video

Got a bit done (video)

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I had a very rough time getting going this morning, and I’m not sure why. Bad pain day, joints and muscles, and so very sleepy. I got the girls to do my morning routine for me so I could sleep in as much as the cats would allow. Still, I had to do something outside, on this gorgeous day! This afternoon, I picked a smaller job and worked on the garden bed my daughter weeded and prepped for me yesterday. Like the others, it was bowing out where the boards were jointed at a support.

Since posting a lot of photos isn’t an option for me right now, I took the pictures I would otherwise have included here and made them into a short video.

After I was done with the raised bed, I puttered around the yard and enjoyed the day. One thing I decided to do was raise the old market tent higher and secure the corners. Particularly the corners on either side of where it’s broken. At some point during the winter, the canopy supports collapsed, but I couldn’t see why.

I got three legs extended, but the fourth one just would not happen. I even lubricated it and took a hammer to the base plate, but it just would not extend! Meanwhile, even after attaching cords to the other three corners and securing them, the canopy supports kept folding down for some reason.

Which is when I realized the pins at the corners had snapped free of where they were hinged at the corners, and were literally floating free above the legs!

Well, that tent is toast.

We’ll dismantle it and keep the parts and pieces, like the one that had a piece of tree fall on it. We’re still finding uses for those pieces in the garden, so I’m sure we’ll find plenty of uses for these pieces, too. At some point, we’ll pick up another Walmart cheapie. These tents are very handy.

One of the things I want to do is move the home-made folding table that had been sheltered under the tent all winter, closer to the house. It will be used when it’s time to harden off the transplants.

I won’t be able to get much done outside tomorrow, though. I don’t want to start anything then have to leave it when it’s time to go to my mother’s and start bagging things and moving furniture for when the exterminator comes the next day.

Oh! My brother ended up calling me when he had a few minutes at work. He’d actually made it to that funeral my mother had tried to guilt me into going to, even though I really don’t remember these relatives. My brother does, and he hadn’t known about the funeral until we talked about my mother. He went to work super early to get things done, then even booked the time for a meeting he couldn’t miss for when he knew he’d be in the town it was held in – a town north of us! – so he could attend the meeting by phone, from the parking lot. He wasn’t even sure he’d have a cell phone single, but it worked out. He was glad to have been able to go and catch up with a distant cousin. The only down side was, our vandal was there, too. Our vandal has been treating my brother cruelly for many years longer than we’ve been back. My brother is much more tender hearted than I am, so being around our vandal actually made my brother feel ill, even though they had no contact. He wasn’t even sure if our vandal saw my brother among the crowd. Ah, well.

Then we got to talk about my mother, and I found out something disturbing, if not surprising. Not long ago, my mother had proudly told me that she’d skipped all but one of her medications, instead taking the echinacea my sister had brought for her, for her cold. I had quite the talk with her about how potentially dangerous that can be, partly because she’s been on them for so long. I’m also concerned that she isn’t remembering which pill is for what, getting what they are mixed up, and so on. Well, it turns out she’s still doing it, and told my brother about it.

This is on top of her putting her own tenancy at risk by refusing to allow the exterminators in, and accusing them of theft.

We’ve talked to her already about moving away from where she is now, partly because of some of her neighbours messing with her head, partly because our vandal randomly shows up. Mostly, though, she’s going to start needing more help, and there is an assisted living apartment not far from her. However, we’ve also talked to her about going to the nursing home her sister and my father both spent their last years. My mother isn’t at that point, and it would require a doctor’s assessment, first. She’s in favour of living there, when the time comes. The question is, with the things she is doing, is the time coming faster? The added benefit for her living there would be the extra security. If she moves there and our vandal finds out, we can make sure he’s on the list as not being allowed to see her. She would also have access to physiotherapy for those knees of hers, and there’s even a chapel, right in the building. They’d make sure she was taking her medications, having proper meals, and hydrating. If I remember correctly, they even have doctors coming in to see the patients there, instead of the patients having to go to a clinic. I know my father was very happy there. When I made my weekly phone calls to him, he would go on and on about how well they were treating him and taking care of him. But then, my father was someone who told the staff what a great job they were doing, while my mother is the sort that would only complain and find fault.

Still, as she’s messing around with her prescriptions, this is something we need to consider more seriously.

*sigh*

Well, I’ll be seeing her tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully, things will go well though, to be honest, just thinking about it makes me feel overwhelmed. She lives in such a tiny little apartment, but she has so. Much. Stuff. I’m the last person to have any credibility when it comes to that sort of judgement, but I’m not living by myself, with no pets, in an apartment that’s about the size of the room that was her bedroom, here at the farm. The room that is now my bedroom, office and craft room, altogether.

Hhmm… Now that I think about it, this room might actually be a bit bigger than her apartment.

I am not looking forward to tomorrow.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Got it done (video)

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Nothing fancy, but I got it done. This is what I managed to get done yesterday.

Have I mentioned how much I’m starting to dislike those horrid elms? Not even the poplars, which spread through their roots, are a problem like this!

Broccoli hopes you enjoy the video!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first direct sowing! (video)

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Okay, so I’ve scattered seeds and such, but today is the first day for direct sowing. It was such a gorgeous day for it, too!

I planted all the edible pod peas from the package, minus the ones that split apart as they soaked between damp paper towels overnight. Not a lot of carrots were planted; I’ll include them between other things, over the next while. I’ll probably do the same with more spinach. Basically, they’ll be space fillers and ground covers until it’s too warm to plant them anymore.

The box frame cover got worked on first, then set aside, since I put in the old salvaged T posts to hold netting for the peas to climb. I couldn’t drive them in very far, so they will need to have support added to them before any trellis netting is added, so they don’t get pulled into the bed by the weigh of the peas – or the net, for that matter! I intended to add a third post in the middle, but hit something hard. Possibly one of the branches set at the base of the bed, when it was first built and filled. Or a rock that got missed.

I found my pH meter and did a reading. No surprise the pH is still at 8. I even stuck it into the compost heap nearby, and the needle barely moved. I had a bit of an ah-ha moment earlier today. Well, more like a “duh, of course” moment. Maritime Gardening did an April garden tour video and was taking about how acidic his soil is, and mentioned that liming the soil can make the soil more alkaline.

Liming.

Lime.

Garden lime.

Which is made out of limestone.

Which is what we are sitting on top of.

Our area has limestone quarries and commercial gravel pits – we even have our own little gravel pit – with limestone based sand and gravel below a very narrow band of topsoil.

Of course our soil alkalinity is maxing out the pH meter. How could it be any different? *smacks forehead over what should have been obvious*

Increasing the acidity is going to be a challenge, that’s for sure. The use of raised beds will make it easier, at least.

Our order of sulfur is supposed to arrive by Thursday. Once we’ve got that in, we’ll be able to start amending the various beds with it, to increase the acidity. My husband actually ordered 2 different bags. One bag is 90% sulfur, 10% betonite clay. The other is guaranteed 99.5% elemental sulfur, but both are supposed to be broadcast evenly, then worked into the top 6 inches of soil, at a rate of 250g/10m² (0.5lb/100ft²). These low raised beds are 27ft², so they shouldn’t need much but, from what I’m reading, the more alkaline the soil, the more sulfur is needed (which makes sense), plus our soil type would also need more, for it to make a difference. Even so, it won’t actually do much for us this year; if we were treating a field, we’d be adding it to the soil a year before planting a crop. Any amending we do this year will mostly benefit what we grow, next year. Once we’ve started incorporating it into our soil, though, we should test the soil every few months to see how much difference it has made. Still, every little bit will help.

While it will be slow going to increase our soil acidity, using sulfur is supposed to be one of the quickest ways to do it!

Anyhow…

In the early evening, the girls and I went around the yard, checking things out and enjoying the longer daylight hours and warmth. We blew past our predicted high and reached 16C/61F! Plenty of trees and bushes have leaf buds showing. It took some searching, but we were thrilled to find a few shoots of snow crocuses and grape hyacinth emerging through the leaf litter. We even spotted the leaves of two tulips that had emerged near the saffron crocuses! These were not there, this morning!

We are getting into that period when everything starts to just explode into new growth.

Before long, we’re probably going to be complaining over how hot it is! 😂😂

For now, I’m just really happy to get some progress done outside. We’re supposed to get some rain next week, but we should have plenty of lovely days like today, to get things done outside!

The Re-Farmer

Still there, and thinking warm thoughts

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Well, it stayed cold enough that the snow we got is still there – with a bit more. We might get more flurries later today, and then the wind is supposed to pick up.

It’ll all be gone by tomorrow.

I counted 33 yard cats this morning – but I didn’t see Sad Face anywhere! Which means there’s another new one in the bunch.

I plugged the heat lamp in the sun room back in. They had really enjoyed the warmer temperatures and only a few continued to hang out in the sun room, but now that the temperatures have dropped again and the snow is back, every time I look out the bathroom window, there’s a crowd. Several crowds, actually, on and under the platform.

They will not be happy when they loose their platform so I can set up for my plants. 😁

Breakfast in the snow!

I got a good shot of the cat with the damaged eye. The hematoma doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller, that I can tell, but he seems to have no vision issues. He’s certainly more lively and active now, after having spent several days being quite lethargic and shivering in the sun room. I’m glad he sought out the warmth and shelter when he was feeling sick. Now that he’s improving, the down side is, he’s no longer letting me touch him. I managed to sneak pet his back while I was petting Driver (on the far right of the photo), but he quickly moved away. He is less skittish then he used to be, at least. The cats were all very hungry this morning, so I let him be rather than interrupt his breakfast.

With the chill and snow out there, I wanted to share something more spring like, so here is a video from MI Gardener to enjoy.

Some of these “hacks” are things I’ve already been doing, or trying to do. The first one is to have hose guards on his raised bed corners. That’s something I’ve appreciated about the higher raised beds, as the beds themselves are the hose guards. The only problem is that I typically have several hoses joined together, and the couplings tend to get caught on things. I’ve seen people use curtain rods they picked up at thrift stores; the round kind, where one half slides over the other to adjust the width. Setting them so the outside half is on the top allows it to rotate as the hose is pulled around it, which keeps things from getting stuck.

In the comments under the video, someone described how they’ve put permanent hose guards in their beds, made from small fence posts – then topped them with tennis balls for safety, so their grand kids are less likely to hurt themselves on them. What a great idea!

Using a board across the beds is something else I do, though I don’t have the knees to get right on one and squat to reach the soil! Mostly, I use them to lean against and support myself with one hand, while using the other to do what I need to do. Handily, we’ve got quite a bit of scrap boards that can be used for that, though they tend to be pretty rotten and damaged, and I’ve had more than a few of them crack and break up!

I’ll have to remember the “using the pot to make a transplant hole the right size”, tip.

With the carrots, I’ve used scrap boards to cover the seeds until they germinate. Only because I tend to have plenty of those, but not cardboard! What’s fun is to move them aside to check for germination – and finding frogs sheltering under them! Slug eating frogs must always be encouraged. 😁

I like his pretty dibbler tool. Since mobility is an issue for me, I tend to use something longer. Some days, I’ve used 4′ long support stakes as dibblers. Those are handy to mark out shallow trenches for smaller seeds, too. If I need larger holes to plant in, we’ve got lots of sticks or tree branches that will do!

Another commenter mentioned a tip I’ve heard of before that I definitely want to try, for the low raised beds. Get a piece of PVC pipe and use it to drop seeds in place. That would solve both mobility/pain issues, and short-people-like-me reach issues!

Just a side note, when it comes to reach; the lower the bed, the harder the reach. So for a low raised bed, accessible from both sides, like what he has, I’d recommend going no more than 3′ wide, but with a high raised bed, 4′ wide works just fine.

I’m really looking forward to winter finally being done with us!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: potting seeds already! (video)

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It’s only been 2 – maybe 2 1/2 – days!

This morning, when checking on the Wild Bunch winter squash seeds, I spotted one seed with a root showing.

By this afternoon, there were several more.

So I potted them up.

So far, it’s 6 out of 25 seeds, but I can see that the rest will start germinating very quickly.

Outside, the rain finally settled into snow, and we’ve got a light dusting of it out there right now. We’re just getting the tail end of a system that dropped a foot of snow, elsewhere in the country! The only thing I’m really concerned about outside is the saffron crocuses. I took their mulch off and the ground they were growing through was still frozen, but I’m not sure how the newly exposed leaves will handle these temperatures.

They are now saying tomorrow will have a high of -1C/30F, but the day after is supposed to reach a high of 10C/50F!

Until then, it’s a good time for inside stuff – like getting the germinated seeds planted in pots!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: starting winter squash and chitting, on a chilly day (video)

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We got quite a bit of rain overnight! Enough to completely fill the rain barrel I’d returned to the corner of the sun room. When I came out this morning, I had to put the diverter back on!

It was still raining ever so slightly while I was out (I counted 31, maybe 32 cats this morning). The only garden related stuff I did was to take the mulch off the sunchokes and asparagus beds – the last beds that needed to be uncovered – so they can thaw out faster.

The rain looks like it has stopped, but it’s too muddy and chilly to do the work I had intended to do outside today. I did end up setting out the Purple Caribe potatoes to chit in the old kitchen.

A couple of them were large enough that I cut them in half, and those ones are perched on the carton in such a way that they will have air flow under them, so the cut areas will dry out.

Looking at how many 1kg give us, I’m rethinking where we will put the 2kg of German Butterball potatoes. My thought had been to put them where the squash were planted last year, but that’s a huge space. I’d basically just have one row of potatoes. So now I’m thinking we might use one of the low raised beds, instead, where the soil should be softer.

We really need to think about increasing the acidity of our soil. It is very alkaline, and pretty much everything we are growing needs soil that is at least a little acidic. We should pick up a bale or two of peat, but that has a very minor and slow effect on acidification. A lot of the usual soil amendments, like adding compost, actually increases the alkalinity, which is the last thing we need. I ended up running errands in the small city yesterday and was looking for Sulphur, but saw nothing. We do have a box of fertilizer we found when cleaning out the old kitchen years ago that is for acidifying the soil; it’s meant for azaleas, but should work for other things, too. If it’s still good. Does water soluble Miracle Gro have an expiry date? I have no idea how old this stuff is. The box was opened but, based on how full it looks, it may only have been used once!

Since today was an indoor kind of day, I started pre-germinated some winter squash.

We’re at just under 7 weeks before last frost, which I hope is enough time for these. Not knowing what varieties are in this mix means we will have different days to maturity among them. I’m still hoping to be able to start some other varieties of winter squash as well – ones we actually know what they are! I’m just not planning to grow entire rows of each. With pre-germinating the seeds, I can start just a few of each and not have to be as concerned about germination rates like when they’re sown into pots or pellets.

I’ll need more pots, though.

Among the last seeds I want to start indoors, by about 3 weeks before last frost, are several types of melons.

Last year, we started so many squash and melon seeds, then had entire trays where nothing germinated. A real waste. I think we’re going to have a much better success rate using the pre-germination method. It should be interesting to see how much of a difference it makes, as time goes by.

The next few days are supposed to continue to be colder and wet, with possible snow, with Friday having a high at, or just below, freezing (it’s Tuesday as I write this). By Sunday, we’re supposed to be back up to the double digits (Celsius), but our overnight lows will be staying close to freezing through most of May. We don’t expect to be direct seeding anything until June, but there are quite a few cold tolerant things we’ll be able to direct sow once the current cold snap is done.

May will be our month for building more raised beds, and harvesting more dead trees to build with.

There is so much that needs to be done!

Weather willing, we’ll have more prepared garden spaces than we had last year, but I’m not sure we’ll reclaim enough to match what we were growing in – well, trying to! – the year before.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: bed prep, and a comparison request

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Well, it finally got done! At about 1am, the video I meant to post yesterday was finally uploaded to YouTube, which then was going to take another hour to process it, in three different quality options. I waited until the lowest quality one was done, so I could select a thumbnail, then went to bed!

The question is, was it worth it?

I’ve watched the video myself, selecting the highest quality option, but I really can’t see much of a different.

Here is the video in question.

Could I ask a huge favour?

Could you please watch this video on YouTube, selecting the highest quality option, then compare it to this one…

… also on highest quality option?

Then let me know in the comments how you watched it, and if you could see any difference in quality or play.

I’m using my new desktop to watch these, and the YouTube settings for both allow me to watch them at 2160p/4K.

When exporting the older video in my software, I used the default “good” quality setting. There is little difference in file size with either “good” or “high” options, so it should not have taken so very long to upload. I don’t know if it was an issue with our internet, or with YouTube itself. Or both. I’ve had this happen before where the upload took so long. it was basically stopped. I gave up and started over again. The problem with doing that is, no matter how far along the upload was, trying again starts at the beginning, not from where you left off. In that case, when I tried it again, it uploaded much faster and without any problems the second time around. I seriously considered doing that again with this one, and probably should have.

Please feel free to let me know what you think!

The Re-Farmer

Stroganoff on a smoker?? (video)

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Just watching a few videos with breakfast this morning and found a new cooking video from Quick Dick McDick.

Oh, my. He doesn’t go half way, that’s for sure!

Having to pause near the end to help deliver another calf was a nice touch. 😄😄

I seriously want a smoker.

The Re-Farmer

The gathering… plus a celebration

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We’ve got another beautiful day today. It was already above freezing by the time I got outside to feed the kitties and do my morning rounds. I counted 28 yard cats this morning.

I was coming back from the outer yard when I spotted the gathering…

Sorry for the shakiness. I was zoomed in from across the yard! If you turn your volume up, you’ll hear a noise right at the start. That’s actually ice crackling! You’ll also hear the Canada Geese flying overhead. There were a lot of them this morning. We’re at that time of year where the cats are preferring to drink melt water instead of the warm water I’m still leaving for them in the heated water bowls. Here, though, I think they were mostly just playing. The water is receding quite a bit – which is good, because it’s actually being absorbed by the ground, not washing away. In some areas, though, that means there is a top layer of ice, then a gap over the water level, with another layer of ice. It’s that sort of top layer of ice cracking that you’re hearing in the video.

Enough snow has melted away that I was able to start adding areas back into my rounds, and even start doing a bit of clean up. It’s still too early for the snow crocuses, but the area they are in is mostly clear of ice and snow. I was even able to check on the Korean pines. I think we lost one of them. There’s four left altogether, and I’ll be happy if even just one survives. We shall see!

In other things, today is our anniversary. Thirty six years ago, while my husband was in “X platoon” in Basic Training (Basic Officer Training Course, to be specific; it’s an option that I don’t think exists anymore) due to an injury, he flew home for about a week. He arrived late on a Thursday, before Easter weekend, which meant all government offices were closed from Friday to Monday. On Tuesday, we bought our marriage license, then waited the requisite 24 hours before getting married on Wednesday. We had two days together, then he flew back to Chilliwack.

The powers that be were not impressed. Apparently, he was supposed to get their permission before getting married!

We didn’t see each other for another 3 months. That’s when his parents and sister were able to fly in from Africa, where they were living at the time. My husband was still in X platoon, so he was able to fly out for a few days, and our two families gathered together here at the farm to celebrate our marriage. After he returned to Chilliwack, we didn’t see each other again for another 3 months, when I took the train and moved out to join him, just in time for him to officially leave X platoon and be part of the next BOTC start date. We didn’t actually live under the same roof until after he was done the 13 week course, and we moved to Victoria, BC, where he had his first posting as a very green naval officer.

Of course, we had all sorts of people making assumptions about why we eloped like we did, but it really came down to, it was the only time slot we had. It was either do it then, or wait a couple of years. The entire wedding, including my dress (I bought it earlier because I was able to get an employee discount on top of a warehouse clearance discount – it only cost me $10! I never thought I’d be getting married in it!) and rings (I got those with my employee discount, too! 😄) cost about $100. My BIL paid the $40 or whatever it was for the license fee, and my brother and his wife took us out to dinner after the wedding. My brother and his wife were the only family members to know what we planned to do in advance, and my SIL walked me through what I needed to do and where I needed to go to get it all arranged before my husband (fiancé) flew out.

I highly recommend eloping. Very stress free!!

My mother had been okay with it at first; just surprised. Then she talked to the local priest, who told her we weren’t really married, because we didn’t get married in a church.

*sigh*

That priest didn’t last long. He replaced a well loved priest that retired early for health reasons. The new guy was a terrible, angry and bitter man who should never have gone into the priesthood in the first place. So many people complained about him, the bishop moved him somewhere else (hopefully, to either get some counselling, or leave the priesthood!). Which says a lot because, even then, there were very few priests, and it was a long time before they found someone to stay as parish priest.

But I digress.

My husband and I were both 19 when we eloped, so of course, we had all the predictions of how it would never last. Interestingly, our marriage has outlasted many others that did things “right”.

It was no fairy tale wedding, but I’ve never been big on fairly tales, anyhow. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

As for celebrating, my husband is in no condition to go out, so I headed into town and got take out to celebrate, instead.

It doesn’t take much to make us happy!

The Re-Farmer

Something to try?

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I just watched this video from Maritime Gardening and wanted to share.

The next seeds I plan to start will be quite large, and I plan to let them soak overnight first. The next time we’ll be starting smaller seeds, I might experiment with this method. Not that we have had much problem with germination rates, but that waiting until they show, and wondering if any will germinate at all, is the thing. Right now, in the tray with early peppers, two varieties have start to emerge, but one still has not, and we still have just one Butterfly Flower seedling.

The thing will be to remember to start the seeds like this, about a few days, or even a week, in advance!

The Re-Farmer