winter squash

Our 2024 Garden: potting and potting up, and stuff

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Today I was going to be helping my mother with her grocery shopping, so I took advantage of the trip, leaving a bit early to swing by a hardware store. I didn’t find everything I was looking for, but found other things I needed, instead. Then I swung by another store to pick up something for my mother I knew she was intending to skip this time, before finally going to the grocery store. I was intending to pick up a couple of their prepared hot meals that my mother likes so much, for our lunch. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any this time. They did have pieces of hot rotisserie chicken, though, so I got some and other ingredients for our meal. We were running low on kibble again, so I bought an 11kg bag that I hope will last us.

After taxes, it cost $50, which is totally insane.

My mother was happy with what I got her for lunch, which was nice. As we were eating, I kept waiting for her to bring up about the situation with the exterminators coming in at the end of the week. We went over her shopping list, then discussed whether she was up to going to the store with me, or just giving me the list to do the shopping for her. In the end, she decided to stay at home. The local senior’s centre has social activities in her building on Tuesdays, which she loves, and all she needs to do it walk down the hallway to attend.

I finally brought up that we needed to talk. I could tell by the look on her face, she new exactly what I wanted to talk about. It was a look of rather scornful humour that I see way too often. I explained to her that the public housing department is required to do this, and they really could evict her if she doesn’t go along. She kept smirking and scoffing in response, (all this for just one bug?) before bringing up the things she is convinced an exterminator stole from her. Particularly the old passports. She had four of them together, she says, and now there’s just two. I didn’t even think to ask, why would someone not only go digging through her boxes papers to find them, then take only two of them. Particularly since the exterminator is in and out very quickly. I reminded her that she’s accused people of stealing before, only to find the “stolen” item later. It’s entirely possible she decided to put them someplace “safe” and forgot where, as happens to everyone. I also brought up a few things she does that are far more of a safety and security thing than someone using 70 year old passports that look nothing like modern ones to make fake ID, but that just had her going off on a rant that completely contradicted her concerns about “scam people”.

I managed to get the conversation back to the exterminator visit – and found out hers is not the only apartment that’s going to be treated. I took a moment to check my email and found a response from my sister. It turned out she had also suggested that my mother just get a motel room for Thursday night, but she refused. My sister’s house is not very accessible, and my mother didn’t want to stay at her place, anyhow. So my sister was planning to come out at 7am on Friday morning! With that confirmed with my mother, we worked out that I will come out on Thursday afternoon to bag her fabric items and move furniture away from the walls in most of her apartment. My sister will have to do the stuff in my mother’s bedroom when she gets there, since the bedroom is so tiny, it can’t be done in advance and still have space for her to sleep. Plus, of course, her bedding needs to be bagged.

That finally worked out, I headed to the grocery store with her list. As I was getting her stuff, I noticed they had some sale prices on some things that were even better than in the city, and decided it was worth going back, later. I got my mother’s stuff and was at her place just as the social event was being set up and my mother was already in the lounge, so I took care of putting everything away. She didn’t like that I used the main doors (the other people would see her shopping), though. I used them because they have the automatic door openers that I can activate with my knee, rather than putting the bags down and fighting with keys and very heavy doors. After I put everything away, I started going down the hall to the lobby to say my goodbyes, only to have her meet me and tell me to leave out the other doors! 😄😄

Which was fine by me, but I found it very funny.

I went back to the grocery store for the third time (the cashiers were laughing at seeing me again!), got a few things that were sale. I got about $160 of stuff that would otherwise have cost me about $300 at regular prices in the city. More, if they were regular local prices! A quick stop at the gas station, and I was on my way home. I only had one more side trip, as my husband message me to let me know he had a notification that another package had arrived at the post office. As I was getting it, though, the postmaster had another package she hadn’t make a pick up slip for yet.

I love it when packages come in early!

By the time I got home, though, I was totally drained. While I took a break, my younger daughter headed outside to weed the third raised bed in the west yard for me.

With how things have been going, the past few days, I’d neglected to check on the squash seeds that were still pre-germinating. I remembered to check them this morning, and found little squidlings! So once I was done taking a break, I went to get them planted.

Squidlings! 😄😄

I had three 5″ biodegradable pots left from last year, so I used those for the three biggest seeds, and 4″ pots for the rest.

Because the seed leaves were already pushing themselves out of their shells, I planted them so that the leaf portions were partially emerged from the soil.

The previous batch of seeds I planted are still on the heat mat, and I can see little hills forming where the seedlings are starting to emerge, but these ones are far enough along, they don’t need to be on a heat mat. I did set the pots in water, though. The soil was premoistened, as always, but I want those pots to absorb water, so they don’t dry out the soil.

The gourds, meanwhile, have finally been moved to the mini greenhouse frame in the window.

The next thing that needed to be done was to pot up the early peppers from their tiny tray.

Yes, one pot looks completely empty. There was one cell that I didn’t think had any peppers germinating, but two seedlings started to show up this morning. I wasn’t going to leave just one cell in the tray, so I transplanted the stronger looking one, with as much of the soil around it as I could include. It’ll probably not survive being potted up, but you never know!

Most of the cells had just one seedling in them, but a few had two, and one had three. I thinned them to have just four seedlings (including the one that you can barely see in the vermiculite) per variety. With the hot peppers we already have, plus the Sweet Chocolate peppers, we have way more than we need, and can afford some losses.

At this point, we have pretty much run out of space in the living room for seedlings – and we don’t have anywhere near as many as we started last year! Tomorrow is supposed to be a warm and dry day, so I’m planning on snagging a daughter to help me empty the sun room, clean up the messes the critters left for us over the winter, then set things up for the transplants. The sun room is staying warm enough overnight that I think it’s safe to start moving them out of the living room set up.

Looking at the 10 day forecast, I’m seeing days forecast with highs above 20C/68F! At those temperatures, the sun room will probably be hitting closer to 30C/86F, so if we are we are able to start putting transplants there this week, we will have to make sure to have the ceiling fan going, and the doors wide open during the day.

The bed my daughter weeded today is also bowing out at the sides, to I’m hoping to fix that, tomorrow, then work some sulfur into the soil.

Oh, that reminds me; while at the hardware store, I found they had a sulfur powder available. This can apparently be dusted directly onto the plants, or added to a watering can, rather than being worked into the soil like the granular stuff we got. That might be worth getting later on, but I want to see how the beds do with the granular sulfur worked into the soil, first. Getting a bale of peat would be higher on the priority list right now, though.

For all the running around I was doing today, at least we got a few things accomplished at home, too!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: potting progress

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Well, I ended up doing a bit more than I expected to, yesterday evening!

The first thing I did as plant a few more pre-germinated Wild Bunch winter squash seeds. To make space, I changed out what the pots were sitting in.

They are now in a baking pan, over a cooling rack, to allow air to circulate under them. This is a recommendation from Gardening in Canada, as a way to keep the pots from getting moldy or starting to fall apart. The problem, though, is they can’t be bottom watered while on this, which means they’ll be watered mostly by misting.

I would love it if Costco got another shipment of these baking pans. They are basic, 9×13 pans and were very affordable. I didn’t realize just how good the price was, until they were gone and I tried finding more, elsewhere, only to find they cost 4 or 5 times more! Even the restaurant section of the wholesale store I checked out was ridiculously expensive.

Also, that’s the last of my 3″ biodegradable pots from last year. The new ones I got are 4″ pots, which is what the green plastic one is.

Speaking of “biodegradable” pots. The last thing I potted was the coffee tree I got for my daughters. I repurposed a pot that we’d planted thyme in, last year. The thyme had been started in one of these biodegradable pots and the whole thing was potted up. Unfortunately, the indoor thyme got forgotten about and died. It was set aside until tonight, when I finally went to remove the dead thyme – and pulled out a pot! It was completely whole; only brittle from being so dry. No degradation occurred while the plant was still alive, at all. That is not how these pots are supposed to be! When it comes time to plant these outdoors, I will most likely break the pot up so that at least the roots won’t be constrained. If I can remove them completely without damaging the roots, I will!

But I digress…

After potting the pre-germinated seeds and rearranging the aquarium greenhouse to fit them, it was time to work on the San Marzano tomatoes. I decided they needed to be done, even though they are still recovering from their accident, as they were just getting too crowded. I used another deep cell tray to transplant into, but instead of filling it with seed starting mix, I use a Pro Mix potting soil I picked up today. As usual, I premoistened the soil, first.

Good grief, there were a lot of sticks in it!

I can’t even say it’s a brand problem. My second bag of Miracle Grow seed starting mix was full of sticks, too. The first bag of Miracle Grow had them as well, though not as bad. The first bag of seed starting mix I got – Jiffy, I think, but I can’t remember for sure – was probably the best of the lot, with only a few sticks in it, but it was also a much smaller bag.

Once the new tray was full of potting soil, I went through the San Marzano seedlings. A couple were pretty much dead, so I just pulled them. After removing and potting up the “spares”, I top dressed the ones left behind with vermiculate, then set it back at the window.

They are definitely still in rough shape. I hope that, now that they have more room, a bit of fresh soil and the vermiculite, they will recover faster.

As for the spares I transplanted out, there were only 9 strong enough to transplant to the new tray, plus one that got transplanted into a cell in the original tray that lost its seedlings to the fall.

I’m honestly not sure these will all survive. 😞 We shall see!

That left 12 cells available. I had the small tray with 12 cells planted with three different types of tomatoes in them, so I decided to thin those by transplanting. With the Chocolate Cherry and the Black Cherry, there were 4 “spares” to transplant out, but with the Forme de Coeur, a couple of cells had 3 seeds sprouting when I thought I’d planted only two, giving me 6 “spares” to plant out.

Once I started working on them, though, I realized I would have to plant all of them out of the little tray, so once these were done, I planted the remainder into 4″ plastic pots.

The outside rows of 4 pots are the Black Cherry and Chocolate Cherry. I didn’t have room for all the Forme de Coeur, though…

… so the last one went into the bin with the peppers and thyme.

Hopefully, I didn’t want too long to transplant these from those little trays! This one’s looking particularly rough. 😞

I hadn’t planned to be filling an extra fourteen 4″ pots, so these ones were filled with a mix of seed starting mix and potting soil.

The other small tray with the peppers in it will need to be potted up, too. I’ll probably use Red Solo cups for those, since I only have 4 or 5 of the green pots left, and the new biodegradable ones I got, I’m saving for the winter squash. For the peppers in the small tray, I don’t think I’ll thin them by transplanting, though. Instead, I’ll just keep the 4 strongest seedlings of each variety.

Speaking of room, I need to make a decision on these guys.

These are getting large enough they’ll need to be moved out of the aquarium greenhouse. The question is, do I try to thin by transplanting, or do I just thin them?

Who am I kidding. I can’t bring myself to just yank and kill off so many strong, healthy seedlings! However, transplanting them means 7 more pots, on top of the 6 already here. I can fit them in the mini greenhouse frame at the window, if I can move out the onions and shallots.

Hmmm… onions are a cool weather crop. I could start hardening them off and transplant them outside.

Speaking of planting things outside, the last thing I did for the evening was set the snap pea seeds between wet paper towels for the night. Tomorrow, they go into the ground!

I love having cool weather crops that can be planted so early – earlier than usual, this year. I’m hoping the long range forecasts are at least close to accurate! Even if things end up cooler, this is stuff that should survive anything but an unseasonal deep freeze. Hopefully, we’ll soon be seeing our garlic coming up, as well as the snow crocuses.

Spring may finally have arrived!

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: exuberant growth, and seeds are in

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Check out these seedlings!!

The first seedling to break soil surface was a drum gourd – one of the two in the middle pot – but then a Crespo Squash, on the right, burst through and exploded out of the soil. It seems like every time I look at the pots, there’s more visible growth.

What I’m really happy about is that not one of the seedlings emerged with the outer shell of the seed stuck on the leaves. Last year, there was more than a few times that I had to very carefully remove the shell, because the seed leaves were being killed off. As careful as I was, sometimes pieces of the leaves would break off, because the shells were so tightly encasing them.

I really like this pre-germinating technique!

The heat mat will need to be unplugged very soon. I won’t move them off right away, as I need to arrange space. I won’t need it until I start more seeds.

This weekend will be 7 weeks before our last average frost date. I will go through some of my seeds to see what I want to start first. The seeds we have left are pretty much all supposed to be started 3-4 weeks before last frost, but if I started all the ones I want to, I’ll run out of space in no time at all – and I will have way too many things that need to be transplanted, all at once. So I plan to stagger them.

I might even start some of these.

Baked Potato Squash
Mashed Potato squash

I had to go to town today and finally picked up the mail. There were probably in and waiting for a while. Since we have so many varieties of winter squash seeds, we will probably start just a couple of seeds of each. At this point, we’re still after trying out different types to see what we like the most, and will then probably drop it down to one or two varieties.

Who am I kidding. We’ll probably be constantly trying new ones! Just maybe not quite so many different types, all at the same time.

That’s one thing about having the luxury of space like we do. We can spare some to try growing new things we don’t even know if we’ll like, yet.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: first seed order in! Veseys

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Yes, I just place our first order of seeds for next year’s garden. We might not need to order many seeds this year, considering how many we have left, but one thing we were out of completely was onions. Onions seeds only last one year, anyhow. Plus, today is the last day I can use the promo code from Maritime Gardening to get free shipping. 😁

This is what I ordered today.

I’m trying a new variety of yellow onion this year. Frontier. From the Veseys website:

Incredibly strong necks and consistent size! Frontier is a standout variety with our trial staff. Bulbs are golden, large and uniform with small necks that cure quickly. Ideal for fresh and storage markets, Frontier is long day hybrid onion with superb disease resistance. Matures in 100 days from transplant. Approx. 200 seeds/pkg.

(image belongs to Veseys)

I’m also trying a new type of shallot this year. Creme Brulee. From the website:

First Shallot AAS winner! An elongated shallot, Creme Brule has a citrusy flavour when eaten raw but when cooked, sugars are enhanced and do not leave an overpowering aftertaste. Bulbs are 4-5″ with a coppery pink skin. An attractive, easy to peel echalion, perfect for the home gardener or market grower! Matures in 95-100 days from transplant. Approx. 150 seeds/pkg.

(image belongs to Veseys)

I do still plan to try the Red Whethersfield onions again, and will probably get Red of Florence again, but those are from a different source.

Of course, I didn’t get just onions! I also got:

Yes, we will be trying to grow melons again (I’ll have a garden analysis post about this year’s melons coming up soon). We still have seeds, but I decided to get the Summer of Melons Blend. From the website:

Veseys exclusive! Best for the home gardener. This blend is the ideal solution to stretch out these beautiful summer flavours. It begins with sweet, early maturing hybrid varieties then keeps going through summer and into early fall. Maturity ranges from 75-85 days from transplant. Approx. 20 seeds/pkg.

(image belongs to Veseys)

I like having a variety, and having melons that mature at different rates – while still within our short growing season! – is bonus. It’ll also be a surprise, since the varieties included aren’t mentioned!

Finally, I got one more mix of seeds.

Yeah, me and my winter squash obsession! This is the Wild Bunch Mix Winter Squash. From the website:

Veseys exclusive! Great range of colours and sizes. This exclusive Veseys blend contains a riot of shapes, sizes and colours that will bring your fall display to the next level. Some of the weirdest and wildest looking squash that we have seen in our trials. Ideal for both home and market gardeners looking for a great display without having to buy separate varieties. All are edible, and are strong vining types so they grow well together. Approx. 20-25 seeds/pkg.

(image belongs to Veseys)

I’ll have a garden analysis about our winter and summer squash, too, which was a real hit and miss situation. We do still have lots seeds from what we grew (or tried to grow) this past year. I have zero interest in having a “fall display” (who would we be displaying it for, anyhow? 😄). I like to try new varieties, but am hesitant to buy an entire package of seeds for something I’m not sure of. This way, we get just a few seeds of different varieties to try and – if they make it! – see if we like them enough to order more in the future. At some point, we’ll settle on one or two favourites and save our own seeds. Until we get to that point, we would be dealing with cross pollination, so any seeds we save as we’re experimenting would give us different results that may not be as good.

Just a small order for now. Soon, I’ll place another order for the red onions, so that we’ll have all the seeds ready to start them in January. Because, where we live, gardening starts in winter!

Oh, wait.

It’s not even officially winter, yet!

The Re-Farmer

Back home, kibble math and some root cellaring

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It’s been a wet and dreary day today. It started raining off and on last night, and has continued throughout the day. I was just getting the kibble ready for the outside cats when it started raining again! No surprise that many of the cats preferred to eat in the sun room. 😁

The squash we harvested was still on the table outside, so I brought it all in. I laid the winter squash out on the freezer in the old kitchen, but there wasn’t room for most of the squash from the compost pile. Those, at least, I could find room for in the sun room.

I left fairly early to get my daughter, since I wanted to make a couple of stops along the way, including a gas station, where I made sure to pick up an air freshener for the car! Having the garbage in the car from Thursday evening to Saturday morning was not a good thing. We can’t even leave windows open to air it out, since either critters or insects would get inside. The last thing we need is for a racoon to decide to get in and tear the inside apart, searching for the source of the smell.

I also wanted to stop at a Walmart long the way to pick up one more bag of kibble, as our supply was not going to make it to our first big shopping trip.

We have not been feeding the cats more than usual with the outside cats, and with the inside cats, we’ve been controlling their feeding a bit more. Instead of having dry cat food available throughout the day, and giving them wet cat food in the evenings, they are getting two feeding times with dry kibble, with a small feeding in between. At least we’re not running out of wet cat food, as I’d been buying extra for the kittens.

This is the first month I’ve really tried to keep track of how much kibble we’re buying. Usually, we’d buy 8 bags during the big shops, then just buy more near the end of the month a few times. This month, however, I got twelve 9kg bags of kibble from Costco. We thought that would be enough. This is, however, the second 10kg bag I’ve had to get.

That’s 14 bags, totalling 128kg of kibble for the month. Which is 282lbs.

With the Costco and Walmart prices, plus tax, that’s about $300 on just dry kibble, this month alone. Then there’s the canned cat food, plus the litter pellets. The litter pellets are cheap and the 40lb bags last a long time, so I’d say about $20 a month, on average. The canned cat food, between the large case we get at Costco, and the slightly smaller cases we get at Walmart, is about another $90

So we’re looking at $410 (US$304.18 at today’s exchange rate) we’re spending on the cats this month. On those months where we had to buy kibble in the middle of the month, wherever we could, it would probably be more expensive.

That would make one heck of a car payment.

Now, part of that can be blamed on inflation. The price of kibble has increased by almost 6% in the past couple of years. And that’s just going by Costco and Walmart prices. Other stores have seen steeper increases. Especially outside of the city.

It’s ridiculous, but the alternative would basically be to start putting cats down. With the outside cats, someone from the municipality would send someone over to shoot them.

I suppose we could just stop providing food for the outside cats, and they’d eventually go away, but considering how starved some of the cats look after they’ve disappeared for the summer, I don’t think there are a lot of options out there for them. More likely, the coyotes would get them. So… no. Not going to let that happen. Even if it means sometimes feeding skunks, racoons and blue jays in the process.

So, we keep feeding them, and looking for people willing to adopt. Thanks to the Cat Lady, we have actually managed to adopt out quite a few, though six of them are still with the Cat Lady, four of them permanently!

Ah, well. It is what it is!

Meanwhile…

When I got to my brother’s, I thought they’d be really tired and I would just be saying hello and good bye, but they were up for an actual visit. It was so wonderful to see them! We got caught up on how things went while they were gone, particularly with my mother. As we were leaving, I mentioned coming back to see their photos from the trip. My SIL told me she’s considering putting them together into a movie, like I used to do, years ago. Digital cameras were just starting to become affordable, and when we moved out of province, we started to basically document everything. Then, about once a year, I’d put them together into a DVD for my parents. Moving making software for home was also just starting to be affordable, but these were still little more than slide shows. Still, I had fun adding music and making captions, and sorting things into chapters. The idea was that these would be easy for my parents to see on the TV.

I did that for several years. Then I found out my parents never watched any of them. So I stopped.

Making DVDs, that is. I never stopped documenting things. It had become a habit by then, along with journaling. A habit that came in very handy when life suddenly got very complicated, and I found myself having to make witness statements, police reports and affidavits.

So glad to be away from all that now. Dealing with our vandal is small potatoes in comparison! It also made his attempts to intimidate me pretty comical, but that’s a whole other topic! 😂

But I digress!

I hope she does put something together. I’d love to see it!

After my daughter and I left, we made a couple of stops along the way, including to pick up the pizza order her sister made after we let her know we were leaving my brother’s. That was sweet of her to treat us!

We’ve had more take out this month than we’ve had in years!

My daughter enjoyed her time taking care of my brother’s place for them, but she was glad to be home.

Once at home, and before we settled in to eat, my older daughter and I were able to deal with the winter squash I’d left on top of the freezer. The first challenge was just to get through the old kitchen door, without any cats getting through. Then it was just getting them into the new part basement, where the root cellar is. Then it took the two of us to get them into the root cellar, but keep the cats out.

But we got it done!

The two round, green pumpkins at the top are from the compost heap squash. All the smallest winter squash fit into a carboard box. The rest are the candy roasters and Pink Banana.

The root cellar is not a very good one, to be honest. We had considered turning it into a cheese cave at one point, so I set up a thermometer and a hydrometer in there, and kept track of the temperature and humidity for a year. Both fluctuate too much to make a good cheese cave – or a good root cellar! Still, my parents used this as a root cellar for many years. It works well enough!

Not that any of these squash can be left there for long. With the frost killing off the plants before the squash could fully mature, they won’t last as long, so they’ll need to be eaten fairly quickly. We are most eager to try the big ones!

The main thing, however, will be to make sure we don’t forget about them. I avoid going into either basement – or even the upstairs – because my knees and stairs are sworn enemies. We go into the root cellar even less often. It’s where we store our Christmas decorations away from the cats! Heck, we still have a couple of cases of mead down there that we keep forgetting exists.

But it’s done, and the winter squash is put up for the season.

We’re still processing tomatoes, too. We have whole tomatoes in the freezer, plus I’ve got a couple more trays dehydrating in the oven right now, and there are still more under the old market tent, slowly ripening. We’ve just been bringing in the ripe ones every few days or so. Thankfully, those are out of the rain, and no critters seem interested in them at all!

I was just yawning and thinking how it’s so late and time to go to bed, but I’m seeing it’s not even 8:30pm yet. It’s full dark out there, and feels so much later! Especially after being such and overcast and dreary day to begin with.

I might try going to bed early for a change.

Ha! Who am I kidding? I’ll probably get started on something, then suddenly realize it’s 2am again. Because I’m silly that way!

The Re-Farmer

Kitty status and morning in the garden

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First, I have heard about how the adopted ladies are doing. They are recovering well at the Cat Lady’s home for now. The Phantom is being an absolute, loving joy. The kitten is also being really sweet.

Decimus is hissing and spitting and not a happy camper, but doing well, health wise! They have several catios, though, so they were able to let her go “outside” to get some fresh air.

My daughter and I went outside with the flashlight last night. Still no sign of Marlee or Butterscotch. We did spot a cat in the driveway that turned out to be Nosencrantz. Once my daughter started walking towards her, though, she ran off into the old hay yard.

If we’ve seen her, chances are pretty good the other two are okay, too.

Right?

As for the remaining cats in the isolation ward, the kittens are doing just fine, though getting very active and destructive! TTT spends most of her time in her napping cave in my closet, but she sure knows when the food is coming out!

She has also continued to make a mess on the puppy pads next to the litter box under my desk.

*sigh*

At least it’s on a puppy pad, and not my bed or the carpet.

She is also remarkably regular. She always goes in the same place, and even goes at almost the same time! I was awakened by the rustling of the puppy pad being dug into this morning. I found it was very wet and changed it, then went back to bed. Maybe an hour later, I was again awakened by that familiar rustling sound, and she’d dropped a load this time. Again, thankfully, on the puppy pad and an easy clean up, but I find it interesting that she has such a consistent habit of time and location!

Now, if she would just use that litter box, instead. The kittens are sure liking it. 😕

This morning, as I started getting the kibble ready for the outside cats, I spotted the stranger cat, inside the sun room!

For a stranger cat, it’s acting right at home.

S/He was even sharing a food bowl with Beep Boop and the friendly black and white kitten.

I feel I should know this cat. The face looks familiar. In fact, the face makes me think of Potato Beetle. The markings on the sides, though, are not at all familiar.

Could this be a yard kitten from last year that took off before we became familiar with it, only to come back now? It’s possible, but I don’t remember seeing a kitten with markings like that last year. Mind you, it might also be a slightly older cat, too. I still can’t come close to it, though.

After finishing my rounds, I noticed the bitty kitties around with Octomom (whose name is actually Slick, but I kept forgetting that). They were watching me, so I got out the lure – just some jute twine tied to a stake.

This adorable ball of fluff took the bait and started trying to catch the end of the twine. I was actually able to get hold of it and pick it up. It did not like that, though! I pet it for a bit, but as I was trying to put it back down again, it chomped on my fingers and left me bleeding.

It was worth it.

I didn’t intend to harvest anything this morning, though I did end up picking some Red Swan beans and a couple of yellow patty pans. Mostly, I was making sure everything was doing well.

While checking the Crespo squash, I spotted a female flower! There have been so few of those this year. Wild that one should show up so late.

Also, that’s 2 bees in there, one on top of the other!

I decided to hand pollinated anyway, just in case, so I went looking for one of the many male flowers that was open and found this.

So nice to see!

I picked a different one to hand pollinate the single female flower. One of the bees flew off, but the other stayed, even as I moved around the male flower stamen, then broke it off and left it in the flower, so the bee could do the rest.

This next slide show is the first time I’ve been able to upload a slide show and have every single photo work! After this, I had to do one photo at a time, because every group upload was thoroughly corrupted.

I really, really hope we have a long mild fall, because we suddenly have SO many new melons forming, along with the two big ones. The vines are so mixed up, there’s no way to tell which variety is which right now. There are many more female flowers and tiny melons that forming. If the weather holds, we might have a bumper crop!

Even the winter squash is seeing an increase. For example…

This is one of two Boston Marrow vines. Both had a single squash starting to form, but the one on this plant suddenly started to rot away. You can even see it in the photo. I broke it off but left it to break down where it was.

Now there are three female flowers blooming – and not a single male flower to be seen! At least not another Boston Marrow male flower. I ended up hand pollinating them with a nearby North Georgia Candy Roaster. With that combination, if we actually get something to harvest, I’d want to save the seeds. That sounds like it would make an interesting hybrid!

Speaking of which…

The candy roasters are doing really, really well. Check out this big beast of a squash!

I noticed a few small squash that were being eaten by slugs, but they seem to be leaving the big ones alone. Likely because the skins are harder.

When I saw an open flower with what I thought might be another bee in it, I found several slugs, isntead.

I picked he flower and stepped on it. Slugs have been such a problem this year!

The pink bananas are also doing very well. Not only are there a lot of huge squash like this, but lots of smaller ones, plus they are still blooming and producing both male and female flowers!

I noticed that one of the Honeyboat Delicata squash that hadn’t even bloomed all year, suddenly has both male and female flowers budding. Even the Winter Sweet plant that had nothing going on – the other one has a single developing squash – suddenly had a female flower blooming! I had to use another type of winter squash to hand pollinate it, though.

We’re at the end of August, though. Average first frost date is September 10. Long range forecast says we should have a high of 23C/73F that day, with a low of 13C/55F. In fact, if the monthly long range forecast is right, we won’t see frost until near the end of October. If that holds true (thanks to El Nino!), that will another 50 days or so to our growing season! That would make a huge, positive difference for the garden.

As for today, there’s a limited amount of work I can do outside right now. We’ve got high winds today. We’ve had predictions for everything from a thunderstorm this afternoon, to rain this morning (we didn’t get any), so rain overnight, to no rain at all.

This morning, when I saw the predictions for a storm, I checked the radar. I would see the system coming our way but, sure enough, by the time it reached our area it dissipated and split up around our weird “climate bubble”.

Which works out. We’ve decided to do my husband’s birthday dinner today, and he asked for take out pizza from a specific restaurant in town. He didn’t get his prescriptions delivered yesterday, as they were missing something, but it’ll be ready today, so I’ll be picking those up first, plus hitting the grocery store for a few things, before picking up the pizzas – which my daughter is kindly paying for as her birthday gift! My husband’s main disability payment came in today and normally I’d be going into the city for another stock up shopping trip, but I’ll do that tomorrow, I think.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be watching the trees outside our windows closely, in case another one comes down in the wind!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: winter squash transplanted

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Well, I got them in, before things got too windy out there!

The winter squash were planted in the small Jiffy Pellet trays, six of each type. Of those where not all of them germinated, I still planted the empty pellets with ones that had germinated. They may not have had visible seedlings, but some of them did have roots showing through the pellet’s casing.

In the northernmost row, there are two Boston Marrow, two Winter Sweet and two Lady Godiva.

There were four Honeyboat Delicata seedlings to tranplant, but only two Little Gem/Red Kuri.

The North Georgia (I just noticed the typo I made when labeling the photo!) had the most seedlings, with five to transplant. There were three Pink Banana. That left four empty mounds. I’ve decided to fill one more row tomorrow, to direct sow summer squash in. We have four varieties, and I want to have at least two plants of each.

While I intend to mulch the rest of the patch with wood chips, I’ll be gathering grass clippings to mulch around the mounds of soil.

But not today.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler, with a predicted high of 21C/70F, which will be much more pleasant to work in. Especially since I plan to have enough soil brought over to fill grow bags.

Weather willing, we should be able to get quite a bit done tomorrow.

The Re-Farmer

Backordered seeds in, fuzzy butt, and trying to keep up

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You’d think a city shopping trip would be more tiring than running errands with my mother, but nooooo…

We are having another beautiful sunny day, though the wind has certainly picked up. I counted 23 yard cats while doing their kibble and warm water this morning.

I was just coming back to the house would I saw these two, finishing off the kibble on the cat house roof. I tried to get a good picture of Brussel, but she moved around and sat with her back to me.

I swear, that fuzzy butt of hers is bigger than the little guy beside her!

She won’t let me anywhere near her – I had to zoom in quite a bit to get this shot – but she’s less shy than her sister, Sprout, who runs off as soon as she sees me and doesn’t come back to eat until I’m back inside.

Sadness.

When planning today’s outing with my mother, I brought up getting Chinese food for lunch again. She said no, made a big deal of the cost, and that she could make lunch for us, etc. Well, I didn’t listen to her. I left early enough to pick up some parcels at the post office before they closed for 2 hours over the lunch period, so when I got to her town, I picked up lunch anyhow and showed up early. She laughed and nattered a bit about my not listening to her, so I told her that I wanted a treat. Only later, while we were eating, did she say that I must have heard her thoughts. She had been poking around her fridge for something to make for lunch, didn’t find anything she wanted, and wasn’t up to cooking, anyhow. She’d been regretting telling me not to bring food! The next thing she knew, there I was with lunch for both of us! So that worked out.

After lunch and a bit of a visit, we headed out to do her errands, getting groceries last of all. I stayed long enough to put everything away, then started getting ready to head home. My mother was all ready to make tea, but I told her I had to go. As usual, she started going on about how, if we visit her, we should plan on staying for a long time. I told her I do – that’s why I come over so early! So we can get a visit in, first. I must say, I was pretty tired by then, anyhow. My mother is 91 yrs old, has a bum knee and uses a walker, but that hardly slows her down at all! It takes quite a bit to keep up with her, that’s for sure. She didn’t push for me to stay, though. I know she was tired, too, and would probably go for a nap as soon as I was gone!

Once at home, I found one of our backordered seeds from Veseys was in the mail.

I’m looking forward to these. I keep hearing about how great Delicata squash is, but it’s not a good storage variety. This new Honeyboat variety is described as good for storage, so I figured it was worth trying. At 100 days to maturity, it’s going to be one of the earlier ones to start indoors.

This leaves one more packet of seeds on back order to come in from Veseys.

While at the grocery store with my mother, I noticed they had a couple of seed displays up. I was so tempted to get more, but we already have so much, and in varieties better suited to our needs.

Still…

… you can’t really have too many seeds, can you?

I resisted.

For now!

The Re-Farmer