sour cherry

Not working out as planned

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One of the things I wanted to get back to today, was to work on the garden beds again. It’s getting a bit drier out there, though mowing the lawn is still out of the question, but I want to get at least something done.

Well, that doesn’t seem to be working out.

I did get my morning rounds done, as usual.

There were plenty of kitties coming out for breakfast, though I counted “only” twenty. Shop Towel came around, and his face is looking so beat up!! I did manage to let me get a big wood tick off the side of his head, and a few more around a wound on his side that looks like some fur was pulled out in a fight. No major injuries. His presence does make a few of the other cats very nervous, though.

I did get to visit Broccoli’s babies, straighten out their bedding, and leave food for her. They are getting much more active, which is a bit of a concern. There is a lot of stuff in there they can get into, and they’re getting mobile enough to climb out of their bedding. I’d like to set up some sort of box or bin for them to nest in, but I’m afraid if I do that, she’ll move them away completely.

We’ll figure it out.

The cherry tree near the house is in peak bloom now. It looks so pretty, nestled in between the lilacs and their purple flower buds.

Once the morning rounds were done, I came inside for breakfast, and was planning to head outside. Part of the problem is, I’m just not feeling well. I wasn’t able to get to sleep until past 3am – I can only partially blame cats for that! Butterscotch has finally stopped spending her days hiding under the chair, and is back to sleeping on the bed, though any time she sees Susan or Fenrir, she starts snarling. Mostly, though, she has decided that I am her bed! Which is fine, until she starts wriggling and squirming.

Meanwhile, the high humidity we’re having lately has been brutal on my osteo-arthritis. Usually, that’s not been an issue since we moved back to the prairies. When we were living on the West Coats, I could barely walk. Now, it’s all acting up again. The worst is an old elbow injury. Back in… 2010? 2011? I developed the equivalent of tennis elbow. I actually quit my job as a banquet server at the time, because I was afraid I might drop a plate of food or a pot of hot coffee on someone. It got so bad, I couldn’t even turn a door knob, and had to stop crocheting for a year. With physiotherapy, it did improve, but it’s never healed completely, and flares up every now and then, and has developed into OA. It’s my left elbow, and I’m left handed in a lot of things – like turning door knobs! It’s been flaring up a lot since we’ve had the rains, making some of the simplest actions, painful and difficult. At least it doesn’t really stop me from doing big things; it’s the small motions that are affected the most, but I should still be able to handle a garden fork.

But then I started getting messages and had to make phone calls, and then there were other unexpected tasks to get done. To top it off, my younger daughter is feeling even worse than I am right now. For other reasons, but she’s pretty much out of commission for most things.

We are quite the household of gimps!

I’m really fighting the urge to take more painkillers and take a nap right now.

Well. I can at least take the painkillers!

The frustrating thing is, if we don’t get things done today, it won’t get done tomorrow; tomorrow is our first stock up shopping trip in the city. The day after, we’re supposed to get more rain. Then we’re back in the city again, to meet up with a friend that’s back in Canada. Then another trip to the city to do the second stock up shopping trip… on the weekend? After the weekend? Somewhere in there, we’ll be getting contacted about the flat tire I dropped off at the garage, and if all goes well, we’ll be getting that put back on, and the spare stored again. By the time all that is done, we’ll probably be past our last frost date and need to start planting things!

So those beds have got to get done!

At least we do have some spaces ready to plant in.

I just want to sleep.

The Re-Farmer

Morning flowers, and strawberry progress

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We have lots of things blooming right now!

Besides dandelions, that is.

The cherries at the edge of the spruce grove are blooming like crazy right now. We might actually have berries from them this year. The one by the house – the one we plan to keep – is just starting to bloom. Usually, it blooms before the ones in the bushes.

The different types of lilacs are showing flower buds, but only the double lilac in the old kitchen garden is starting to show a few open blossoms. Most of the crab apple trees have buds, but the one big one that has tasty apples just sort of exploded in flowers this morning.

The grape hyacinths have their flower cones up. Little spots of purple, all over the area they’re in. Unfortunately, they are almost completely hidden by the purple bellflower that has taken over every open space among the trees. The area is too large to weed by hand, but I don’t want to use tools or the weed trimmer, and risk accidentally taking out the grape hyacinths.

I’m really looking forward to when the lilacs start opening. We’ve got five different kinds that my mother planted, and they all bloom at different types. Everything smells amazing for weeks!

I also made sure to check our little strawberry patch. Something – likely the cats – keeps digging into the mulch, but not the strawberries. I just need to put the mulch back in the morning, and everything else is okay.

It looks like 8 out of 9 are doing quite well right now. The 9th one does have leaf buds on it, so it will hopefully recover soon. Considering we ordered a package of 8, that one’s a bonus, anyhow!

Hopefully, these will do quite well where they are – as long as the bed doesn’t get invaded by those Chinese elm roots again!

The Re-Farmer

Things that got done today

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It was hot, muggy and gross out there, but stuff still needed to be done!

My daughter and I finally got to picking the sour cherries from the tree next to the house.

We picked as many as we could reach using the little household stepladder. The ground is too uneven to safely use the bigger A frame ladder, even with a spotter. Which is okay. We can leave the rest for the birds! We almost filled the colander we were using to gather them. Then my daughter used one of the window screens we found in a shed that have been so handy to lay them out. She gave them a good washing and picked over them to get rid of any damaged or bird eaten ones that got missed. I think we still had about 5 pounds of cherries when she was done. I’m thinking we might make a syrup out of them, but will look up different ideas to try, first.

We’ll have other fruit to harvest, too.

There are SO many grape clusters! I’m still amazed. The most we’ve ever since since moving here. It will be some time before they’re ripe, though. The chokecherry tree by the compost ring and low raised beds will be ready to harvest soon. Actually, there are two of them, very close together. There’s a larger, healthier looking chokecherry tree by the main garden area, but with the tall trees beside it, it doesn’t get anywhere near as much sun as the one by the low raised beds. The berries on there are still mostly green, and there are far fewer of them. These trees are still pretty spindly, as they were quite choked out until we cleaned up around them, but they are just covered with berry clusters, weighing down the branches.

While checking the grape vines, I was on the lookout for more of those caterpillars, but accidentally knocked a big brown one onto the ground!

I tried to pick it up to put it back, but it kept flipping, uncurling and curling. It was remarkably strong! In my attempts to use leaves and twigs to move it, it flipped itself onto the step, which made it very convenient to take photos! I did finally get it on a grape leaf and back onto the vine.

Then I went to get one of the vines out of the spirea, where I found the green spotted caterpillar. So pretty! I was able to untangle the vine without disturbing it.

While I had the timer going for the sprinklers in the garden, I finally finished attaching the fence wire to the raised bed cover frame.

What a pain in the butt that was!

While setting up to work on it, I noticed that a screw in one corner – top right in the first photo – had snapped, allowing the pieces to rotate slightly. Not good!

Propping the frame up with boards helped steady it, but it was a real pain to attach that fence wire. Plus, Gooby decided that rolling around on the ground and sticking his head or feet right were I was hammering was a good idea.

It was not a good idea.

He was very determined, though!

I did finally get the fence wire attached. Between the snapped screw in one corner, and the likelihood of the U nails simply popping out while the frame is being moved, I decided adding extra boards to sandwich the fence wire was a necessity. I cut spare pieces to length, but by then I had worked my way through the sprinkler and soaker hoses, and needed to do the rest of the watering directly. My daughter was a sweetheart and attached the new lengths to the frame for me. That definitely made the whole thing stronger.

The lengths of fence wire for this was 5′, which made for a rather tall arc. This would be perfect for things like the bush beans on the high raised bed. For the next one, though, I’ll use 4′ lengths.

What I will not use, though, is that fence wire again! The twisted wire at every join is just too thick, making attaching it to the wood less secure. I still want to have something structurally sturdy, though, as it has to support any mesh, plastic or netting that is laid over it. Either that or I will need to add hoops to support the material. Hardware cloth or chicken wire would not be enough on their own.

With this one, I plan to cover it with the black netting we have, closing up the ends in the process. That will make sure no cats will get into the beds and lay down on our vegetables!

The buggers.

Meanwhile, the garden got a good watering. We hit 28C/82F today, as we did yesterday, but did not get any of the scattered rain showers that were predicted. Tomorrow, at least, will be a slightly more pleasant 23C/73F but it’s supposed to reach that temperature by noon and stay there until 7pm. To top it all off, we’ve got air quality advisories from all the wildfires. It was definitely on the hazy side, today! Just moderate air quality advisories for our area. Others are listed as extreme, so we don’t have much to complain about, that’s for sure.

I gave up trying to go to bed early today – at least not as early as the last couple of nights. Still debating whether I should try sleeping on the couch to reduce the interruptions by kittens.

Speaking of kittens, Question has absolutely glommed onto me today! She’s constantly climbing up me, whether I’m standing or sitting. While bending over to pick up the adult cat food bowls, I suddenly had a kitten hanging off my butt. Question had been on the bed behind me and went for it. When I stood up, she climbed her way up to my shoulders and stayed there! After feeding them, I sat down to work on the computer with my own supper. Even though she ate her own food enthusiastically, she was determined to eat mine, too! She was not happy that I would not let her! When we were done giving Leyendecker his medications, I settled at the computer again, only to have her climb up me again, to nap on my chest. As I write this, I’m leaning way back in my chair as she sits on my belly. I think she’s nodding off! None of the other kittens behave like this. Mind you, while her sister has been improving in health, Question is still really gooby, and doesn’t have as much energy as the other kittens.

What a handful the litter bugger is, though. Literally. She’s just a tiny little handful. They all are! Not for long, though. They sure are growing fast!

Well, I need to make up my mind on where I plan to sleep tonight.

If I sleep tonight.

The Re-Farmer

Got some stuff done, and first fruits!

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After the hours spent outside yesterday, trimming, cutting and dragging around trees, I fully expect to be in a world of hurt today. I wasn’t! Just tired. Sleepy tired, not fatigue tired.

Today was a wonderfully cool day and it would have been prefect to get back out there, but I decided not to push my luck. Instead, I went out and made recordings for a July garden tour video. My husband had some parcels come in, so in the afternoon I went to the post office to pick them up. My younger daughter got her new debit card in the mail, which needed to be activated by doing a physical purchase, so we went into town and she bought me lunch. After we ate, we went to walk on the beach. By then, I was really noticing my hips were starting to give out. No pain. Just… unstable. So I’m glad I didn’t push myself to do more work with the trees, just because I thought I was better than I really was.

I couldn’t let such a wonderful day go to waste, though, and took advantage of the riding mower my brother loaned us. I was able to do the driveway and most of the outer yard before running out of gas again. By then, the light was starting to go, and it had been trying to rain for almost an hour, so I left the rest for later.

One of the things I need to mow around in the outer yard is the pile of insulation buried in branches. It’s been there so long, there are trees growing out of it, and wild raspberry bushes.

Lots of wild raspberry bushes.

With ripe berries! The ones in the garden are almost ripe, but these had berries ready to pick now!

So after the mowing was done and the kibble topped up outside, I got the girls to grab some bowls and pick berries with me. I’m not sure what happened with my younger daughter, though. She came out using a cane! After we came back from town, she went for a bike ride and seemed fine, but something gave out on her. Her PCOS really affects her joints, and she worked hard in the basement today. None of us do stairs well at all! I didn’t get a chance to ask what happened, though.

After we picked some berries, I was going to do my evening rounds when I remembered, we have other berries, too! There are Saskatoons ready to pick. My older daughter helped pick for a while, then commented on the cherry tree by the house. It has so many cherries on it, and some of them are just starting to turn red. I told her to go take a look at the other cherry trees along the edge of the spruce grove. I have been able to just see red cherries there. She took a look and forced her way closer, to pick some.

She was able to get at a whole 4 ripe cherries!

My older daughter and I ate those. They’re really sour cherries, and she and I are the only ones willing to eat them fresh like that! 😄

Not too shabby for a first berry harvest of the year! The girls washed them and made whipped cream to go with them. They were awesome.

The weather is supposed to be quite pleasant for the next while – slightly below average for July. I’m pretty excited about that. Hopefully, that means I can finally get lots done outside!

The Re-Farmer

Kitty cats and sour cherries

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I’m happy to say that I’ve been seeing Potato Beetle around. He joined me while I was tending things in the garden, yesterday evening.

The cats do like the cardboard mulch around the silver buffalo berry!

Unfortunately, he’s a bit too spry and back to normal. He went after Rolando Moon. Then I saw him and Sad Face stalking each other. I broke that up before it became an actual fight, only to later see him stalking The Distinguished Guest!

I dissuaded them from fighting, but Potato Beetle is looking like he’s wanting to reestablish his top spot in the pecking order.

Aren’t they supposed to be less aggressive after losing their nibs?

Well. At least he’s staying close to home.

He showed up this morning, while I was putting kibble out, but he had no interest in the other trays. He wanted his personal food dish in the sun room! So I let him in and left the door open, so he could come and go as he pleased.

While doing my morning rounds, I took recordings for a new garden tour video. I’ll be working on editing it later today.

I also had a chance to pick cherries.

These are the cherries that I could reach without a ladder. I could pull some branches down, but there are still plenty higher up that need to be picked. The gallon bucket was about 3/4 full. These have been laid out in a pair of trays in a single layer, and are in the big freezer. Once they’re frozen, we’ll bag them up. I wouldn’t mind trying to make wine with these. It’s bee a long time since we’ve tried to make wine. The problem is having a cat-safe space for the carboy. There just isn’t any. 😕😒

After washing off the cherries with the hose, I starting into the sun room, only to find the netting I’d put on the swing bench, on the floor in front of the door.

The bench was occupied.

The sun room was just crawling with kittens! These three, and their mama, were relaxing, but you can just see the tail tip of the one that ran between the window and the bench. Some of the big kittens were in there, too. My presence was panicking them, though. One ran into a window, and another into the back of the inner door, trying to get out. *sigh* So I was careful to skirt around and make sure they could access the door as I picked up the netting, then brought the cherries inside. The mama ran off, too, but the three kittens in the photo, stayed.

That mama has this permanent angry expression on her face. 😄

Today is looking to be a really nice day for work outside, so I’m going to see what I can catch up on. Maybe say hello to the cows. I can see them on the security camera’s live feed, at the fence along the driveway. 😊

Mostly, though, I need to finish mowing. After working in the old garden area last time, though, I had better check the blade and see if I need to sharpen it, first!

The Re-Farmer

2022 garden: morning in the garden

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Just a little big of progress in the garden.

The sour cherry tree by the house has lots of ripe berries, ready to be picked. I’ll have to get the girls to do it, though. A ladder will be needed to reach the ripest ones at the top. This is the most cherries we’ve had since moving here.

We got a pretty decent amount of yellow bush beans this morning. Not enough to make it worth blanching and freezing, never mind canning, but enough for a couple of meals this time.

The purple pole beans are getting more pods, though they are still very thin. I saw the first of the green pole bean pods this morning – tiny wisps of pods! Still no sign of pods, or even flowers, on the red pole beans, while the shelling beans still have lots of flowers, but no pods that I can see.

We should be able to harvest the garlic from this bed pretty soon.

One of the Baby Pam pumpkins is starting to turn colour. This variety doesn’t get much bigger than this. From the looks of it, these are going to be the only winter squash we get out of this patch, other than maybe one kakai hulless seed pumpkin. Even the Teddy squash, which are a very small variety with only 55 days needed to maturity, will likely not get a chance to produce anything. The green zucchini still isn’t producing; they did have female flowers, but no male flowers bloomed at the same time to pollinate them. We do have some golden zucchini developing, though, and some Magda squash I should be able to pick in a few days. Maybe even a yellow pattypan squash or two.

The paste tomatoes, at least, are coming along nicely, with more of them starting to blush.

I was able to harvest more green onions from the high raised bed. Most of these will be dehydrated, and there are lots more I can harvest.

The handful of pea pods are almost all from the second planting. The first planting is, amazingly, still blooming!

Most of the onions seem to be growing well. Some of the red onions have very different shapes, and they are starting to be noticeable. I’m thinking of picking one or two for fresh eating, just to see how they taste.

The one surviving type of turnips are finally starting to have visible “shoulders”. We might actually be able to pick some, soon.

I don’t know what to make of the potatoes. They’re done blooming and we should be able to harvest young potatoes now, but I want to leave them as long as I can. The plants themselves are nowhere near as large as potato plants normally get. There was so much water in that area, I’m sure it stunted the growth of the ones that survived. I still might dig one plant up, of each variety, just to see what there is to see. Will the lack of foliage translate into a lack of potatoes, too? I was really hoping to have a good amount of potatoes to store for the winter. It certainly wouldn’t be enough to last the entire winter for the 4 of us, but it will help us decide if these are varieties we will get again or not.

Every time I’m in the garden, I’m thinking of next year’s garden. One thing is for sure. It is nowhere near big enough to meet our goal of providing sufficient amounts of food to last us until there is fresh produce again. We planted so much, with the expectation of losses, but this year the losses are just too great. Which has really surprised me. I did not expect to get less productivity this year, compared to last year’s drought. Mind you, during the drought, we were watering the garden beds every day, twice a day. This year… well, adding water is easy. Keeping water out is not. Still, even if everything had gone well, we would still probably need double the garden size to meet our long term goal. Short term is to have enough to supply our needs for at least 3 months – the hardest winter months, when we might find ourselves snowed in or the vehicles frozen.

Every year we garden, we figure things out a bit more, from what weather extremes we need to work around, to how much of anything we need to grow, to what we like enough to grow year after year. More me, half the enjoyment of gardening is analysing the results and using that information to make decisions for the next year!

That’s one good thing about having hard gardening years. You do learn more from it, than from years were everything goes smoothly.

The Re-Farmer

Change in plans, morning in the garden

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This morning was our date with the vet, to get Potato Beetle, Big Rig and Tissue spayed and neutered, as arranged by the Cat Lady.

I had a chance to text with her last night, as she reminded me to have them fasting. She herself was going back to the hospital today. The poor thing has been in and out of hospital all summer, and yet she still manages to help with cats. She just brought home a couple more because they were sick, and no one else was willing/able to take care of them. She is so awesome!

She did warn me that there is a shortage of vets, and there was a possibility of cancellation. So when my phone started ringing while I was driving with the three cats, I had a sinking feeling. Of course, I couldn’t answer while driving. It started ringing again, then I suddenly started getting notification noises, one after another. *sigh*

The calls were from one of the staff from the clinic – but she was calling from home! When she couldn’t get through to me, she called the Cat Lady, and both of them were trying to text me at the same time, letting me know that the vet wasn’t coming in today. All surgeries were being cancelled.

I got all these when I parked in front of the clinic.

After responding to both of them, the lady from the clinic said she would call me when she got into the office to reschedule, then I headed home.

The cats were not happy with all this. I was concerned about Potato Beetle. He’s already been stuck in the sun room for over a week. Yes, he has cool places to lie down, and we make sure there’s a frozen water bottle in his water bowl, the ceiling fan is going, and the small box fan I found the the garage is set up. Still, it gets quite warm in there and, as much as we try to go over and pay attention to him, he’s mostly all on his own.

Thankfully, the clinic was able to reschedule us for this Friday, so tomorrow night, we do the fasting again.

Since we no longer to dash to and from town to deal with the cats, I took advantage of the change in plans and decided to do our Costco trip today, instead of next week.

But first, I had to do my morning rounds, switch out the memory cards in the trail cams, and check the garden beds.

The Carminat pole beans finally have pods forming!

The one giant pumpkin is growing so fast!

I looked around and finally saw another pumpkin forming. Just to be on the safe side, I hand pollinated it. The vines of the two plants are overlapping each other, but as far as I can tell, this one, plus another female flower I found that is still just a bud, is on the same plant as the pumpkin that’s growing so big. The second plant has lots of male flowers, but I can’t see any female flowers on it.

I’ll keep checking and, as I find them, I’ll hand pollinated them, just to be on the same side.

Which I am also doing with the Red Kuri (Little Gem) squash, in the south yard. These are doing really, really well here. I have hand pollinated several female flowers already, and I can see more budding. I’m happy that these are doing so well, because these may be the only winter squash we get this year!

The cherry tree by the house is doing well, too. This is the most we’ve seen on this tree since moving here. The other trees at the edge of the spruce grove have nothing. Being close to the house seems to be providing the microclimate it needs. I don’t know the name of this variety; only that the original tree was from Poland, which has a longer growing season than we do.

The cherries at the very top look ripe, or close to it. We’ll have to bring over the step ladder and start picking them!

Speaking of picking things…

This is this morning’s harvest. Along with the bush beans, there was a single pea pod from the row that was planted first. That row is almost done, but the ones that were planted later have quite a few pods that should be ready to pick in a few more days.

I also picked our very first two cucumbers! I picked this variety as it is supposed to be good for both fresh eating and pickling. Whether or not we’ll have enough to make pickles, I’m not sure yet, but we at least have these ones to taste test now!

There was also a few raspberries to pick. Maybe 3/4’s of a cup in total.

It’s not much, but it’s enough to enjoy with a meal. Certainly better than nothing at all!

That done, I was off to the city to do the last of our monthly stocking up, but that will get it’s own post. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden

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Oh, what a tiny little harvest this morning. 😁

I went ahead and picked our single patty pan squash. It’s supposed to be all yellow. This is the size we like them at best. Summer squash are supposed to be more productive the more you pick them, but right now, I’m not even seeing any more female flowers.

This is the most raspberries we’ve had yet. Usually, I get to pick one or two in the mornings, and that’s it.

I also found a single shelling pea that was filled enough to pick.

I ate it.

It was tasty. 😊

We are actually going to have cherries this year! We’re going to need a ladder to pick them, though. They’re almost all only at the highest branches!

While puttering around the yard and gardens – and enjoying the fact that I can walk through the maple grove again, I kept hearing a constant buzzing noise. It sounded like I was hearing thousands of bees up in the trees, but I couldn’t see them.

I figured it out, though. It’s that time of year!

The linden tree is in peak blooming time now, and was the source of the buzzing!

Not a lot of flowers are on the lower branches, but even they were full of insects.

Turn your volume up to watch this. The microphone didn’t actually pick it up very well – it was MUCH louder in real life!

This would be the idea time to harvest the flowers, but honestly… I don’t know if I’d want to get in the middle of all those insects! Not all of them will be stinging insects, of course, but with how much they’re constantly moving around, there’s always going to be at least some nearby! When I was in my early teens, I remember harvesting the flowers for my mother by standing on a ladder and dropping them onto a sheet on the ground below.

The tree is much, much bigger now. 😊

The Re-Farmer