couple of years ago, and grabbed the 1″ square wire mesh from one section of it. That leaves one more section of 1″ mesh, plus another with hex chicken wire. It’s turned out to be a rather handy way to store the wire on there. 😄

I wasn’t sure if it would be long enough, so I laid it out on the grass to check, and was very happy that it wasn’t too short! Then I realized I’d set all the “teeth” of the T posts facing the other way, and had to drag it around to the other side of the bed. 😄

In the old garden shed I had a bungle of garden twist ties and brought those out to fasten the wire to the posts. The next while was spent first getting it up, then adjusting one way or the other, to get the wire snug between the posts, without pulling them one way or the other. There was enough excess wire to actually wrap around the posts at each end, and fasten it to itself. The other posts got twist ties at the top and bottom to secure it in place.

One thing about using this wire for the trellis. When the wind blows through it, it can get pretty loud!

Hopefully, we won’t need to secure the posts with tie downs. It will depend on how much trouble the wind becomes, once there’s peas actually growing up the trellis and acting like a sail.

I took a picture of the trellis after the wire was up, but you can’t really see the wire at all!

That done, I used a garden stake to draw a trench for seeds on each side of the posts, then used the jet setting to deep water the trench only. This would also break up and clumps, plus the water would naturally level the soil a bit.

Then it was time to set out the pre-soaked seeds evenly down the trenches. There were more of the Super Sugar snap peas, but this bed is long enough that they got pretty normal spacing, while the other wise got more space between each seed. Hopefully, we’ll have a high germination rate, and there won’t be any gaps!

After pushing the seeds into the ground, the trenches got another watering, this time with a flat spray; gentler than the jet setting, but still enough pressure to settle the soil over the seeds.

While I was working on this, of course there were cats going across the freshly loosened soil – and trying to use it as a litter box! So after the seeds were planted, I took the boards that were used to weigh down the solarizing plastic and set them along the sides of the bed. Hopefully, that will be sufficient, and they won’t go under the wire in the middle and start digging there. Later, mulch will be added.

I will plant something under where the boards are, later. I haven’t decided what, yet. The potatoes I’d planned on will get their own bed, I think. If they get planted at all. I may have to buy new seed potatoes. When I prepped the potatoes for chitting, they seemed to be find, but have just… stopped. No sprouts, no leaf buds, no growth. Some of the potatoes have even started to shrivel up and dry out, instead. They were sprouting in their bag when I bought them, and then just… didn’t.

I suspect our basement set up has something to do with it. I hoped they would start growing once in the warmth of the portable greenhouse, but nope. No change at all. I could – and probably will – still plant them, but I think getting more potatoes is in order. It’s not like we can have too many potatoes! It’s just a matter of space.

For now, I’m thinking and early bed time and an early start tomorrow, before the heat hits, which is supposed to be in the early evening. I’d like to get some more walnut seeds in, but I also need to start digging a trench for the asparagus crowns and bare root strawberries I picked up awhile ago. Then there’s the trellis bed that needs to have the rest of its vertical supports attached, the log frame of another bed assembled, then the bed cleared of weeds… and then… and then… and then… Lots of work to do before we can do more direct sowing and transplanting!

For all the heat we’re supposed to get within the next few days, in the long range forecasts, the temperatures are supposed to drop quite a bit, again, with overnight temperatures barely above freezing.

What we really need is rain. It’s wildfire season, and there are quite a few going right now. The closest ones to the north of us are mostly now listed as under control, but the further north you go, the bigger they are, and they are all listed as out of control. Rain and no wind. That’s what we need!

From the 10 day forecasts, we might get some next week, but just for a couple of days.

We shall see.

For now, I’m happy to have gotten that bed done, and some direct sowing accomplished! Peas really could have gone into the ground quite a while ago, but this should be okay – as long as the heat doesn’t kill them! It sure feels good to be digging in the dirt again.

Even if my body is now saying very nasty things to me right now. 😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: potting up and wind damage

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

We did get some other stuff done, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The portable greenhouse was getting some wind damage, though.

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

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

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

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

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

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not yet.

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

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

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

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

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

That done, I headed outside again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: temperatures, removing mulch and solarization

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Today was my day of rest, but I did get a few things done in the garden, since I won’t be home for most of the next two days.

The first thing I made sure to do was find a plastic to cover the end of the one bed where I’d run out.

I ended up using a dollar store shower curtain I’d got to potentially use around the eggplant and pepper bed last year, but ended up using the dining table protectors instead. That should help out with warming up the soil and, hopefully, kill off any Creeping Charlie and crab grass in there. I will probably use one of these two solarized beds to plant our potatoes.

I also removed most of the mulch from the wattle weave bed and had a pleasant surprise.

In the first image, you can see the wild strawberries (or whatever they are), which I was expecting. What I was NOT expecting, but hopeful for, you can see in the next image. That is thyme! It survived the winter!

In the next photo, you can see an overview of the long part of the bed. There’s a sort of lighter colour mass about half way down; those are the self seeded Chamomile. Hopefully, it dropped seeds and will come back again this year.

The very last photo is the thermometer in the covered bed. It looks cloudy because I took the photo through the plastic cover. It looks like it was about 18C/64F in there.

Looking around, I couldn’t see much of the green seedlings I uncovered while removing most of the mulch. I likely damaged them too much. There were a lot of seeds scattered in there, though, so I expect more to be coming up soon.

The temperature inside the portable greenhouse was a fair bit higher!

40C/104F! That would definitely start warming up the water in the heat sink I set up, though when I popped the cover off to check, it still seemed cold. That would be in comparison to the very warm temperatures I was standing in!

The next image, meanwhile, is a screen cap taken right after I got a photo of the thermometer, showing what the outside temperature was at. 5C/42F A 35 degree difference (Celsius)!

It should be interesting to see what the thermometer says in the morning, after the 0C/32F we’re supposed to drop to, tonight.

Oh, I also remembered to remove most of the mulch from the strawberry bed in the main garden area – and return the chicken wire over the top. It was quite frozen under there, and there’s no sign of the Albion Everbearing strawberries we have planted there.

The next time I should have time to do anything of note in the garden will be on Wednesday, and right now, the forecast for Wednesday is for a high of 14C/57F with a mix of sun and clouds. It should be a very good day to be working outside!

Meanwhile, I moved things around with the seed trays in the basement. I had the containers with pre-germinating seeds on top of the light fixture over the heat mat, but that light turns itself off, so what little heat it produces doesn’t last long. I thought I figured out how to reprogram the timer, but it seems to have not made any difference. It’s been a while, and there has been no sign of germination. They’re just too cold. So I ended up moving the trays with the chitting potatoes to the top shelf with the winter squash, under the shop light, then set up the second heat mat under aquarium light. So now the tray with the eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and luffa seeds is on one mat, and the three containers of melon seeds are on the other.

When I checked on them before shutting things down for the night, I was already seeing hints of radicals! They will be ready to be potted up by tomorrow or the day after!

Amazing how just a little bit of warmth makes such a huge difference!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: tomato seeds potted up, melon seeds pre-germinating

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Okay, so working on that pipe is not going to happen today. Pain levels are on the upswing and I know if I try to work on it now, I’ll mess myself up for days.

So, instead, I worked on garden stuff!

The tomato seeds were all showing radicals, with some even starting to show seed leaves. It was time to get them into the seed starting mix.

The first image has the Black Beauty on the left, Spoon tomatoes on the right. Those Spoon tomatoes were really doing well! It’s hard to see, but all the Black Beauty seeds had radicals showing.

The next image has the Sub Arctic Plenty on the right. As a short season variety, it’s no surprise that they germinated so quickly. On the left are the Chocolate Cherry. I was a bit surprised that these were the slowest to germinate. I would have expected the Black Beauty to take the longest, considering they have the longest growing season needed.

I had to moisten more seed starter mix for this job, and I made sure to use hot water for that. By the time the cells were filled and the seeds were being transferred out of their trays, the damp mix was still warm. Warmer than the damp paper towels the seeds were on. Now they’re in the tray along with the Turkish Orange eggplant (there’s 6 visible seedlings there), the luffa (all three have finally emerged) and sweet bell pepper mix (no sign of any of those, yet). The bottom of the tray got warm water, too – I wanted to make sure those square peat pots had plenty of moisture to absorb, so they don’t try out the seed starting mix.

That done, I went through my next batch of seeds and decided to go for it with the melons. The White Scallop seeds were set aside for now, as they can wait until May to be done. I got the containers all prepped and labeled ahead of time, and even got some markers labeled for when it’s time to put them into seed starting mix.

For the watermelon, I used my older Cream of Saskatchewan and Kaho seeds. The Sarah’s Choice melon seeds are also older, but the Green Flesh Honeydew packet is new seeds.

Then there are the Zucca melons. Which are the giants. These seeds, which I made a point of scarifying by scraping their edges with a utility knife, are also older seeds, so I made a point of choosing the plumpest, most solid feeling seeds. Which could have been any of them, really. They were in quite good shape. I started 4 seeds. These are the ones that started out so well last year, only to be decimated by slugs, so any transplants we get out of these are going to require extra protection.

Four seeds each was what I was shooting for; we over did it with melons last year, and I want to cut back. With the Cream of Saskatchewan, there were only 5 seeds left in the pack, so I set them all out. With the Kaho watermelon, there were only 3 seeds left in the pack, so I guess that balances things out!

They all got covered with dampened paper towel, and are now set up on top of the aquarium light fixture. At this stage, they don’t really need light, but they do need warmth. I didn’t want to set up the other heat mat yet, and the light fixture is ever so slightly warm. Not as warm as a heat mat, but warm enough. Once they germinate and get transferred into trays, they’ll get a heat mat. It should be interesting to see how many germinate. Especially with the older seeds.

After this, the next things we might start indoors are some herbs and a few back-up White Scallop squash. Those can be started towards the end of April or beginning of May. I’m hoping we’ll be able to start using the portable greenhouse at around the same time. It really depends on those overnight temperatures inside the greenhouse, as we have no way to heat it. We won’t have the option to use the sun room this year, as the space is pretty much all set up for the cats now!

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.

It felt good to be able to do some garden related stuff on such a dreary day.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: they’re aliiiivvvveeee!!!

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With the pre-germinated seeds potted up and the tray on top of a heat mat, I have been eager to see how long it would take for the seed leaves to break through.

Not long at all! It’s been only a week since the seeds were set up to pre-germinate, and here we are…

The Baked Potato squash have the most leaves emerged. There are some Mashed Potato squash pushing their way, or just visible, though the vermiculite. Even the Arikara squash is just visible through the vermiculate. Nothing visible on the Sunshine squash, yet. Nothing visible in the luffa, eggplant or peppers in the other tray, either.

Oh, and I checked the last luffa seed still in the pre-germination container. I gave it a squeeze, and it was hollow; just the shell left. So it’s 3 out of 4 seeds that successfully pre-germinated.

After taking the above picture, I pulled the winter squash tray out and rotated it on the heat mat, in case there were some warm and cold spots. The silver insulating material I put under it seems to be working; I could feel more warmth than when it was just the cardboard.

I have more of this insulating stuff left and was thinking of putting it around the drain pipe I was trying to clean out yesterday, in the general area where I think the gunk might be freezing. I know the bottleneck starts at about 6′ from the access point.

The problem is, for most of that area, access to the drain pipe is blocked by a heat duct and the frame built around the window on the inside, with a platform to hold a fan. It could be done, but I would definitely need someone else to give me a hand.

I’d also want to clean away the many years of dust, dirt and cobwebs first, too!

Though, now that I’ve looked at it, I am now doubting that ice could be the issue. There is that heat duct in the way. I would think any heat lost through the metal of the duct would be enough to keep things from freezing.

It wouldn’t hurt to have the pipe insulated in that section, though. I haven’t unrolled it, but there’s at least 6 feet of the insulating material left.

This stuff is turning out to be handy for all sorts of things, but insulating pipes is what the dimensions of this particular size of roll was designed for.

It seems to be doing well for keeping seed trays warm in a cold basement, too!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: pre-germination and preparing to pot up

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Well, it has stopped snowing – for now. We’re supposed to get a brief snowfall again later this evening.

I am so glad we got our first stock up shopping trip done yesterday. I got a call from home care saying there wasn’t anyone to do my mother’s med assist in the evening, due to unsafe road conditions. !!! The problem is, if the road conditions are too unsafe for the home care worker to drive to my mother’s town, it would be equally unsafe for me or my siblings to do it. After explaining the situation to the shift supervisor that called me, she said she would look into things can call me back. Thankfully, they were able to find a home care worker that didn’t have to drive into my mother’s town, and could juggle schedules so she could do my mother’s two evening med assists.

While waiting for her to call me back, I checked the road conditions, just to be sure. Our provincial government website for road conditions is notorious for not being up to date, so when I saw it listing our highway was “partially snow packed”, I checked a local highways group on FB. Some people had made the drive on the highway I’d be taking and things were certainly not very safe. Our gravel roads, of course, have not been plowed yet, but I did see cars driving past our place. The danger isn’t so much the snow, but that it’s snow on top of ice from our recent warm weather melting things all over.

So I was very, very happy and thankful when I got the call back saying they’d found a way to get my mother’s med assist done!

What better way to spend my time when it’s too snowy to do anything outside, besides shovel?

Work on garden stuff, of course.

With the basement being as cold as it is, I headed down to get the heater going and seeing what I could do to prepare for potting up the pre-germinated seeds. Premoistening the seed starter mix works great, but it has resulted in the mix being far colder than if it were dry. I set things up so that the heater was blowing right over my giant metal mixing bowl to help warm it up, along with the rest of the room. Then I checked on the seeds.

They are looking great! We have a near 100% germination rate!

In the first photo, we have the Sunshine squash. It’s hard to see on a couple of them, but yes, all four of them have radicals emerging. The other, with six seeds, are the Mashed Potato squash. It’s hard to see with some of them, but they have all germinated.

In the second photo, you can see that all three Arikara squash have germinated. The five seeds are the Baked Potato squash, also all germinated.

Next are the luffa, and so far, two of four have germinated. I would not be surprised if the last two also germinated by tomorrow.

In the last photo, I have a large-celled tray prepared and set up in front of the heater to pot all but the luffa into. That will leave three empty cells.

I might have to invest in another heat mat, though. That little heater can only do so much in such a big room! We don’t have any bigger heaters. The basements are not heated. The old basement is where the furnace is and it actually does get warmer. I considered setting up in there, but it doesn’t have enough outlets available to plug in a heat mat or grow lights.

For now, in the tray I’m using to hold the seed starts now, I made sure to add warm water to the base for the eggplants and peppers in peat cells. With the heat mat, the peat was drying out, which would draw moisture out of the seed starter mix, so I have to made sure those stay damp. The heat mat would also keep the water in the tray warm, which helps. The luffa will be potted up into individual peat pots, since they will be transplanted into large pots in the little portable greenhouse we got, while the winter squash will go into various garden beds. The luffa pots can go back to the tray the eggplant and peppers are in and will stay warm, but the second tray with the winter squash is going to need to be warmed up as well.

I should be able to get a second heat mat in town, but there’s no going anywhere today. Possibly tomorrow, if road conditions are improved. Otherwise, Sunday would be the earliest.

The seeds should be okay in their damp paper towels for now. Even if the first leaves start to emerge, they can be potted up. I just don’t want them to pot them up, only to get killed off by cold!

Well, we’ll see how it works out over the next couple of days.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: something new, and tomato decisions made

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While I was out and about today, I found myself standing in line at the grocery store, right near a seed display. So, of course, I went looking.

Yeah. I bought more seeds.

In going through my seeds, I was thinking of what slicing tomato to grow this year. I had decided on doing the Spoon tomatoes, and will make a point of saving seeds from those, but for the family, I wanted a slicing tomato and a snacking tomato. I saw the two varieties of black tomato seeds we grew a couple of years back, and somehow completely missed the packet of Forme de Couer tomatoes (I think it was stuck to the back of another seed packet) that we grew last year. The black tomatoes took such a long time to mature, I figured it was worth getting these to try.

Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes, which need only 40-59 days to harvest, after transplanting outdoors. In the next photo, you can read that this variety was developed in Alberta specifically for our prairie climate, is a determinate tomato and does not need staking.

The “It grows here” guarantee is a nice touch.

Well worth the try. Hopefully, it will even taste good.

After I finished doing my evening rounds early and tending to the new mama in the sun room, I got my daughter to help me take some things to the basement, then we went through the packets of tomato seeds together, so she could help choose one more variety.

We ended up with two.

For a snacking tomato, I’ll start some Chocolate Cherry tomatoes. My daughter, however, spotted the packet of Black Beauty tomato seeds. While these took forever to ripen, and had a tendency to split like no other tomato we’ve grown, she says they were the most delicious tomatoes we’ve grown to date.

So we will have two types of slicing tomatoes. One short season variety and one long season. Depending on how things work out, the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes should be done and harvested just in time for the Black Beauties to start ripening.

That makes four varieties of tomatoes we will be growing this year, and I will make sure to NOT start too many seeds! With the different places we’ve tried tomatoes before, I have a better idea of where I will transplant these. Most definitely not in the blocks along the chain link fence, for starters! I figure I will shoot for four transplants of each variety. That should be enough for out needs, since we will not be freezing or canning any tomatoes we grow this year.

Either tonight or tomorrow, I will head back into the dungeon and set some seeds up to pre-germinate. The tomatoes will wait until the first week of April, but there are other things I can start now.

I have decided to go ahead and try the luffa again, after all. They will get transplanted into large pots and be kept in the new portable greenhouse we got for the entire growing season.

I will also start pre-germinating seeds for winter squash, but I think I’ll sow the Turkish eggplant right away into seed starting mix, rather than pre-germinate them. I don’t feel like pre-germinating smaller seeds. I will pre-germinate the melon seeds, but not until April.

And that’s where we are at, for now!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: MI Gardener seed order in (video), and decisions to make

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I didn’t expect to be recording another seed haul video quite so soon! Our MI Gardener order came in today, though, so here we are.

I actually ordered these a full 10 days before the seed order that came in yesterday. It does take a while when things have to cross the border!

After this, I have just one more seed order to come in, with just two seed packets (the rest of the order are trees and bushes that will be shipped later; probably in May). One of those seed packets are a mix of mini bell peppers that I want to try, and I plan to start those indoors, even though they are short season peppers.

So, from among the seeds that came in today, I plan to start the eggplant, honeydew melon and possibly the luffa. If I’m going to do the luffa, I need to start those right away. For direct sowing, I will have the red noodle beans and sugar snap peas, with the carrots and spinach as back up seeds if our winter sowing experiment fails, while the sugar beets will be for next year.

From the seeds that came in yesterday, the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon will be started indoors. I’m still debating whether to try the Arikara squash this year or next year. I’m leaning towards next year, since we will have three varieties of winter squash to try this year. For direct sowing, we have the super sugar snap peas, plus the white scallop squash as back up seeds, if the winter sowing fails, and the Yukon Chief corn is for next year.

When the Veseys seed order comes in, we will have the mini bell peppers to start indoors.

Aside from that, I will be starting my last Spoon tomato seeds indoors, a cherry or grape tomato, plus a slicing tomato. I will let the family choose which they would like. No paste tomatoes this year, since we still have so many buried in the freezer. I will also make some decisions on what herbs will be started indoors. There’s the other variety of watermelon I plan to start, and possibly one cantaloupe type melon.

I’ll have to be careful of how many things I start indoors, since we will have limited space – if the winter sowing experiment works – and I have other direct sowing things I want to grow. Last year, we had such high germination rates on the winter squash, melons and tomatoes that, by the time they were all transplanted, there wasn’t much room left to direct sow anything! So I will need to keep that in mind when I decide how many seeds to start from each. Plus, we need to keep space open for potatoes, and I’d like to plant more this year than we did last year. Seed potatoes are starting to show up in the stores, so I will likely pick them up sooner rather than later, and store them in the root cellar until it’s time to plant.

A lot of the direct sowing decisions will depend on just how well the winter sowing experiment did, and we won’t know that until probably mid May, or even early June!

We shall see, when the time comes.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: Heritage Harvest seeds are in (video)

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I decided to try doing a short video showing my little seed haul that came in the mail today.

The free seeds that came with the order were Bushy Cucumbers, so I went to look them up.

From the website:

A Russian heirloom that was introduced by Seed Savers Exchange and grown in Dacha gardens near Moscow, Russia. Productive and early tolerating cooler nights better than others! Great for pickles! Vines grow to 5 feet long. (45-50 days to maturity)

So, a pickling cucumber and, looking at the days to maturity, these can be direct sown, rather than started indoors.

I will make decisions on what we will be direct sowing after I get an idea of how the winter sowing experiment turned out, and see what growing space we end up having. If the winter sowing experiment failed, we’ll have lots of room!

The Re-Farmer