My husband has to be really careful before sitting on or getting into his hospital bed. Big Rig all but lives in it, burrowing under his covers, with just the tiniest bit visible. In this case, just her nose was visible, until I got right down to mattress level!
She’s such a giant slug of a cat!
Anyhow…
Today, while checking on the seed starts in the basement, I found another first.
You can just barely see in the first image above, our very first tomato seedling. This one is an Orange Currant tomato. Hopefully, that means we’ll be seeing more tomato seedlings coming up over the next few days.
The next photo in the slide show above has the Crackerjack marigolds (left) and Cosmos (right). These are starting to get tall enough that I will soon move them up to the shelf under the shop light. The tray the single luffa, herbs and the celery that was transplanted into a snail roll has room for at least two, potentially four, snail rolls, depending on how thick they are. I might end up taking everything out of that plastic tray and setting them on another metal baking sheet, like what these snail rolls are on. Less space on the tray, but it can hold the weight of those seed snail rolls.
In the last photo, you can see the hollyhock seedlings. It looks like only three, but there are four more seedlings hidden in the roll. The seed leaves are still encased in the seeds’ outer shell, so they look a lot like the vermiculite. There are two near the centre seedling with the green of their stems just barely visible. There are two more in the outer part of the roll, center and left of centre. Honest!
I didn’t take any pictures, but the pepper and eggplant seedings are not looking particularly good. One of the eggplant seedings simply died off. It was right in a corner cell, on the far side of the tray, and I suspect it was just not warm enough for it there, even with the heat mat under the tray. With so few survivors, that’s a lot of wasted space in the tray, too.
In hind sight, I’m now thinking it would have been better to do those in seed rolls, too! Chances are, they wouldn’t have been eaten by mice or whatever it was that killed most of them, either.
Ah, well. Live and learn!
I’m just happy to see my first little tomato seedling. This variety might even be a type of tomato I can eat raw, like the Spoon tomatoes. We shall see!
My goodness! When seedlings start to germinate, some of them do it incredibly quickly!
Last night, checking on the seed starts before going to bed, I spotted a single marigold seedling that had emerged. I could also see a hollyhock elbowing its way up.
On the bottom right are the Cosmos that had already germinated. There are 11 seedlings – I think I planted only 12 seeds in there.
On the bottom left are the marigolds. I counted 7 seedlings, 6 of which there had been no sign of at all, last night.
Above the marigolds is the hollyhock roll. At first, I could see just the one seedling lifting its head (these are the seeds that the instructions said not to cover at all). When I looked closer, though, I could see three more little green elbows.
Still no tomatoes or fennel, but I’m not expecting to see any of those quite yet. Heck, I wasn’t expecting to see the flowers emerge this quickly!
Hopefully, this is a good sign for the garden this year. From the amount of snow we have on the ground right now, we should at least get a good start before the heat hits and everything dries up. I believe we are supposed to have drought conditions again this year. Which is actually the “normal” for the prairies.
Meanwhile, I watched this video from Self Sufficient Me this morning. I really find videos like this the most inspiring – the ones where things have gone all “wrong”!
Granted, an overgrown jungle like that would never happen here. We’re more likely to have everything baked and dry. Still, it comes down to the same thing: having a bad year is not being a “failure” or a “bad gardener”. It’s just a bad year. Things will never be perfect.
If we waited for perfect conditions and the “right” circumstances, we’d never accomplish anything – in the garden, or in life!
I did a lot of prep in advance. I had enough bubble warp to make the eight snail rolls that I needed, so I went with that, this time. The bubble wrap has perforations to make 12″ square sheets. I made strips 3 sheets long, then cut them in half, giving me strips that were 3′ long and 6″ wide, using clear packing tape for where I needed to join pieces together. I saved the masking tape for holding the rolls together, labelling half the strips I needed in advance.
Then I used hot water to moisten the seed starting mix. I had a bit left over from last time, plus added the new bag I got. No sifting needed! It took almost a gallon of water to get it sufficiently damp! I also set up a heat mat and a plastic tray under the shelf the seedlings are on, to hold the rolls.
Once everything was set up, it was time to make the seed snails and plant some seeds.
I had a bit of a surprise with the tomato seeds. Specifically the seed counts. I always empty the packet of what I’m working on into a bowl to make it easier to grab the seeds, one at a time – usually with the tip of a damp bamboo chopstick for small seeds. The Orange Currant packet said 25 seeds, but there were only 18. I normally would have planted about a dozen seeds and saved the rest; I chose varieties with growing seasons short enough that I could try again if germination or survival rates were low. I ended up using the entire packet.
The Blue Berries tomato had a seed count of 10, but there was only 9. I even double checked the packet to make sure nothing was stuck inside. Not a bit deal.
The other two varieties, meanwhile, had more than what the packet’s seed count said. I planted a dozen seeds each of those and have some left over if I need to try again.
I’m not complaining about the seed count. MI Gardener even did a video on Instagram, I think, talking about why they do see counts instead of weights, and that they always try to have over counts, but mistakes sometimes happen. Their seed packets are only $2 each, so I’m really not worried about it.
The strips I made for the seed rolls were all quite a bit longer than needed. This is deliberate. It gives me enough slack that I can “pot up” the tomatoes more than once, as the seedlings get bigger.
With the Florence Fennel, I made that roll bigger because I wanted to plant quite a bit more. Those can also be succession sown. We don’t normally buy bulb fennel, even though we enjoy it, because it’s one of those “treat” vegetables, rather than a staple. Hopefully, we will have lots to enjoy. I’ve tried growing them once before in the old kitchen garden and they were mostly a fail (the leaves could be used, but we never got bulbs). We didn’t realize, at the time, just how much the ornamental crab apple trees shaded everything. That’s been largely dealt with but, this year, I’ll be sure to set them where they will get more light!
With the flowers, I plan to direct sow some of the left over seeds later on, to extend the blooming season. They are going to be scattered all over the garden areas, rather than into dedicated flower beds.
I’m a little perplexed, though. I had wanted to start some of the aster seeds I saved from a packet of memorial seeds. I distinctly remember labelling a paper seed envelop (from some of the free ones we got with our seed orders) for them, as well as one for the asparagus seeds I’d collected. Now, I can’t find either. The other seeds I’d collected were larger so they went into little spice jars. I have those. They all should have been together in my seed storage bin, and I just can’t find them anymore!
I really want to plant those memorial asters again.
But I digress…
Once I got all the seed rolls done – which used up all the seed starting mix I had! – I topped them with a bit of vermiculite. Even the hollyhock, which the packet said not to cover. I just dusted a bit for the benefit of the seed starting mix surface; not enough to actually cover the seeds. After that, they all got a thorough misting.
The first was the tray they were in. All those rolls were heavy enough I had to be very careful not to break the tray when moving it.
Then there was the problem of light.
Once they were under the shelf and on the heat mat, I tried to set up one of the full spectrum lights I have. Unfortunately, the only place I can clamp the fixture onto is the edge of the table, and the lights didn’t quite reach under the shelf. I had to pull everything out and set things up closer to the edge, which I had hoped to avoid doing. It leaves me very little work space on my table.
I was just finishing up when my daughter came down to see how I was doing (she’s been taking over the outside cat feeding of late, letting me sleep in in the mornings, and get jobs like this done). I took advantage of her and got her to help me transfer the seed rolls out of the plastic tray and onto one of the metal baking sheets I had been using to hold seedlings in the Red Solo Cups. They are too wide to go under shelf were I’d originally intended the tray to be, which is why I hadn’t used one in the first place. In the second picture, you can see how it’s now set up, on a strong and sturdy metal tray over the heat mat and with the lights.
I had not intended to do so many seed snails but, for this year, they are the most practical way to do it, and they really do save a lot of space.
The next group of seeds that will need to be started are in the 4-6 weeks before last frost category. I’ll do those around the middle of April or a bit later. More than enough time to get more seed starting mix.
Hopefully, we’ll have a good germination rate – and the mouse or whatever that ate my pepper seedlings won’t like anything growing here!
In the first picture, there were three seedlings – two that I’d planted after the first pre-germinated one. All three, gone.
In the second picture, you can see that one of the cells was dug into – and the stem of a seedling. There were actually two cells that had been dug into.
The third is what’s left in the tray. The row on the bottom is the Sweet Chocolate peppers. They were doing the best. All the cells had seedlings, with the “just in case” seeds sown later also emerging. The row of seven cells had at least ten seedlings, with hints of more emerging. Now, it’s down to two.
The California Wonder row, in the middle, didn’t do as well, but I did have four seedlings. Now there is just one.
The top row is the Caspar eggplant. There were three surviving seedlings, which seem to be untouched. Whatever ate the others doesn’t seem to like eggplant, I guess.
With the evidence of digging, it must be a mouse. There are a couple of ultrasonic mouse repellents plugged in, in both basements. They’ve been there longer than we have, so I’m guessing they aren’t working anymore.
*sigh*
The celery, herbs and luffa in the other tray are untouched.
About the only thing I can be glad of is that these are all short season varieties. In theory, I could even direct sow them. Not that I would expect that to work with our growing season, so I do want to try again, but how do I keep this from happening again?
We could set traps, of course. There are several live traps that are currently stored in the sun room. They’re not really accessible right now, though.
My daughter suggested the three of us find a way to get the big aquarium into the basement to use as a greenhouse again. A mouse can’t climb the glass, and it has wire mesh covers. The original problem remains, though: how to get it down the stairs. There is so little room at the bottom turn something of its dimensions. Not that we can access it, anyhow. We’ve got so many of my mother’s things shoved into the living room, safe from the cats, that we can’t access where the aquariums are, never mind carry the big aquarium, and the shelf that supports it, out. I was planning on getting some of my mother’s stuff out and into the storage house (which is already so full of my parents’ things) so that we could use the big aquarium to house the chicks, but that won’t be until the end of May.
So frustrating.
Meanwhile, our day changed completely. My doctor’s appointment was this afternoon. If the truck behaved and the road conditions were good, I would have gone on to do the Walmart shopping, after. My younger daughter’s appointment was on Monday, but she wanted to come with me as there was something she needed to get at Walmart.
Note, I said “was”.
We were expecting snow today, but when it started coming down, it was harder than expected. If we can see the snow and wind around the house like that, we know it’s a lot worse on the roads. It was early enough in the day that I called the clinic to cancel my appointment. We’re expecting a combination of rain and snow over the weekend, so I cancelled my daughter’s appointment on Monday, too. When I explained about road conditions, the receptionist I was talking to concurred. The clinic is about a 45 minute drive away, and it sounds like conditions were worse there, than here. I’ve certainly driven in worse conditions, but we’ve had so many issues in such a short time, I just didn’t want take the chance.
They are booking new appointments at four weeks right now, so I could have rebooked for the end of March. I told her, we’ll call to rebook closer to the end of March instead, to make the appointments in April. March being the sort of month that it is, I didn’t want to book appointments only to have to cancel them again due to weather.
So, we stayed home today. I ended up going back to bed. I got up again before noon, in enough pain that I could barely walk. I can’t say the nap helped that much, because I still feel ridiculously tired.
Ah, well. It is what it is.
I’ve got to figure something out to protect my seed starts.
With our seedlings starting in the basement, I make a point of checking on them at least twice a day. In the evening, I turn on the heater and spend some time down there, getting my steps in if I need to. The celery is doing particularly well, and I’ve been seeing new seedlings coming up, including from the “extra” seeds I added to the pre-germinated ones, just in case. There was one little eggplant seedling that had its seed case stuck on the tips of the seed leaves that I ended up very carefully removing and was surprised to see three seed leaves unfurl instead of two.
In other words, I’m keeping a close eye on things.
Which means I immediately noticed something wrong this morning.
The first picture in the slide show above is the seedling that had 3 seed leaves. You can see part of one of them nearby. The other two, and half the stem, are gone.
I tried to zoom the next picture in, but the stem of that Sweet Chocolate pepper is cut right to the surface. The next picture is also a Sweet Chocolate, while the last one is a California Wonder.
If these were outside, I would be thinking that insects got to them. But these are trays in my basement. One of my daughters suggested it might be mice. We do have at least one mouse in the ceiling of the addition – the skittering drives the cats nuts – but there has been zero evidence of mice in the basement. There was also no disturbance in the soil that a mouse would cause if it was moving around the top of the tray. Plus, these damaged seedlings are sort of all over the place on the tray, and it would be odd for a mouse to get just those ones and not, say, the entire tray.
I had been thinking to start more seeds tomorrow, but I expect to be out and about and decided to just go ahead and do some today.
There are flowers and herbs that can be started in February in our climate, but I had only four in mind. After reading more on what the flowers – cosmos and hollyhock – needed to be started indoors, I decided to hold off on them. Instead, I went through two of my herb seeds that needed the longest start up time before our last frost date. Russian Tarragon and Summer Savory.
The seeds for both are very tiny and would have been ideal for the seed starting kits I got a couple of years ago. The cells are quite small and there is a USB powered full spectrum light disc for each dome.
I couldn’t find it.
It had all been stored in the original box in the sun room, but the sun room got completely emptied and cleaned out in the fall. I thought I’d put it in one of the storage shelves or one of the storage bins, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. I didn’t pull the bins out completely to look, as that would require far too many cat-blocking things to be moved out of the way, but they are semi-transparent, and I couldn’t see anything through the sides. It’s possible the box was buried in one but, for the size of it, it is highly unlikely it was in one of the bins and I wouldn’t see it.
I also didn’t want to use my new 72 cell tray for just two items. In the end, I grabbed a biodegradable seed starting strip I had left from previous years. It had two rows of five cells that I separated.
The drain tray with the cardboard buffer between it and the heat mat had space available, so I removed the buffer. The strips got filled with seed starting mix pre-moistened with hot water – which cooled down fast, but was still warm by the time the seeds were sown. With their tiny size, I scattered tiny pinches of seeds over the surface, then topped them with vermiculate. I keep a smaller amount of vermiculate handy in a covered container I refill as needed. Over time, a vermiculite dust has started to accumulate, and I tried to use more of that, rather than all larger chunks.
I also made sure the drain tray had water in it for the peat cells to absorb. One of the issues with the biodegradable pots and seed strips is that, as they dry, they tend to suck the moisture out of the growing medium inside. I try to keep them moist through bottom watering to prevent that. It does mean they become pretty fragile and difficult to move around, but that’s something I can work around.
Without the cardboard buffer over the heat mat, I wanted to have some sort of buffer for the things that are already germinated – the celery and the one luffa, in this tray. Something that wouldn’t disintegrate in the drain tray’s water. You can see in the photo that I put a piece of rigid insulation under the celery, but I was not happy with that, as it prevents bottom watering. I ended up rearranging things so the celery was on the far side, with the one sprouted luffa beside it, and then put a carboard buffer under the heat mat only on that side. That helped to push the water in the drain tray more towards the biodegradable strips, which will help them retain moisture longer.
Over the next few weeks, there will be more herbs started, plus there are some that I intend to buy as transplants rather than try to start them from seed, myself. We’ll see if the thyme, sage and oregano from last year were mulched well enough to survive the winter. Little by little, the old kitchen garden will be mostly herbs with a few vegetables, rather than mostly vegetables with a few herbs. 😁
The hard part for me will be not starting too many of any one variety! It’s always good to sow extra and then thin the seedlings, but I have this terrible habit of repotting the “spares”, because they’re usually all really strong and healthy looking! 😄
My biggest concern is having to use the basement for all this. It’s just too cold down there! Granted, the temperature is very steady, but the ambient temperature should be about 20-24C/68-75F, not 13-15C/55-59F. Even if we were using the living room, like we’ve done in the past, it’s only a couple of degrees warmer, but at least we could use the aquariums as greenhouses to keep a controlled area at a better temperature until things got large enough to handle being moved out.
Aside from not being able to safely move the tanks to the basement, we have got to figure out what to do with all the “stuff” that’s being stored in the “cat free zone”. We can barely move around in the living room anymore. Some things will be moved into the storage house, but they still have to be gone through, first, and the storage house is where my mother’s furniture went, so it’s got barely any room left – and I have very strict instructions, not to throw anything out!
*sigh*
One thing about gardening, starting seeds and planning it all out. It is a healthy distraction from the other stuff and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed!
I’m glad I didn’t decide to just wait until the post office reopened in the afternoon. I forgot today is Wednesday. The store the post office is in closes at noon, every Wednesday, for inventory.
I was expecting the chicken coop to come in several large boxes, but there was only one small box. Only one package slip in my mail box. No coop. There was no “attempted delivery” this morning at all.
Hmmm.
Something to look up when I got home, and after I checked out my new stuff.
Two new heat mats, two 4 light clamp lamps and one 5 light tripod pedestal lamp, with full spectrum lighting.
This gave me a chance to do a few things all at once.
Right now, my work table is covered with a gain self-healing cutting mat my darling husband got for me some time ago. Unfortunately, the heat mats make it warp. So I cut some pieces of half inch rigid insulation to size, to go under the heat mats.
The heat mat with the germinated plants in it got a piece of carboard between the mat and the tray as a buffer. Normally, I would stop using a heat mat as soon as the seeds germinated, but it’s so chilly in the basement, that’s not really an option. Especially since I will no longer use a light fixture that puts off a small amount of heat. The buffer will keep the seed starting mix warm, but not too warm.
The large celled tray now has a new heat mat under it. I’ve filled the last empty cells with seeds that were set to pre-germinate, even though they were not germinated yet. Then, just in case, I added a couple of fresh seeds into each cell. I did actually see a single Caspar eggplant starting to break through the surface, but nothing in any of the other cells. It’s entirely possible the seed starting mix, not being on a heat mate, but getting some heat from above, was too cold.
I also added new luffa seeds to the three Red Solo cups where nothing has shown yet, including the one where I couldn’t find the pre-germinated seed at all.
The new lights have a controller with several settings. There are five brightness settings – I put them at the highest. They can also adjust from red, blue or white light, or all three. I have it on all three. It can also be set to shut itself off after 6, 12 or 16 hours. I set it to 12 hours. Each lamp also came with an adapter, so they can be plugged in as usual, or can have USB. I have a power bar hanging above that has a couple of USB slots in it, so I decided to use that.
The only problem is that these are clamp lamps, and cannot stand on their own. Which means I had to move the tray set up to the front of the table for the lights to reach. Only at the front of the able is the surface narrow enough for the clamps. This worktable has a sheet of plywood on top of a narrower table top. The ends are too thick for the clamps.
With a full tray of cells, plus a second tray that’s only partially full, I set things up so that the full tray has five lights over it, and the other has only three.
I’ve still left the shop light above on. That light is manual, so I’ll need to shut it off and on, but that’s okay.
I am looking to pick up more seed starting mix when we are out and about tomorrow then, either on Friday or the weekend, I’ll start more seeds. Specifically, I’ll be starting herbs.
The tall light fixture will be set up in the living room. The onions in their seed snail rolls are getting plenty of light, with the shop light lowered to their level, but the other plants around them could really use better light! That room gets the morning light, and that’s it. It’s pretty dim, the rest of the day. We don’t have a lot of plants anymore, after repotting and donating most of them to the large animal rescue that took Poirot’s orphan kittens last summer. That, at least, will make it easier to give them proper lighting with this new lamp.
The lights themselves were very reasonably priced. The smaller lamps were under $25 each. It was actually cheaper for me to buy as a quantity of two separately, than to buy a single 2pk, which is weird. The larger lamp was under $40, regular price, and I got that one on a 10% off sale.
That done, I went looking to see what happened with that coop delivery.
Now, when placing the order, I was really surprised that would be delivered by Canada Post. When checking the tracking for the two packages I was expecting, they were the same. They even went through the same delivery depots at the same time, though the lights were ordered several days before the coop was.
Any time an order arrived, the trackers say “delivery attempted”. Of course, no delivery is attempted at all. The packages are just left at the post office for us to pick up with the regular mail.
Today, however, the coop’s tracking now said “undeliverable” and “location unknown”.
It also said, Fed Ex.
*sigh*
If I’d known is was going to be Fed Ex, I would have used our physical address. They have actually found us and delivered to us before.
I tried using the “contact shipper” link on Amazon, which took me to a page with a list of delivery companies.
None of them, Fed Ex.
So I went to their website and eventually found a customer service number to call.
After going through the robot sentinel, I actually got to talk to a real human being! Not only that, but he was awesome!
I gave him our physical address, including both the name and the numerical designation for our road. He put me on hold to work on it, then had to come back to ask more confirming questions. I told him, our address doesn’t exist on Google maps. He did, however, find a road with the numerical designation – but under the name of our municipality, not our little hamlet. So I had to explain that that section of road ends at a crossroad, then restarts a short distance off before continuing for several miles. It’s those several miles that are the empty void in the map, and we are in the void. In the end, he was able to take directions and instructions on how to get to us, and how to find our driveway – with the warning that if they miss our driveway, they’re not going to find the next one to turn around in for another mile. I also told him about the sign we have, with our physical address on it, and arrows pointing the way, at the turn off. Because we’ve had this problem before!
We had a lot of laughs while working this out.
I asked if they would be delivering tomorrow, and he said it was very likely. So I told him, I’ll be out for most of the day, though there will be someone home. I let him know we would leave the gate open, and the garage, and the package can be delivered into the garage. I don’t know how many boxes this is going to go into, but it’s warm enough that I don’t mind not parking the truck all the way into the garage, so make room for the boxes.
We will need to figure out where to assemble the coop. It needs to be relatively close to the house, on level ground, and in an area that doesn’t get flooded out in spring melt. Wherever we decide to set it up, we’ll probably have to level the ground. We really don’t have level ground anywhere!
On the plus side, this is a relatively small coop. It would be easy to move, if we ever need to. It could even get set up in the main garden area, where we can let the chickens help prepare the soil for us, where more raised beds are going to be built. The coops is just under 4′ wide, and just over 6′ long. The raised beds we will be building in the main garden area will all be 4′ x 18′. It could be set up where a new bed is planned and either moved 6′ every few weeks, or an extended run could be built to cover the 18′. I’ve got enough chicken wire for that. I’d just need to find the materials to frame it out. The coop design I got has the eggs boxes and roosts above and an open run below, with wire mesh walls. It would be easy to make a door to access an extended run. The only hitch is that access to the nesting boxes are at the ends, so a run on the end would make it harder to reach.
Hmmm… Things to think about.
We’ll have snow on the ground for quite a while yet, though, so there’s plenty of time to figure it out.
Just a little video of the adorableness that kept trying to run into the house while we were unloading the Costco shop. He would be such a great indoor cat! He’s not “perfect”, though. Aside from the one messed up eye – which doesn’t seem to bother him, but does make him at greater risk if he decides to expand his territory in the summer – he likely has some upper respiratory issues. He’s been better since we’ve gotten more lysine to add to their food, but it basically makes him unadoptable.
The rescue can’t even help with him. They’ve had to stop all intakes. They are out of fosters and there are no more spaces for more cats.
*sigh*
I also realized today that I haven’t seen Rolando Moon for quite some time. She does tend to disappear for weeks, sometimes months, at a time, but usually in the summer, not the winter. Considering I got pictures of her when I visited my dad here, back in 2015, I’d estimate she would be around 14-15 years old, if not older. We did try to make her an indoor cat, but she would have none of it.
*sigh*
Anyhow.
I just got back from checking on our seed dungeon in the basement. I found fresh green!
The first picture in the slideshow above is our very first Golden Boy celery seedlings! There’s just the two, but I will now keep the lid open on the container I’m using for them, so they don’t have to deal with too much humidity.
The second picture is of the first pre-germinated luffa breaking ground. I now know at least one has survived being potted after pre-germination!
I didn’t take a picture, but I also potted more Caspar eggplant, and the first couple of California Wonder bell peppers that have pre-germinated.
Thinking ahead to the next batch of seeds I will be starting (herbs, this time), and when, I have placed an Amazon order for a couple more heat mats, plus some full spectrum lamps. Their prices were very reasonable, so I got one floor lamp with a tripod stand and two table top lamps. They have multiple full spectrum LED light strips on gooseneck supports, so they can be adjusted to provide light over several different trays at once, and the trays don’t have to be crammed together. The floor lamp has 5 light strips, while the smaller ones have four. The smaller ones have clips for bases. I would have preferred with a stand, but that didn’t seem to be an option at all for the smaller ones. They also have auto on/off timers.
They haven’t been shipped yet, but according to Amazon, they should arrive by the 18th. That should keep me from starting more seeds too early! 😄
They are now potted up into Red Solo cups. This time, I remembered to use warm water when pre-moistening the seed starting mix. I had the heater running on the area I was working on, too.
With the space I had in the drain tray, I switched the paper towel the eggplant seeds were on into a smaller container. So far, nothing on the peppers and eggplant. This is definitely a first. Usually, the luffa have always been among the latest seeds to germinate. Before using the pre-germination method, I often had to start new seeds, sometimes twice over, before we finally had something germinate.
Now we just have to see if they will survive being potted up!
The Re-Farmer 