Another one I loved singing as a kid.
video
In the Christmas spirit: Angels We Have Heard on High
In the Spirit of Christmas: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
In the Christmas spirit: Carol of the Bells (cello)
In the Christmas spirit: God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman
I am not usually a fan of modern covers of traditional Christmas carols, but I do love this low bass version!
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On growing garlic
This year, I joined a number of gardening groups on social media. Either local groups or cold climate/zone 3 gardening groups. It’s pretty cool to see how many first time gardeners have been joining the groups and asking all sorts of questions.
This is the time of year for planting hard neck garlic, as we did yesterday, and there is a LOT of discussion on these groups right now, and people are sharing some really good links.
One really good video I saw shared was uploaded just yesterday, and it give a lot of good information. I think you’ll enjoy it, too.
He talks about hard neck garlic, soft neck garlic, seed garlic and even using store bought garlic, too.
I didn’t realize Elephant garlic isn’t actually garlic!
He talks about lots more, including harvesting “wet garlic”, which was something I wondered about when checking our own garlic last year.
Among the most discussed things I’ve been seeing in the gardening groups has been how deep to plant the cloves. There is a LOT of differing, even conflicting, advice. The thing is, the conflicting advice isn’t necessarily wrong. There can be quite a bit of variance, based on climate zones. For those in zone three, like myself, this was an excellent link that was shared. I also found this video, specific to planting garlic in zone 3.
I found it interesting that he says to leave the curing garlic out in the rain!
For those who aren’t necessarily in colder climates, here’s a video from MI Gardener (published September, 2018)
A lot of gardeners on my groups get seeds from MI Gardener, too, and are very happy with what they get.
There is a lot of information and advice out there, but if you can’t follow all of it, you know what? You can still get good garlic! We didn’t plant our cloves as deep as recommended for out zone, yet they survived the Polar Vortex just fine. We don’t have compost or manure to add, and we still got decent sized bulbs. That’s one of the beauties of gardening. You can do all sorts of things “wrong”, and chances are, you’ll still get decent results. What works in your own specific garden may also be quite different from what works in other places, too, so it will always be a learning experience.
Which is half the fun of the whole thing!
For those reading, do you have other things you plant in the fall? I’ve read about a number of vegetables that can be seeded in the fall, and plan to try it in the future, as we get our garden more established. If you plant garlic, do you plant hard or soft neck varieties? What works for you?
The Re-Farmer
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Our 2021 Garden, fall tour video
This is an “almost” first for me. I’ve made a few little videos now and then, with minimal editing, to post here on the blog. Years ago, I used to make videos on DVDs of photos for my parents, set to music and with chapters, etc. Since we were so far away, I thought it would be a fun way to share lots of photos of their grandchildren with them in a way that would be easier for their declining mobility. When I found out they never watched any of them (and in cleaning out their possessions in the house, I never found them), I stopped.
Yesterday, instead of making another long, photo heavy post, I would try doing a narrated, fall garden tour video. I have very little equipment; I recorded the audio using a headset with a microphone, and the video software I used is the same old one I used back when I was making DVDs for my parents! It took a long time to make, and a long time to upload. Thankfully, we didn’t loose our internet in the process. :-D Anyhow, in the wee hours of the morning, I finally got it done!
It is WAY longer than I would have normally done a video. Usually, I try to stay under 5 minutes, but this ended up being just over 47 minutes. I did try to explain some of the how’s and why’s of things, and I hope I did all right with that.
So please feel free to grab a cuppa, settle in, give it a watch, and please leave some feedback. I’d like to know how you liked it, if you found it informative and useful in any way, and if you would like to see more (I would NOT be making such long videos on a regular basis, but I might make some little 5 minute ones). I’d love to hear your questions, suggestions and anything else you’d like to share.
Enjoy!
The Re-Farmer
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Grog determination
We have been rather entertained by our resident groundhogs under the junk pile of late.
The grog actually managed to drag some of the tarp down into the den entrance!
This tarp is one of several that I found when cleaning the junk off this pile of wood. They had clearly been used to cover and protect the wood, but had been blown aside and torn apart by the elements, along with all sorts of things being tossed into the area. Torn up as they were, I was still able to use them to cover the wood pile a bit, but the groundhogs are taking advantage of the deteriorated state. They are trying to gather it into their den for nesting material.
Last night, I cleaned it up a bit and tucked the tarp under some boards.
This is how I found it this morning.
I was able to see the groundhog in action through the living room window.
That little bugger is really working at it! :-D
I put together the videos I took from the window, too. :-)
These next photos were taken after the video was made.
It got quite a lot of that tarp down and into the den entrance!
In taking this photo, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
There is now a third entrance to the den in the back of the pile!
I cleaned up and tucked things away again. It should be interesting to see how long this lasts.
While I was working in a nearby beet bed (which will be in my next post), I could hear the grog trying to drag a corner of the orange trap around the back, too.
The gravel you see at the bottom of the photo is from the second entrance to the den.
I don’t think you can see it in the photo above, but there is the nose of a grog in their main entrance. It was watching me.
You’ll notice the gravel is different in this photo. I took advantage of their hard work and used it. I’ll be posting about that after I’ve processed the photos I took.
We seem to have made a truce with the groundhogs. I’m relieved, because we were getting to the point of taking some rather permanent steps. Something I won’t even consider right now, as they are nesting, and I don’t want to end up depriving babies of their mother. The cayenne pepper and covers are working, overall (more on that in my next post), and they seem content with eating the bird seed, grazing on whatever they’re finding in the grass, and leaving our garden beds alone now. From what I’ve been able to find about them, they don’t actually like to have overlapping territory, so if there are any babies, they will not stick around once they are big enough to live on their own.
For all the predictions of rain we’ve been getting, I don’t think we’ll actually get anything of substance, so I will be applying more cayenne pepper this evening. If it rains, well, I’ll just have to do it again.
The Re-Farmer
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Caught in the act!
Oh, the adorable little beast.
I moved the garden cam again, this time onto the summer squash. I’d had to tie some of their stems back onto their supports, and wasn’t sure if they’d come loose under their own weight, or if something caused them to fall.
Our sunburst squash is looking prolific, but we’ve had very little to pick. Lots of them have been withering on the vine, but there have also been bite marks on them.
It is confirmed who is the cause of this!
I had the camera low on its pole, and at some point during the night it slid down and spun a bit to the left. Which is why it caught a raccoon going by. There was a possibility that the raccoons were doing damage, but it completely ignored the squash, other than to go around them.
I was about 99.9% sure it was the woodchuck doing the damage. Now it is 100% confirmed.
*sigh*
The Re-Farmer
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On the menu, and passing through.
My morning rounds were shorter today. I did not water all the garden beds this time. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather radar, and we might actually get rain!
Yesterday evening, I grated a whole lot of soap to scatter around in the old kitchen garden. It either worked, or we didn’t get any critters visiting last night.
This morning, I raided our spice cupboard. The newly planted beds of radishes, chard, kale and kohlrabi have now been treated with a hot spices, and when I ran out of that, I started scattering black pepper, including the perimeter of the corn and sunflower blocks. I checked everything carefully, and there were no new nibbles among the corn and sunflowers, that I could see.
Before heading back inside, I was able to gather some summer squash.
It’s been a while since our first harvest of 2 green zucchini and a Magda squash. This morning, we’ve got 5 green zucchini (3 of them from one plant!), 1 Magda squash, and our very first Sunburst squash!
Later, I was able to grab a few garlic scapes, too. We still have a few left to grow more before we gather them.
These will be on today’s menu, for sure! :-D
Once settled inside, I checked the trail cam files and saw this on the garden cam.
I was not expecting the deer to cross through from that side! And there’s no way we can rope things off on that side, without it causing access issue to other beds.
At least he didn’t stop for a snack along the way.
I did put black pepper across the open side of the garden beds, and down some of the bigger paths between blocks. I hope this will convince the deer to go around the garden, instead of through it!
Thinking ahead with the girls, I remembered that the Whiffletree catalog has a wildlife tree package. We’ve been talking about planting things away from the house to feed the deer, so they’ll have less reason to go for our gardens. We don’t want to get rid of the critters. We just want them to stay out of our gardens! I went looking through the catalog and found an item I’d highlighted but forgot about. They also have a Wildlife Plot seed package. There are enough seeds to cover 2000 sq ft with things like turnips, forage kale and other tasty plants. If we get a package like that and plant it in the outer yard, that could do a fine job of keeping the deer – and the groundhogs – out of our garden beds.
I hope to order the seed package this fall, so we can use it next spring. :-)
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 