Things stayed way too hot overnight. None of us got much sleep, even though the house is so much cooler. With today supposed to reach 31C/88F today, I headed outside shortly after 6am.
My plan to dig more beds for the corn quickly changed. We had high winds, I could hear thunder in the distance. So I quickly planted one package of corn, first.
We’ve grown the Yukon Chief variety before, and I was happy to see the seeds back in stock. They are only 55 days to maturity! I’ve got two packages, and planted one of them. Then I used the hoops and netting that I took off the garlic bed to protect the corn bed.
Ideally, these would have been planted in a large block, but that just wasn’t working out. If I can manage it, I plan to dig out three more beds like this one. I can then plant the second package next to this one. I have another short season variety of a white corn I’d like to plant as well. It is short season, but not as short as this one, so there won’t be an issue of cross pollinating, if I want to save seeds.
At this point, I have no idea if I’ll be able to get the other beds dug in time, though. We shall see. We’re just a week into June, so I’m not behind for a lot of things.
It’s starting to look like I’ll be looking for kohlrabi and cabbage transplants, though. It looks like the kohlrabi seedlings have all disappeared while still only at the seed leaf stage. In the cabbage bed, there are so many self seeded radishes popping up, I am having a hard time seeing which ones might be the cabbage, so I will wait a bit longer before deciding anything there.
After planting, protecting and watering the corn, I kept on watering, even though I was still hearing thunder. I got the main garden area watered when it started to rain, so I began heading inside.
It stopped raining, then started again, then stopped…
Checking the weather radar, I could see the system. Major thunderstorms and driving rain expected… all to the west of us. The system was going to miss us entirely. We just got a bit of splattering.
It gave me time for breakfast, as least.
Then I headed outside again, this time to dig out the push mower. My brother also got out their big zero turn mower and finished going the outer yard.
With the push mower, I finally managed to get the edges, areas the riding mower can’t go, and FINALLY, the paths between the garden beds in the main garden area. I didn’t do all the areas I would have done with the push mower, though, as it was getting way too hot. I took a break, then headed back out again, this time to use the weed trimmer.
My brother has three batteries for the weed trimmer. I went through all three of them before heading back inside!
Among the areas I mowed and weed trimmed was around the east yard garden beds – and the “found object” art display. I even stopped to clear it off of all the debris that had blown onto everything, then set it up again. The branch is something my daughter added because she liked the shape. Everything else there is things we found while doing clean up, most (not all) around the spruce grove, including the table itself.
It’s silly, but I like it.
I was able to use the trimmer around the east garden beds, including the square bed I still need to work on. The crab grass around it was so tall, the bed was almost completely hidden.
After doing the east garden beds, I trimmed the paths in the old kitchen garden and around the edges. I got that done, then started around the cat shelters when the third battery died.
At that point, we’d reached the high of the day for some time, and I was done for the day. As I write this, at almost 4:30pm, it’s still 31C/88F, and the humidex is at 33C/91F It’s not supposed to start cooling down for a couple more hours, and tonight’s overnight low is expected to be even warmer than last night.
*sigh*
Thankfully, tomorrow is no longer predicted to get as hot as today. Hopefully, that means I’ll be able to get more progress in the garden.
Meanwhile, as I look out my window while writing this, I can see the big maple branches being thrashed by the wind every now and then – and there are so many dried elm seeds blowing around, it’s like snow. I don’t have any of these elms outside my window. This is all being blown in from the trees on the other side of the house. The bloody things are starting to drift.
While sitting down to enjoy the lunch… er… supper my daughters made for me, I watched this video that I think you’ll enjoy as well.
I had no idea that squash leaves were edible!
My list would be slightly different, partly because of our very different climate. Partly because… why does everyone have kale on these lists? Blech. 😄😄
After waiting for the call from my doctor until well past the clinic closed, I headed outside to finish up.
The bi-color pear gourds transplanted, I wanted to sow the short season luffa next to them. I also wanted to mark where they were and protect any seedlings, but I was out of collars, so I grabbed more 4L water jugs and cut them to make more. The packet has only 9 seeds, so I cut 5 collars to plant them all in.
Along with the luffa seeds, I brought out the two types of sunflower seeds I have.
I wasn’t sure at first which of the sunflowers I would be planting, but I prepared the bed anyhow. First up, I loosened the soil and set in the collars for the luffa, giving each collar a deep watering. Then, while waiting for the water to be absorbed by the soil, I loosened the soil along the front of the bed, from end to end, then gave that a deep watering. By the time that was done, the water in the collars was absorbed enough and I planted the 9 seeds into the 5 collars. If the germination rate is high, I will probably thin by transplanting.
All the luffa and gourds fit into 1/3 of the bed (the posts for the chain link fence makes it easy to view distances). That leaves another 2/3s of the bed where I could plant climbing things. Potentially, melons, winter squash or cucumbers, depending on how things to with the second sowing in the tray. Currently there are a total of 5 melon seedlings and 2 winter squash, but zero cucumber. The cucumber can still be direct sowed, though, if necessary. Or I could plant one of the two new varieties of peas I have available to try. Or I could plant more pole beans.
After planting the luffa and giving them another watering, I hosed down the area I’d loosened along the front of the bed from end to end.
The sunflower seed packets both have about 50 seeds in them. After thinking about it, I decided to plant the Mammoth sunflower in half the bed, on the side with nothing else in it now. I figure if we plant climbing winter squash in there, the giant stems of the Mammoth sunflower could actually hold the weight. In the other half, I planted the Black Russian. The description says the stems of those are so strong, they can be dried and used as firewood! So those would be strong enough to support the luffa and bi-color pear gourds, too.
The recommended spacing for both was 12 inches, but I didn’t plant multiple seeds per spot, so I planted them more like 10 inches apart. I was eye balling it, so it’s not exact. Once those were planted, I watered them more to settle the soil around the seeds, and then I brought the netting down and secured it.
Next, I worked on the space for the black hollyhocks.
In the first picture, I’ve yanked out the tall crab grass and flowers. The flowers in this bed are ones my mother planted many, many years ago, and they are perennials. They also grow very tall. Right now, they are still a bit shorter than the crab grass.
The stones are over a cat grave. When I found a dead cat in one of the old dog houses, I buried it there, but could not dig a deep enough hole, due to rocks and roots. To prevent it from being dug up, I put a board over the grave, then weighed it down with rocks. That was several years ago, and we could removed the rocks and board by now, but I haven’t bothered.
After pulling up the greenery, I went over the area with a hand cultivator, digging up as many roots and rhizomes as I could get. Then I opened up the roll of hollyhocks to get an idea of how many transplants there were, before using a trowel to loosen the soil deeper in for the transplants. I started by planting the largest ones, closer to the rocks, and was just getting ready to plant the rest of them slightly in front when I heard my daughter.
The doctor had called. It was almost 7pm!!
So I dropped everything, hosed the dirt off my hands and went in.
My poor doctor. It was two hours past when the clinic closed, and when I mentioned I thought the call wasn’t going to happen because of that, she told me she still had two more calls to make before she could go home!
I got a quick run down on my lab results. Nothing showed up in the pap smear (the pelvic ultrasound is next week), everything was looking good except for one thing.
My iron. It’s low.
She wants me to start taking iron supplements.
My husband had the same recommendation, just a couple of days ago. We’re all low on iron.
I am pretty sure I know why, too. It’s been ages since we’ve been able to buy enough red meat for it to be anything but an occasional treat when I can get it at a really good sale price. We’ve mostly been eating pork and chicken. Any iron from vegetables isn’t really helpful, since it’s far less bioavailable.
It didn’t even occur to me to ask what type of iron she wanted me to take. I’ll talk to the pharmacist about it, the next time I’m there.
We went through my Xrays as well. Nothing showed up in my right shoulder. As for my knee, the OA has gotten quite a bit worse since the last time it was Xrayed. Likely due to that fall I had, before Christmas last year. I mentioned to her about going to the sports injury clinic, but they didn’t have the Xrays available to see yet, so I just got the injections, in both hips this time. I mentioned having the walker now, and the doctor at the sports injury clinic gave me a prescription for it, so I could claim it on our insurance.
Which is when she brought up about me getting new knees.
???
This was something that came up, quite awhile ago, but now that I’m using a walker, and with the Xrays showing how much worse my knee got, it turns out I could get a new set of knees, if I wanted to.
!!!
They’ve actually gotten a lot better lately – I haven’t even been using the topical painkiller at all, lately. So I said no, for now. I didn’t bring it up, but if there are any joints that I would want to have replaced, it would likely be my hips, first.
With that call done, I headed back outside and finished transplanting the lost of the hollyhocks, then gave them a deep watering. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on these, as the crab grass and those flowers will want to take over again a lot faster here, I think. Eventually, though, if they take, the hollyhock should get big and bushy enough that they’ll keep those from coming back as quickly.
At this point, anything that needed to be planted is planted. Next, I need to prepare the area where I’ll be planting the short season corn.
I might start that tomorrow morning. Early. It’s going to be a scorcher, so I want to get out there as early as possible. Then we need to do a dump run and, once the grass is dry enough, I want to get the push mower and weed trimmer out, and possibly the riding mower again, to get the areas I wasn’t able to do before the rains and storms came.
Meanwhile, my brother and his wife will be out for the weekend again, working on their caravan and whatever else they have on their list.
After today, the only transplants I will have are whatever survives in the tray that got decimated by a mouse and re-sown. At this point, I have some melon seedlings, two different winter squash and that’s it.
The first thing I got transplanted was the chicory.
To the right, you can see some garlic that showed up in the bed on their own. When prepping the bed before transplanting the Florence Fennel you can see on the left, I transplanted the garlic to the side. No wonder I hadn’t found the cloves when prepping this part of the bed last fall. They were DEEP!!
I wasn’t sure how many chicory seedlings there were in the roll, so I just started sticking them in the ground in a vague grid spacing. There ended up being 20 of them.
I was going to return some of the leaf mulch in between, but the leaves kept moving around and start burying the seedlings. Instead, I cut narrow cardboard strips and secured them with ground staples.
Before I planted anything, I had to clean up the “presents” left by the cats, which meant I needed to cover this part of the bed, including the fennel, as I could see the cats have been digging in the leaf mulch there, too. I still had some rods and connectors from the first hoop kit I ordered, so I used those. For the netting, I didn’t really have anything left that was shorter. The netting covering the summer squash bed had a lot of excess tucked under one end, so I unrolled that, cut it off a couple of feet from the bed, then resecured the end. Then I untangled the piece I cut off and managed to lay it flat on the grass. It turned out to now be wider than it is long. That meant the salvage edges would be at the ends instead of the sides. I was also still able to fold it in half and not have too much slack once tightened over the hoops.
Where the bed turns, it is narrower than the end, so that area needed shorter hoops. and one end could be secured into the higher wattle weave wall on the inside of the turn. It took a while to get it all snug and secured, and I did have to push the hoop at the end, where it is wide enough I connected 4 rods together to make the hoop, deeper into the soil so it wasn’t quite as high.
That done, I stopped to change out of my grubbies and head out. I had a package to pick up at the mail, a prescription to drop off at the pharmacy, and then a couple of water bottles to refill at the grocery store. While I was at it, I got another 40 pound bag of kibbled at the general store the pharmacy is in, along with a couple of packages of smoked pork chops, then after getting the water I picked up a few more things, most on sale, and used some of my loyalty card points money to knock the cost down more. Once at home and the girls helped me unload and they put things away, I had a late lunch, set an alarm for myself, changed back into my grubbies and headed back outside.
This time, I finished the main garden area bed I was working on, yesterday.
There was just enough red beard bunching onion to fill the one side of the bed that remained to be planted into. It was convenient to be able to lift the bottom edge of the netting and use the ground staples to secure them at the top of the hoops. The hoops and netting will be removed when the beans get big enough for their trellis. For now, the bed needs to be protected from critters!
Last of all were the bi-color pear gourds, which went into the newly completed chain link fence bed.
There were way too many elm seeds that got through the netting. There’s going to be a LOT more very shortly. The seeds on the elms are starting to turn brown, which means they’ll be dropping in their millions, soon. The netting keeps some of ti out, but not wall.
The first thing to do was lift the netting up and secure it most of the way up the hoops. Then I got out the weed trimmer and cleared the grass in the path, and the other side of the chain link fence.
I think I’ve figure out where to plant the holly hocks, but didn’t get to them yet.
After the weed trimming was done, all I could do about the elm seeds was brush as much as I could off to one side. There was no way to get rid of them.
As for the gourds, there were only 5 of them, and they got transplanted into protective collars. I had to cut one new one.
By the time that was done, my alarm was going off and I needed to head inside. For now, I’m writing this while waiting for my telephone doctor’s appointment. Which is already more than half an hour “late”. It’s booked for the end of my doctor’s day of scheduled patients, but I was warned the call might be later, if things come up and appointments run late.
After the call, I’m hoping to get back outside. I have decided the holly hocks can go into the flower bed across from the chain link fence bed, where the original honeyberry bushes are. At the end near the vehicle gate is an old grave for a yard cat stranger I found, several years ago. Things have grown up very tall around it. I will clear the area around it of as much crab grass and the flowers my mother planted in this bed many years ago, and that’s where the holly hocks will go. I will also be direct sowing luffa and sunflowers in the bed with the bi-colour pear gourds, and then I can put the netting back down. Hopefully, while I’m waiting for the call from my doctor, no cats will go into there and start digging!!
First, I just have to share an update, so you can laugh at me.
I’m certainly laughing at me. I am so silly.
I mentioned yesterday that I got a parking ticket, while waiting for my daughters at the hospital clinic. I’d been diligent about buying more time on the machine, as things dragged on WAY longer than we expected them to. I had some confusion between two receipts with times close to each other, but figured I was so tired, I somehow paid again, even though a session hadn’t expired yet. When I got the parking ticket and checked the times on my receipts, it showed I had paid and it had not expired at the time the ticket was written out.
This morning, when the parking company opened at Pacific Standard Time, I got onto a chat with an agent, which was the only way to contest a ticket. It wasn’t in their system yet, and they clearly were not in our province. The agent asked for some details on the ticket, and I gave the reference number on the receipt. In the end, I was given local contact information and a reference number to use for that.
One of the methods of contact was an email address. So I took a picture of the parking ticket and the receipt, next to each other, and emailed it in. I didn’t say much other than basically, “I got this ticket, here’s the receipt showing I was paid and time wasn’t expired yet”. I didn’t ask for anything. Just gave the information.
I got a response while I was working in the garden.
The first thing pointed out in the response…
The ticket and the receipt had two different dates on it.
I tucked the receipts into a pocket in my phone case, forgetting that I had a receipt from the last time I parked there, when we picked my daughter up from her hospital stay. The old receipt got mixed up with the new ones, and I never noticed.
The agent that responded had looked up my license plate and listed all the times I had paid for more parking, adding that it was obvious I had made the effort to keep paying for the parking.
My ticket was cancelled. Just this once, I was told.
Having made a very silly mistake, I would have been more than willing to pay the ticket once I realized it! How absolutely embarrassing. I was so focused on the time stamp for the expiration, I completely missed the equally large date right underneath.
I made sure to write back to own up to my mistake and thank them for cancelling the ticket. That was very kind of them!
Because of the time zone differences while waiting to be able to chat with an agent, I didn’t get out to the garden until quite late in the morning. Thankfully, today was not expected to get as hot, nor were we expecting more rain or storms. We’re not expecting more rain for almost a week, but in a couple of days, the heat is going to be back.
The first thing I wanted to do was get the last of the tomatoes into the ground. The one bed I’ve been working on is going to have quite a variety if things in it!!
These are the Chocolate Stripe tomatoes, and there were only 7 surviving transplants. I planted them in a block, protected by collars, like with the peppers and eggplant. These got support stake added instead of wire cages, which you can see in the second photo of the slide show above. After the picture was taken, I put a straw mulch around all the protective collars.
Then I got a seed snail of onions, choosing the roll with the smallest number of onions in it.
These turned out to be from our own saved seed. I moved aside the straw mulch on either side of the celery block and there was just enough to fit them in. After tucking the straw back, closer to the onions, they are barely visible! You can just see them in the second photo of the above slide show.
At this point, I had just a few feet at the north end of the bed to fill. I wasn’t sure how much I could fit in there, so I grabbed the snail rolls for more onions – Red Long of Tropea – the White Vienne kohlrabi I started indoors, the caraway and the French marigolds.
I took a picture of all the rolls together. Honestly, I did try to! Apparently, the touchscreen on my phone didn’t register my touch, because there’s no photo of them in my phone. This is not the first time this had happened!
I really don’t like touch screens. They don’t like to read my fingers.
In the first picture above, you can just see the snail rolls in the bin at the top corner.
I spaced out some lines to plant in, using a garden stake, then used the jet setting on the hose in each on to smooth is out and make sure the seedlings had plenty of water below them. In spite of all the rain we’ve had, and the soil being moist on top, it’s remarkably dry after the first couple of inches.
There were barely any surviving kohlrabi seedings, and they were pretty small. I ended up with six that I planted in two short rows closer to the tomatoes, alternating them with onions. Then I planted the caraway – those seedlings were very fine and delicate! – in between onions, managing to split them into nine rows of three caraway each. The last row got just the French double marigold. There were only 5 surviving seedlings in that row.
There were still onions left in the roll to transplant elsewhere.
In the second picture, you can basically see the onions, and not much else! I couldn’t put the straw mulch in between them, but I made sure to add it on the sides and end of the bed, where all the crab grass and creeping Charlie try to invade. Not to mention all the dandelions.
That bed is now done. Hopefully, things will survive! This bed now has two types of onions, celery, two types of peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, kohlrabi, caraway and marigolds in it.
Next, I wanted to sow the pole beans, which were to go in the bed with the white egg turnip and daikon radish.
I got the weed trimmer out and cleared the dandelions going to seed in the paths before I started!
In the first picture, I’ve unfastened the netting along the sides and pushed it up to the top of the hoops. After that, I removed the remaining leaf mulch between the rows – I filled the wheel barrow twice – then did the weeding and loosening of soil.
Which is when I discovered we had only one daikon radish.
The netting keeps the cats out, but not the bugs. I know there were quite a few seedlings popping up when I removed the greenhouse poly and put the netting on, and they’re all gone. Something ate them! The turnips show signs of insect damage, but there are still quite a few left.
In the second picture, the bed has been weeding and the soil loosened, including where the daikon radish had been planted. That dark line running the length of the bed is the shadow of the netting on the hoops.
While I was working on that, I set the red noodle beans to soak, which you can see in the next picture, and got my packet of daikon radish seeds to resow. This is the one thing my younger daughter requested, so I wanted to try again. They are only 55 days to maturity, so replanting should be fine.
I prepped rows with the plant stake and the hose again, as in the other bed. For the pole beans, though, I had a bit of a problem. This is a low raised bed, which means reaching into the middle, even though it’s just a couple of feet, is harder with my short little arms, and quite painful on the back.
So I cheated.
In the next picture, you can see the bean planting in progress. I have a length of Pex pipe that never got used as a hoop support, so it is still straight. I set the end where I wanted the seed to go and dropped a bean in from the top. Since they were wet from being soaked, they sometimes stuck to the inside of the pipe, but that was easily fixed with a short puff of air.
Once the bean seeds were in place, I used the plant stake I’d made the rows with to push the beans into the soil to the right depth, buried them slightly, then used the hose again, this time on the shower setting, to settle the soil over the beans.
I still had Red Long of Tropea onions left. Just enough to transplant all along the side with the white egg turnips. I have one roll of red beard bunching onions to transplant, and that should fit along the other side, but not today. It was coming up on 3pm by the this time, we were into the hottest part of the day, and I forgot to have lunch. So I put the netting back – the ground staples hold a lot better with the leaf mulch moved out! – and will transplant the last onions in there tomorrow.
What I have left for transplants are the holly hock, bunching onions, chicory, and bi-colour pear gourds. Plus there are seedlings popping up in the winter squash and melon tray I had to replant, though not very many yet.
I still haven’t decided on where to plant the holly hock. Those can get very large.
I’ve decided I will transplant the bi-colour pear gourds into the bed I just finished redoing at the chain link fence, along with direct sowing the short season luffa. I had thought to put winter squash in that bed, too, but I don’t know that we’ll have many of those. So I will plant my sunflowers in there. The netting over that bed is keeping some of the elm seeds out, but some are still getting through, so I will have to find something else to add to it before the elm seeds dry up and really start dropping. The potatoes are coming up, so I’ll soon be able to remove their protective cover of mosquito netting, which is big enough to cover the chain link fence bed. It was used there before but, in high winds, it acted like a sail and kept getting pulled loose from the ground staples. I don’t think the clips that came with the hoops I’m using to hold the current netting would be strong enough to hold the mosquito netting when high winds hit. Like the ground staples we’d tried to use before, the clips would just go flying! More thought is needed.
The chicory will go into the old kitchen garden, where there is still room in the wattle weave bed.
I have a bed in the main garden area that I planned to put winter squash and/or melons. I also expected to be able to interplant winter squash with the short season corn I plan to direct sow, after I move the black landscape cloth or whatever it is, and loosen the soil for planting them there.
I had meant to transplant the cucumbers in an available space in the trellis bed, but there is no sign of the second sowing starting to germinate. I might direct sow one variety of cucumbers in the chain link fence bed. There should be room after the gourds and luffa are planted. The other variety can be direct sown in the trellis bed, as originally planned.
That mouse that ate all the seeds and seedlings in that tray really set things back!
There is still much to be done, but at least the more time dependent things got done. I’m even already seeing little bush bean sprouts starting to elbow their way out of the soil in the high raised bed. I need to add trellis netting to the trellis bed supports pretty soon, too – the peas in that bed are growing fast! I think I’m even seeing carrot sprouts, though it’s really hard to say for sure.
So that is progress for today.
I am battling with myself.
I keep feeling like I should get back out there and do more – if not in the garden, then with the weed trimmer or push mower, or move things so I can use the riding mower… the list goes on – while the temperatures are decent. I’m also trying to heed the warning signs my body is giving me, to avoid overdoing it. My pain levels have been pretty low for the past while, and I’d like to keep it that way! Mostly, though, I’m battling fatigue. There’s been just too much going on, too much stress, both positive and negative, too often and too close together. In the past, with similar stress levels, I would push myself anyhow until one time I reached the point of literally collapsing from exhaustion. That was long ago and I was also sick with a cold at the same time but, with the old bod giving out on me more and more, I just can’t do that to myself anymore. I wasn’t even up to going into town in the afternoon, like I’d hoped to do.
So the work will continue tomorrow, as will the trip into town and to get the mail. I just have to time it so that I’m home for my telephone doctor’s appointment, to go over my lab results.
Dangit. I keep forgetting to call the sports injury clinic. They would have had my Xrays available weeks ago, by now, and I’d really like to see if there’s anything they can do about the joint damage in my right shoulder, elbow and knee.
Ah, well. Lately they’ve been improving. It’s my left shoulder that’s still giving me grief, and that one didn’t get Xrayed.
Here is what I have been able to manage before the temperatures reached the point of risking heat stroke. I’ve been getting up at about 5am, when the ski was getting light, and outside by about 6 am. Of course, the yard cats got taken care of before I started on the garden. Aside from stopping for lunch and hydration, I was able to stay out until about 1pm before the heat and sun drove me inside. We’ve been hitting “only” about 30C/86F instead of the 34C/93F we’d been hitting before. Tomorrow evening, thunderstorms are supposed to start rolling in and stay day day after, through to the next morning. I want to get as much planted and protected as possible before that hits.
There are barely visible leaves hidden by millions of seeds. This is just one of seven Chinese elm around the front yard. The green seeds are already dropping a bit but, once they turn brown, they will drop in drifts. I’ve covered the newly finished bed along the chain link fence with netting, but seeds are still getting through. Before they start dropping for real, I’m going to have to find something else to cover them. Something finer than the current netting, but not as fine as the mosquito netting we’d used before, that would turn into a sail in the wind. Enough to cover the strawberries on the other side of the people gate.
I’m not sure what’s available out there. I’ve been looking at netting at various stores, but the dollar store seems to be the only place that has anything that might work.
For now, though, I need to get things in the ground.
First, what I was able to get done yesterday.
This first bed I worked on was the smallest; the tiny raised bed with herbs in it. Click through to see the slide show.
I transplanted the summer savory and Russian tarragon into here. I’m actually surprised they survived. They were doing so poorly before I “up potted” them to the snail rolls. The Russian tarragon seems okay, but the summer savory is still insanely leggy. I would not be surprised if they don’t make it.
As for the other herbs in the bed, the one type of oregano in the top left corner is doing really well, and spreading. The bottom right is the Greek oregano and it went through a rough patch, but is recovering. The lemon balm in the top middle has also been doing well. On either side of that, in the middle, is the sage. Those seemed to have died back when we got hit with that cold spell, but they are leafing out quite nicely now. In the top right corner, the lemon thyme seemed to have died off, but is starting to grow back again. The thyme that was in the bottom left corner died off completely, so that’s where the summer savory went. The tarragon went where the basil was last year.
That one got done nice as fast, which is why I started with it first.
Next, I started on the bed against the retaining wall that I finished reworking last year. Again, click through for the slide show.
The first thing to do was get hoops ready and find netting – I ended up not using the netting in the first photos, as it was too short. Then the leaf mulch was removed into the wheel barrow. I reworked the bed a bit to remove any weeds that started invading. The cats had been digging in it in one spot and leaving me “presents” that had to be removed, too.
Then the hoops needs to be set in place. For those, I picked up some zip ties rated to 50 pounds. Even setting the hoops as low as they could go, they were pretty high. The first piece of netting I’d found, cut for use for something else, several years ago, was a bit longer than the bed, which meant there wasn’t enough length to close off the ends. Thankfully, I had another leftover piece of netting that was more than long enough.
The hoops divided the bed quite handily into 5 sections, so I planted 5 different types of summer squash. Green Scallop Bennings, Lemon, Early Prolific Straightneck, Yellow Scallop and Gold Rush zucchini.
I planted a couple of seeds each, in groups of four, setting collars around where I planted them. Then I set 4L size water bottles with the bottoms cut off, upside down, into the ground in between each group of 4 collars, for watering. They each got stakes set inside them to 1) keep them from blowing away, 2) allow for any critters that might fall in to have a way of getting out and 3) partially block the opening so the water doesn’t flow out too quickly.
Finally, last of all, the netting was put over the hoops, which is barely visible in the last picture. I picked up some plastic clothes pegs to use as clips to hold the netting in place on the hoops and on the retaining wall side. Ground staples are holding it in place on the garden side.
Everything got a very thorough watering, first the entire bed in general, and then filling the upside down water bottles. That bed was pretty dry!
For now, that bed is done. Later on, I might transplant some onions in between, or maybe some marigolds. Or I’ll just set a straw or leaf mulch around it. I’ll thin the squash as needed and, eventually, the netting will be removed as I plan to train them to grow vertically.
That done, I moved on to the main garden area and the high raised bed.
It’s hard to see, but that soil thermometer was reading about 20C/68F!!!
I brought over the Red Wethersfield onions to transplant among the bush beans. The onions were transplanted first, with a short row at each end, and a row straight down the middle. The Tricolor beans mix were planted until I ran out of seeds, which were enough to do all of one side, and about half on the other. The rest of that row was finished off with the Gold Rush yellow beans.
The handy thing with the hoops and netting on this bed is that it’s fairly easy to lift the netting and secure it at the top of the hoops, giving plenty of space to move around in. At some point, though, the bush beans might get too big for the netting. We shall see.
That done, I moved to the flower bed at the end of the high raised bed. With that one, I could use the bamboo stake rolled up at the side to lift the whole side up and over, so there was plenty of room to work in.
Not very much room for what I transplanted, though!
First up was clearing away the invading weeds (creeping Charlie is viciously invasive!!), being careful not to disturb the nasturtiums I’d direct sown that survived.
For some reason, I got it in my head that I’d started nasturtiums indoors, but I hadn’t.
I brought over the largest flowers that desperately needed transplanting. The Crackerjack Marigold were the biggest, and they went in closer to the high raised bed. They have flower buds on them already.
The dwarf Cosmos actually had a couple of open flowers on them!
White flowers.
These are supposed to be red.
Not sure what happened there.
Oh, dear. I just got a notification on my phone. Thunderstorms possible in the next hour. So much for starting to storm tomorrow evening!
I’m going to have to pop out and get the remaining transplants in bins protected.
Be right back…
Well, that’s done. I hope the transplants in the greenhouse frame will be okay. They are too big to cover in their bins, but we set covers on the shelves above them that should provide enough protection, and secured everything so it won’t get blown away.
Looking at the weather radar on my desktop, I’m not seeing any side of potential storms, or even rain, coming up over our area. My phone’s weather app, on the other hand, has bumped up the thunderstorm timeline. It’s entirely possible the system will miss us entirely.
I really hope we just get a nice rain. Something the transplants won’t get damaged by.
So… where was I…
Still yesterday’s work…
The last bed I worked on was the short side of the L shaped wattle weave bed, where I transplanted the Florence Fennel.
The first image is after I removed the leave mulch, but before I weeded, cleaned up and loosened the soil.
The Florence fennel got really big in those snail rolls! For their size, they should have been transplanted long ago.
There turned out to be a dozen transplants, plus one tiny one that I probably shouldn’t have bothered with, but I stuck it in between a couple of others, anyhow. You never know.
Today, I carefully added some of the leaf mulch back in between the fennel, so now the still drooping stems are on mulch rather than damp soil. Hopefully, they will perk up soon!
That was it for yesterday, before I went inside to get away from the heat. I never made it back out. The girls ended up doing the evening watering for me. I went to bed early to get an early start today.
This morning, I wanted to get tomatoes in. I have four varieties, and I wasn’t sure if they would all fit in one bed, but in my garden map, I did have an idea of where I would plant any that didn’t fit.
This is the bed I recently got cleaned up and covered – though a determined cat still managed to dig into a gap in the plastic!
After moving the plastic and doing a bit of weeding and loosening of soil, I got some of the household compost my brother gave me and worked that into the soil as well.
The first variety I planted were the largest; the Manitoba tomato. There were 10 of them and, being the largest, I set them along the north side of the bed, so they wouldn’t shade out anything else as they got bigger.
I used the protective collars to help space out the plantings before digging holes. The collars actually helped by keeping the sides of the soil from falling in. The bed was pretty dry, so I made sure to deeply water each hole first. The collars helped with that, too, keeping the water where I needed it.
After transplanting the tomatoes, I added one of my heavier 6′ tall plastic coated metal stakes against each collar, than used garden twist ties to carefully secure the transplants upright.
Then it was time to move on to the next ones, which were the Blueberry tomatoes. There were only six transplants, and they all went into a block at one end of the bed.
Those got transplanted and secured to stakes as well. Each of the stakes get lined up with the previous ones, in case I want to add horizontal supports between them, later on. Beyond support for the tomatoes, the stakes will keep the protective collars from blowing away. They’re not pushed deep into the soil, so as not to entrap the tomato’s roots.
After counting out how many transplants were in the last two snail rolls, the rest of the bed got planted with the Orange Currant tomatoes.
These were a lot smaller than the others. I planted in fourteen collars, which filled the remaining space while lined up with that first row of 10, though the last collar got two tiny transplants. We’ll see which of them survives and grows! They all got the plant stakes added, but I ran out and the last ones got bamboo stakes instead.
Everything then got watered around the collars. Doing a deep watering also allowed me to use the shower setting on the nozzle to gently level off the soil around the collars.
Another bonus to using the collars. It makes it easy to mulch the bed, deeply, right away.
The first image is after the soil was watered, around the collars. Then I got a wheel barrow load of straw and set it around all the collars, with particular attention put into a thick layer around the edges, where the crab grass and other weeds tend to push their way through. Then the straw itself got watered, so it wouldn’t act as a thatch.
I just checked the time stamps on the photos. This one bed took me three hours.
Then I went inside for lunch before heading to the main garden area.
I’m not sure what happened there, but I am “missing” photos. I suspect that when I thought I was taking progress shots, my fingers may have been too damp for the touch screen to read my tapping on the screen to take the picture.
Ah, well.
I had thought that this bed might get the last of the tomatoes, the peppers and the celery.
I ended up including the Caspar eggplant as well, because I had the space.
First thing to do, though, was remove the plastic protecting the bed from cats.
The first thing that needed to be transplanted were the Golden Boy celery. These were way too big.
I had decided that things would be transplanted in short rows across the bed, since I wasn’t sure how many things I’d have room for. The celery ended up taking only three rows, even though I tried to space them out as much as I could. As usual, I watered the trenches before planting. This variety of celery is not supposed to require blanching, so I didn’t need to dig too deep, but I still ended up with new trenches in between the rows as I pushed the soil against the transplants.
I filled those with compost.
Then I laid down a straw mulch, which is one of the pictures that didn’t take. I made sure the deepest mulch was around the edges of the bed, where that blasted creeping Charlie keeps trying to creep! I made sure the soil around the celery was moist before adding the straw, then wet down the straw. I kept up that pattern with the straw for everything else.
Once the celery was in and protected, I transplanted the California Wonder bell peppers. These were the largest of the transplants, and there were the most to plant.
Somehow, I missed getting any progress pictures at all, even though I stopped at each stage. I used collars to first space out where they would go, then did the usual loosening of soil, setting the collars, deep watering in them, then transplanting. I had six collars, though one of them got two tiny peppers in it.
For these, I used cheap tomato cages to secure the collars and protect the peppers. Because the collars were so close together, I could only fit them on the outside collars, which were still touching each other, so the middle peppers will still be supported, as they grow.
Next, I did the Caspar eggplant, which were really tiny. They really struggled to grow in our cold basement!
I got progress photos for those, at least!
There were two large seedlings and two tiny ones, so I set up three collars and planted the little ones together. Straw mulch and watering process was repeated.
Next were the Sweet Chocolate peppers. There were only three surviving peppers. There had been a fourth one but it was so small, I didn’t even try to plant it. Not even with another plant.
The last picture was taken before I added the straw mulch, and then I guess I forgot to take one last photo after that was done.
At this point, two hours had gone by and we’d reached our high of the day. I was baking in the sun, so I tucked the last transplants – a snail roll of tomatoes, and another of hollyhocks – into the shade and went in.
I’d hoped to head outside once things cooled down but, even if we don’t get the thunderstorm I got a warning notification for, it’s not going to start cooling down until about 8pm – another two hours from when I’m writing this.
With the thunderstorm warning, my daughter and I went out and the bin with the transplants is now safely secured and protected in the portable greenhouse frame.
Tomorrow, depending which app I check, we’ll either start storming at 10pm, or we’ll have scattered showered and thunderstorms starting in the afternoon.
My hope is to be able to get our Costco stock up trip finally done. I’m not looking forward to it. There are fewer and fewer things priced better there that make it worth the trip.
The weather app on my phone now says thunderstorms all day tomorrow, rain during the day on Wednesday with more thunderstorms by evening. If it’s accurate, the earliest I’ll be able to continue in the garden will be Thursday.
I might be taking my daughter into the city on Wednesday for a follow up medical appointment at the Women’s hospital, unless it becomes a telephone appointment. I don’t think she got the call today that was supposed to let her know, one way or the others.
At least my husband’s medical appointment on the same day is a telephone appointment, as is mine on Friday. Next week, however, I’m headed to the nearer city for my ultrasound.
Somewhere in there, I need to visit my mother, too.
Unfortunately, with all the troubles we’ve been having with the truck – which has earned its name of Damocles – I dread driving anywhere further out. Especially to the city. We don’t have much choice, though.
After how bloody and swollen he was after his spay yesterday, then disappearing when the cleaned out isolation shelter was dry and ready to hold him for the night, I honestly would not have been surprised if he didn’t make it. Instead, when I came out to do the feeding this morning, there he was, mostly cleaned up, among the cats swirling under my feed, very eager for food!
I just came back from the evening feeding. He is doing very well – but it’s so hot out there, most of the food I set out this morning was still uneaten! No appetites in this heat, that’s for sure. They have plenty of water available, and plenty of shade, and we have cat puddles all over the place.
One of the things I did today was pick up the trees at the post office.
I haven’t bothered to open the box, yet. It’s in the living room, where the air conditioner is, and no cats to try to tear into it.
The house is cooler – we’ve got the AC, my husband and I have box fans in our rooms, and the girls have their AC in their upstairs apartment. They also managed to get the old basement door to open (the knob needs replacing) and the wire mesh door we made for it is set up, allowing air circulation from the cooler basement.
The old basement is damp enough that I got two blowers and an oscillating fan going. The new basement has weeping tile but, after a rain barrel was allowed to overflow the summer before we moved here, the corner where that barrel was still gets damp, so I’ve got an oscillating fan on that corner, too. I still need to set up the summer window in the old basement, which is a combination of wire mesh and window screen, so no critters can get through. The extra air circulation will help with the dampness in that basement, too.
With the sump pump going off fairly regularly, and the hose set up to drain under a bed in the old kitchen garden, it means our tiny bok choy, beets and parsnips will get watered from below, too.
The heat was still getting to me and I ended up going down for a nap in the living room, with the AC running, for an hour and a half – I set a timer this time – shortly after lunch.
Then I went into the new basement. With all the transplants now outside, I cleared the set up that was on my work table, putting the full spectrum lights away (now I suddenly can’t remember if I shut off the shop light…). This gave me room to re-organize my seed packets and think about what I can direct sow, now that the soil temperatures are more than warm enough. Normally, I wouldn’t sow these things for another week, but the soil thermometer I picked up tells me the soil is ready, and the long range forecast shows no sign of frost. With all the protective netting I’ve been setting up, though, if there was a possibility of frost, I would be able to cover the beds that need it with cloth.
After going through my seeds, I set aside a number of packets into a separate bin, as thinks I can potentially direct sow in the next few days.
No, I won’t be sowing everything in that bin! The second picture shows part of why. Granted, that’s in the sun room, but still…
Most of what’s going into the garden beds will be transplants. I don’t actually have a lot to direct sow.
In the high raised bed, I will be planting bush beans, interplanted with onion transplants. I will be planting pole beans in the middle of the bed that has the daikon radish and white turnips winter sown into it.
The flower bed at the end of the high raised bed will have cosmos and nasturtiums transplanted into it. I have marigolds to transplant among the vegetable beds, but I also plan to direct sow more. I have bachelor’s button and other flowers I’d like to direct sow, but I’m not sure where, yet.
There is a space in the trellis bed that should have room to transplant cucumbers into it – if we have any to transplant. I do have the bi-colour pear gourds, though. I might transplant those, instead. There is also enough space between where the carrots are planted (I still can’t tell if we have any, after the second sowing) to direct sow something that isn’t too large and bushy.
One of the empty beds in the main garden area is meant to have some tomatoes, plus the celery and peppers transplanted into it. Onions will be interplanted among them. There aren’t a lot of surviving peppers, though. The spacing I have will determine what I will direct sow there. These are long beds and I might have extra space for the celery. They are a short season variety I could potentially direct sow more of.
Another bed, where the garlic was planted last year, is meant for squash or melons, but after the tray of winter squash, melons and cucumbers got decimated by something in the basement, it will be a while before the new seeds even germinate, never mind be ready for transplant.
I have two varieties short season corn to direct sow, but the area they are going in still needs to be uncovered and prepared. If we have any that survived, I hope to interplant winter squash transplants, or direct sow pole beans among them.
The bed along the retaining wall in the old kitchen garden will be direct sown with summer squash. I have 5 varieties to plant, possibly 6, if I have the space. That bed still needs to have hoops to hold protective netting set up over it, though.
In the newly finished bed I have at the chain link fence, I am looking to transplant winter squash and melons – if the new seeds replacing the eaten ones germinate and survive! I might end up buying transplants at some point, but I don’t know if it’s necessary, yet.
Among the other seeds I will sow as I find space are things like fern leaf dill, which I plan to treat as a perennial, and other varieties of peas and beans, including garbanzo beans, though those might wait until next year. The Caspar eggplant transplants don’t look very robust, but they are a short season variety, so I might direct sow more along with the transplants, just so see how that will work out.
With the heat holding on for so long in the day, I expect to only get the evening watering done tonight. I will try to get up earlier tomorrow and see what I can get done before it gets too hot out there. The highs are supposed to very slowly get “cooler”; starting tomorrow, we’re expected to be below 30C/86F for the next while. One of my apps says to expect rain starting Tuesday night (today is Friday), thunderstorms on Wednesday, and rain continuing through Thursday morning.
Right now, at almost 7:30pm, we’ve finally dropped to 28C/82F, though the “real feel” is still 29C/84F.
Time to find the bug spray and do the evening watering!
Ah, life on the Canadian prairies. One extreme to the other. A short while ago, we were still getting snow and overnight temperature at or below freezing.
Today, we reached a high of 25C/77F – I don’t know what the humidex was – and passed 20C/68F by about 8 or 9am.
I headed out a bit earlier than usual to do the outside cat stuff. Then I checked the garden shed. Sure enough, the raccoon and her babies were still there. I decided to very carefully and as quietly as possible, take out as many things I expect to need in the next while.
I heard a lot of loud chittering as I was taking things out, most sounding like they were coming from the littles. They seemed to be chittering more about trying to latch on than what I was doing. The mama barely moved. After I cleared away things that were on top of the wheeled garden chair they are under, I stuck my phone into gaps to get the first three pictures.
Those are such roly poly babies! There are at least three, possibly four.
The last photo is most of the stuff I removed.
That roll of netting is long enough to go completely around the trellis bed, so I am saving it for this, if we need to do it again, as it would be way too long for anything else.
After that, I headed in for breakfast, iced up a water bottle, then got started on the covered bed that I wanted to plant our potatoes in.
In the first picture, you can see how it’s been since the fall, minus the bricks waying it down – something has dug holes through the plastic.
As you can see in the next picture, the solarization didn’t really work, and it was more like a greenhouse. So the first job was to loosen the soil and weed it. Especially at the end where the excess was rolled up, which was packed with creeping Charlie.
That stuff is just nasty.
Once weeded, I got it all leveled out, while leaving the soil thermometer in place. That soil is quite warm!
By this point, I was really starting to struggle with the heat and had to go inside for a bit. After grabbing a light lunch, I headed back out with the potatoes. I have 5 pound bags each of Viking and Yukon this year. Not a lot for our useage needs, but that’s all we have the space for right now.
In the photo where the potatoes are laid out, ready to be buried, you can see a board across the middle. That’s to mark between the two different types of potatoes in the same bed.
Next, the bed had to be protected. I decided to use the long roll of mosquito netting this time, which isn’t very wide, so I used shorter stakes. These were salvaged from a broken market tent and are all from pieces broken in half. The broken ends got pushed down so the end with the screw holes were at the top.
I had to gather things next, so I set up a cheap dollar store sprinkler hose over the potato bed. Double duty: I could start watering the bed while doing something else, and it kept the cats off while I wasn’t there to keep them away.
One of the things I had to go was get the roll of netting which, as you can see in the next picture, Gouda was using to nap on!!
In the past, I have strung twine from support to support, along the sided and crossing the middle. I wanted something stronger than that. This bed is 18′ wide, and I have 6′ bamboo stakes, so I ended up attaching three along the top of each side to hold the mesh up. The stakes were spaced out just under 6′ apart, allowing for some overlap. I used the screw holes in the supports and wire from one of the hoop kits I got to hold them in place. I still had to put the stakes deeper into the soil so that the netting could be secured to the ground on each sides. The sides are secured with ground staples.
Yes, I took the sprinkler hose out. It was a pretty terrible hose – but then, you get what you pay for, and this did not cost very much! It was just there for the moment, anyhow.
After I took that last picture, I gave the bed a very through watering.
Then I went inside, because I was getting dangerously overheated. I kept myself hydrated, but was feeling very exhausted. It was around 2pm by then, and I decided to nap for a couple of hours. I would then continue when the temperatures were starting to drop.
I passed right out and slept for three hours.
During this time, the girls took care of things like the outside cat feeding and starting supper.
We are going to need to get the AC going in the living room, and the onion snail rolls have been sitting on top of it, so I decided it was time to take them outside. Onions are hardy and I’m not worried about them, plus I need to start transplanting them as soon as possible. They are meant to be planted in between other things, as we go. The frame for the portable greenhouse is sitting in the shade near the shrine, so I put them there. I’ll need to start moving some of the trays from the basement out there, too.
Then it was back to the main garden area, where this is one bed that didn’t get cleaned up last year I wanted to prepare.
As you can see in the first couple of photos, the creeping Charlie is a real problem.
I had put the soil thermometer in there earlier, and it was reading a couple of degrees cooler than the first bed. By the time I removed it, though, it was just as warm as the first bed I tested! Having that plastic over the bed didn’t seem to make much difference. So much for solarization!
This bed turned out to be so filled with tree roots, too. I pile the creeping Charlie aside, half filling the wheel barrow, so it could be disposed of further away. I’d burn it, if I could. Getting those out means losing a fair bit of soil, too. In the fourth photo, you can even see some of the finer tree roots on top. I pulled out as much as I could, but somewhere under there is a major root. I was hitting it every now and then with the garden fork, but couldn’t lift it up at all.
No root vegetables in this bed, for now!
Once it was cleared and prepared, I gave it a thorough watering. For all the rain we had, that soil was pretty dry. Then I covered it with the plastic that had been over the bed the potatoes are in, covering the holes with scrap boards.
The potato bed is going to be a problem. I kept having to chase the cats off the netting! It stretches enough and is low enough that their weight pulls it down to the ground. Ideally, there would be horizontal supports across the top, joining the vertical supports, but I don’t have anything the right length.
At least they won’t be using it as a litter box.
I’ll have to figure something out.
By this time, it was around 8pm and the temperatures were downright pleasant. We’re expected to drop to 8C/46F tonight, but after that our overnight temperatures are expected to be no lower than 10C/50F On Thursday and Friday, we’re supposed to break 30C/86F, and the overnight temperatures are expected to be close to 20C/68F. It’s supposed to cool down a bit in the second week of June, but that’s a relative statement by then!
For the next while, with the exception of days where I have to drive into the city or something like that, my pattern is going to change. I’ll be getting up earlier to work outside while it’s cooler, then be inside (and probably nap) at the heat of the day before going out again when the temperature starts to drop. With the heat, I’ll be watering things in the morning. Possibly in the evening, too.
I have a couple of beds to take care of in the east yard, plus prep the old kitchen garden bed along the retaining wall. In the beginning of June – after I’ve done all our city trips and vet trip – I should be able to start direct sowing. I’m really trying to focus on getting each bed covered in some way to protect them from the cats. The one area I won’t be able to do is where I intend to plant corn. That area is currently covered by a black tarp/landscape cloth/whatever it is, and has been for several years. Everything under it should be dead by now. I need to move that aside and prepare blocks to plant corn in and, possibly, interplant them with winter squash. That area will simply be too large to cover. I’ll have to figure something else out.
It’s going to be very busy in the garden for the next while!
So May has been just all over the place, this year. This morning, it was snowing. We have frost advisories for tonight. It’ll be almost a week before things really start to warm up again.
This has had an unfortunate affect on our winter sown beds. Most of what germinated did not survive the temperature fluctuations, after the mulch was removed.
What was sown in them, however, was all cool weather crops that can be direct sown before our last frost date, as soon as the soil can be worked. Which means, we still have time.
I started off in the old kitchen garden, with the bed that has clear vinyl over the wire raised bed cover that my daughter helped me move aside.
The first picture in the slide show above was before I stared doing anything. You can see a row of onions along the south wall that are doing well – but the ones along the north wall are pretty much gone! I think the one on the south were partially shaded by the wall, keeping them slightly cooler, while the ones inside the north wall had no respite. I should have propped up the cover to allow air circulation on the hotter days, but there was no real way to do that.
Which is why the first thing I worked on was the walls of this bed.
There were a number of stakes that were high enough that the cover got hung up on them, and I spent some time hammering them deeper. The top logs aren’t particularly straight, and one of them is quite a bit narrower at one end than the other. I secured them better, while also using straw to fill the gaps under them, as well as to make everything more level. I ended up using leftover pieces from the stakes I’d cut for the in-progress garden bed at the chain link fence and most more stakes to further secure the walls.
You can see the end result of that in the second picture.
Once that was done, I spent some time removing more of the leaf mulch remaining. Even with the vinyl over the cover, wind got in and blew things around.
After clearing the rows, I re-sowed the Hedou Tiny bok choy and the variety mix of beets. I had considered getting one of the snail rolls of onions from inside to add along the north edge, but changed my mind. I had picked up a packet of parsnips at our local general store – because I just could not resist buying more seeds! – and sowed some of those, instead. I think I’m the only one in the household that likes parsnips, so we don’t need a lot.
That done, I watered everything from the rain barrel right away. Then I grabbed the soaker hose I’d brought over and hooked it up to the garden hose to test it out. It was working fine, so I laid it out between the rows, making sure the right end was set up at one corner, where the hose could be screwed on without having to take off the cover.
This soaker hose is quite long, though, so after pegging it down between the rows. there was enough length left over to go along the walls around the entire bed.
Once it was set up and pegged down, I hooked up the hose and left it going while I worked on the next area.
In the wattle weave bed, I’d planted some Tom Thumb dwarf peas along the back, and transplanted garlic and a few onions along the front. After removing most of the mulch when things started to warm up enough, I made sure to set netting over it, to keep the cats out.
I don’t know if any of the peas germinated or not, but when I moved the netting aside and cleared away excess leaf mulch, I saw no sign of pea sprouts at all. The package has only 25 pea seeds, so I planted the entire package. I do still have an extra of this variety, though, that could be succession sowed somewhere else, if I want. We have other varieties of peas, though, so I would probably go with something different.
The garlic was doing fine, and most of the transplanted onions are showing growth. In the green plastic collar, the mystery flowers I found and transplanted into this bed are coming up nicely, too. Once the peas were planted and watered, I just needed to slide the netting down the hoops and peg them down again. Those fiberglass hoops I used in place of the wire the kit came with are working out really well.
After that was all done, I messaged my daughter to help me put the raised bed cover back on. I turned off the water and moved the garden hose first, to remove the tripping hazard! The last image shows both beds, all covered up again.
The cover fits a LOT better now. No hanging up on stakes, and no weird gaps under the frame that I had to fill with boards or rocks or pieces of brick, to make sure no cats got in, and to keep the wind from flipping the whole thing over. I was better able to tuck the excess vinyl under the edges, so nothing should catch on the wind. The boards I’d used along the edges before were no longer needed, so they went on top, to weigh down the vinyl and keep it from billowing in the wind. The pieces of wood I used before kept getting blown off!
I will keep that vinyl cover on for a few more nights. Then I will replace it with mosquito netting, so it doesn’t get too hot under there, while still protecting the bed from cats.
That done, I moved to the garden beds in the East yard. I worked on the cabbage bed and the kohlrabi beds at the same time.
The first thing was to remove their covers. As you can see in the first photo, the leaf mulch got blown all over the rows I’d planted into. I cleared away excess leaf mulch and, in the process, did find a few tiny seedlings.
In the second image, you can see I also found a friend!
When it was clear enough to start sowing (which you can see in the third image), I used a bamboo trellis stake to create a furrow, and did my best not to kill off the few seedlings I found in the process. Hopefully, they will survive.
Once the kohlrabi and cabbage were all re-sown, they got a thorough watering from the rain barrel, and the covers were set back on.
I debated whether I should find some plastic to cover them for the night, since we are expecting frost, but these are meant to be sown before last frost, so they should be fine.
At this point, I was done for the day. The next things I need to re-sow are the spinach, chard and carrots. I’m pretty sure the daikon radish and white turnips don’t need to be re-sown, but I’d have to lift the poly to be able to see just how many have made it. The greenhouse poly is semi-transparent, with condensation on the inside, so it’s really hard to tell.
This will wait for another day. Hopefully not tomorrow, as I would love to be making the trip into the city to bring my daughter home from the hospital!
This weekend is the May long weekend – Monday is Victoria Day – which is when a lot of people traditionally finish getting their gardens in. Not where we are, though, and certainly not this year!
I’m happy with what I was able to get done today, though. It feels so good to be working in the garden again!!
Not in the photo is Adam, who very enthusiastically took pets. No sign of Slick today, anywhere.
My goal for today was to start the 4-6 weeks before last frost date seeds. After going through them, I decided on some herbs, caraway, chicory and chamomile, some French Double Dwarf marigolds, some Early White Vienna kohlrabi I picked up, just in case the winter down bed doesn’t make it, and Bi-Colour Pear gourds.
I pre-moistened a bag of seed starting mix with hot water and had the heater going. That basement is way too cold for this, but it’s our only option this year. The six new seed snails got their own metal tray. The Bi-colour Pear gourds have fairly small seeds, so I went ahead and did a snail roll; for the squash, etc. with larger seeds, I will go back to using the planting trays.
All the rolls got topped with vermiculite after the seeds were sown and covered with soil, except the chamomile. Those seeds are so tiny, they got covered with vermiculate only.
Speaking of which…
My brother and SIL came out today to take care of some things and I was able to see them shortly before they left. They were out by the barn as we were talking and the pile with trees growing out of it came up. The trees are self seeded and need to go, as does the pile. I’d been told it was some sort of insulation under there.
My brother informed me that no, it is vermiculite.
We’re talking a truck load, and it’s been sitting there for at least 20 years. It used to be covered in taps and plastic, and I can still see some shreds of that, but over the years a thick layer of moss has grown over it, dead branches had been tossed on top and, along with the self seeded maples, there are a bunch of self seeded raspberry bushes growing on one side.
When my brother gets his old tractor with the front end loader going, he will help me move that pile out. It’s in the way, and I don’t want trees growing in this location; they would eventually block access to the barn. Now that I know it’s vermiculite in that pile, I might actually be able to use it in the garden!
If it’s still good. It’s not exactly “clean” anymore. Some patches got exposed and they’re looking pretty… moldy? We’ll see when the time comes.
Anyhow…
Once the new seeds were planted, the tray was set aside, and I removed the tray with the celery snail rolls in it so I could reach it. I got another metal tray out for the next rolls.
I got rid of the dead luffa entirely. Poor thing.
I decided to “pot up” the Russian Tarragon and Summer Savory seedlings into one snail roll. The tarragon looks pretty good, but I don’t think the summer savory is going to make it. We’ll see.
For this is part, I used what I had left in my bucket of sifted potting soil, which was still damp from when we used it last. The bucket had been sitting on the concrete floor, and the damp potting soil was COLD. I’m really hoping that doesn’t cause too much shock for the seedlings. I used it to “pot up” the four varieties of tomatoes by unrolling them, adding the potting soil, then rolling them back up again. I also potted up… I think it was the Crackerjack marigolds, but I’m suddenly drawing a blank on that.
The rest did not get potted up, partly because I was almost out of potting soil. The potted up rolls are thicker now, so everything is now on three trays, with the two big rolls of celery in a tray to themselves now. The celery is really big! They are a short season variety, and I probably started them too early for this specific variety.
Once the three trays were set back up on the shelf under the shop light, I returned the plant lights on one side, then set up the heat mat on the work table, in front of the shelf, where the second plant lights can reach. At least the new seed rolls will be a bit warm on the mat.
So that is finally done.
I didn’t try to get much done outside today; I’m very tired and hurting. It was a warmer day – our high is 18C/64F – though we also had high winds. We even got a smattering of rain.
Unfortunately, we’re dropping down to a low of 2C/36F overnight, and that’s our high for tomorrow. Over the next few days, the highs and lows were be just over or just under freezing. Even when we start warming up by next weekend, those overnight lows are going to stay around the freezing mark. We aren’t expected to get warmer until the third week of May, and the long range forecast shows us still expecting lows below freezing at the beginning of June.
Right around our old last frost day, which is what I’m going by, rather than the updated average.
Tomorrow, I finally have my doctor’s appointment – the one I had to cancel twice because of the truck issues. I won’t be losing much by being out, though, as it’s supposed to be not only cold, but very windy, too. Over the next while, I’ll need to focus on cleaning up and preparing a few more garden beds, including the one at the chain link fence that is going to be redone completely again.
I have a strong suspicion our winter sown beds aren’t going to make it this year. There were a few things where seedlings had already emerged when I removed the mulch, but I can’t see them anymore. Not even in the bed I was able to cover with the 6mm plastic. I hope I’m wrong, but these are all things I can direct sow before the last frost date. I’ve even reordered a few things, so I can replant the same varieties in the same places, if they don’t work out. The soil surface is all so dry – and yes, I’ve been watering what I could. I’ve now got hoses set up at both the front and back taps, though I need to make sure the water is shut off at the house and the hoses are empty, so there’s nothing to freeze in them overnight.
Hopefully, even though it’s going to be pretty chilly for the next few days, I’ll be able to get some progress on the garden beds that need preparing.
Meanwhile, we’ll see what the doctor has to say tomorrow about the issues I’ve been having.
First up, some good news in progress that made it worth being up way too late again.
At around midnight, I was contacted by someone from the new rescue. Some spaces are opening up, and she was wondering what friendly yard cats might be available to take in for fostering and adoption?
She had a few in mind from pictures I’d sent before, but requested more up to date photos and videos that she could show to potential fosters. My daughter and I did that while doing the morning cat feeding. Unfortunately, a couple of times when I thought I was taking video, it turned out it wasn’t recording. Instead, I had a second or two of video of our feet or whatever, taken at either end of what was supposed to be a video for the rescue! We have a whole bunch of adult males in particular that are so friendly, it’s almost impossible to get still shots of them, as they are all over each other, trying to get pets.
So I will have to try again later today. If all goes well, we might be able to have our tiny girls that are friendly, but still too small to spay (even though they are almost a year old) be taken in. Or Sir Robin. Sir Robin desperately wants to be an indoor cat! I haven’t even seen some of the adult feral females in a few days which, unfortunately, means they may well have just had kittens somewhere in their hidden places.
Tis the season.
Speaking of the season, here is how our seedlings are looking.
Two snail rolls have graduated to the upper level and are now under the shop light, giving them a few more inches of space that I couldn’t give them with the gooseneck light fixture they were under.
The Golden Boy celery is thriving since being “potted up” to the snail roll! That poor little luffa is getting its true leaves, but is looking pretty sickly. The summer savoury is looking very leggy and weak, but the tarragon – the very few there are – are looking stronger.
The second picture is of the eggplant and peppers tray. Those seedlings are looking very sad and weak, and there are so few surviving. I’ve already resown them, but I won’t try again. They are short season enough that I might try direct sowing, instead.
With how few there are, I’m seriously considering “potting them up” into a snail roll. I could easily fit them all into a single roll, with room to spare. I’m just not sure how well they’d handle being transplanted. It can’t be much worse than they are doing now.
In the first picture, you can see quite a few more of the hollyhocks now. There are still two or three seedlings disguised as vermiculite in there.
In the next picture, you can see a second Orange Currant tomato is up – plus there’s another elbowing its way up that I didn’t even see until I looked at the photo, later.
It’s the same in the next picture. I could see one Manitoba tomato had emerged, but looking closely in the photo, I can see the stem of another, pushing it’s way up.
Still no sign of anything in the Chocolate Stripes or Blueberry tomatoes, and still no Florence Fennel visible.
All in good time.
Tomorrow is the last business day of the month – payday – so we are expecting to do our Costco stock up trip in the city. I’ll see what they have for seed starting mix. I only got one bag and it’s pretty small. I might only get four seed snails out of it. I won’t be starting more seeds for a couple more weeks, but I will probably be starting more. Costco carries the big Pro Mix bags, which would last me for the rest of the seed starting season. I might have to sift it before using it. I haven’t heard people talking about needing to do that with their seed starting mixed this year at all, though, so it might not be an issue. I might need to get more potting soil, too. I still have some but, with so much material getting sifted out, I don’t have as much potting soil as it appears in the bag! Any time I pot something up, I would be using potting soil rather than seed starting mix.
We really need a better set up for starting seeds indoors.
