zone 3 gardening

Morning in the garden

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I got some decent progress this morning. I’m also happy to see the garden itself progress.

The Dalvay peas seemed to just explode overnight, and almost the entire row is filled with pea shoots. The Yukon Chief corn has also seen quite a growth spurt.

The beans don’t seem to be doing well this year. I could explain that away for the older seeds, but the purple bush beans were fresh seeds, and there’s just one bean that has sprouted! Hopefully, more will appear in the next while, but if they don’t, some of them will get a second sowing or, if I’m out of a particular seed, something else will be sowed in place.

My main goal for this morning was to get those tomatoes and as many onions as I could, transplanted, and I’m happy to day that has been accomplished!

The first thing was to break up the clumps of soil that were hilled into the new bed location and pull out as many roots and weeds (and rocks) as I could. This bed was in so much better shape than the previous one, it didn’t take very long at all. From there, it was using the thatching rake to even out the hill of soil between the boards – the north send, where the bed was extended, had to have more soil spread into it – and level the top for planting. Of course, more weeds, roots and rocks were removed at the same time.

Then I brought the transplants over. There were seven San Marzano tomatoes left, including one that wasn’t looking very good at all. I also happened to have exactly seven bamboo stakes left, to use as their supports, which was nice. I pre-dug holes for them down the middle of the bed, as evenly spaced as I could eyeball it, then used the jet setting on the hose to fill each hole with water, and basically drill the water deeper into the holes. I want those roots to have water below them to encourage them to grow deep.

I removed the transplants from their cells into the bottom drain tray to make it easier to carry them around. That last tomato that looked the most beat up, though, didn’t come out with its soil, but broke off, instead. I could still see some roots on the stem, though, so I kept it. I just transplanted that one at the north end of the bed, closest to the trees. I don’t really expect it to make it, nor do I expect that end of the bed to do as well as the rest, because of those !%$@# elms.

The tray still had vermiculite topped soil in it from the tomatoes that didn’t survive, so I dumped all that into the drain tray, then put a bit of it around each of the tomato plants. I didn’t bury the stems deep – they didn’t need it – but I did plant them deep, so each one is in a bit of a hollow, so water will flow towards the roots and seep into the soil there, instead of flowing down the sides of the bed.

Once the tomatoes were in, I made a narrow trench all around the perimeter of the bed, except the north end, which doesn’t quite quite a much soil, still, so it’s basically a long U shaped trench. That got watered with the hose on the jet setting, too.

For the onions, I chose the tray with the yellow bulb onions. I keep forgetting the name of the variety. It’s a good thing I record all this here in the blog! They are Frontier onions, noted for strong necks, consistent size and disease resistance. They are supposed to mature 100 days from transplant, which means I’m really late in getting these in the ground. Hopefully, we’ll have a mild fall, and the frost will hold off until October.

The tray I used for the onions was a vegetable party tray, divided into 4 spaces around the perimeter, and a shallow circle in the middle where a dipping sauce was kept. I am really liking this design. After giving the tray a thorough soak, to make it easier to separate the onions, I could just grab on section of onions and carry it with me as I went around the bed, pulling out and spacing the onions in the trench. I was able to finish off one section, plus another dozen or so transplants from another.

Once those were planted, I make more shallow trenched between each tomato plant and repeated the process. I was able to fit three or four transplants between each tomato, with enough space to fit five in one area. In hindsight, I probably could have planted the ones around the perimeter closer together, but what’s done is done. I wasn’t able to fit even half the tray of onions in!

The last thing to do was give the transplants a gentle watering, to settle the soil around their roots. It actually started to rain while I was doing this, but so little, I barely got wet.

When I looked at the forecast last night, it was saying we could expect rain for a couple of hours, starting at about 7 this evening. It is now saying the rain will start at about 5pm, and continuing until 1am! Today is Saturday, and the forecast says we will not have more rain again until late Wednesday night.

We shall see.

Now that the tomatoes are in (yay!!), there are the rest of the yellow onions to transplant, a few remaining shallots, and the Orange Butterfly Flower. I was going to try direct sowing some of that, but it just didn’t happen. I still don’t know where I want to plant them, since it has to be in a permanent location. I want it to be near the main garden area, but where I think would be best for them is going to see a lot of traffic and commotion as we build the frames for the beds.

The main thing, though, is the tomatoes are in. This bed will need to have mulch added around the sides, to keep the soil from being eroded, until we can get it properly framed.

This leaves one more bed to shift over. Like this one, the last one shouldn’t take very long, comparatively speaking. It’s more a matter of working around the heat of the day. From the looks of it, the entire bed could be filled with the remaining onion and shallot transplants. I might even have some left over.

Today, however, we’ve already reached our high of 21C/70F. It’s not even noon yet, which means we could still get hotter over the afternoon. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 22C/72F, and then we’ll get our hottest day on Monday, with an expected high of 27C/81F. After that, it should cool down a bit, but still remain in the 20’s for a while. Hopefully, we’ll have enough dry days to get the lawn mowed, and maybe even cut/process more logs to frame the beds. I might just go ahead and scythe in the outer yard a bit, tomorrow, so the hay can dry for a bit before being gathered and used as mulch. Grass clippings are great, but when green, wet clippings are dumped in a pile, the inside of the pile gets astonishingly hot. Then it gets all slimy, while the exposed grass on top dries out. Once the insides gets slimy, it’s not much use as a mulch and we just leave it to compost.

Meanwhile, it turns out we need to make another trip to Walmart. We’re almost out of kibble, and first disability check doesn’t come in until the middle of next week, when we do our first stock up shopping trip. The Cat Lady has said she’ll acquire some cat food donations for us, but they’re going to be in the US for a couple of weeks, so I don’t expect that anytime soon. They’re packing their bags now.

Well, time for me to get changed and head out to get kibble!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: bed done and melons in – almost

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Well, the low raised bed from hell is finally done. At least as done as can be, for right now.

And it’s planted in!

I don’t know why Instagram now cuts the sides off my photos, even though I select the wide image function.

I got about half way through the bed, sifting the soil, when I stopped for a break that ended up taking longer than I intended. Which is okay. It gave the soil I needed to move time to dry out a bit. Sifting damp soil is a lot harder and heavier. I’m amazed my home made soil sifter is still surviving the abuse!

By the time I was done fighting with my garden tour video and getting it uploaded, it was quite a bit later before I could get back at it. Thankfully, today has been cooler, with a pleasant breeze. I was greatly appreciating that!

The last bit of soil that needed to be worked on was the worst. This was the section full of creeping Charlie, and I was digging up and tossing large clumps of it. In the end, by the time I finished sifting the last of the soil from the old bed location, there wasn’t enough left to finish the new bed location. I ended up “stealing” soil from the last bed that will be worked on.

By then, it started to rain, but it was just a gentle shower, so I kept at it. Once the bed was done, I brought over the melons. I’d already gone through them and sorted them by type. I kept the Zucca melons aside, since they get huge. I’m thinking of using the kiddie pool as a raised bed, just for them, and setting it somewhere where they can spread.

There were a total of 16 melons to transplant, and I decided to dedicate the entire bed to them. I don’t know that we’ll be able to trellis them, since they will need stronger trellises than what we’re setting up for the beans and peas. If we end up not being able to add trellises, they should have room to spread on the ground and into the paths, if need be.

So this bed now has two rows of eight melons in it. As with the other squash and melons, I planted them slightly below grade and made hills of soil around them, so water would flow towards the plants rather than run down the sides of the bed and take the soil with it. The rain had pretty much stopped by the time that was done, so they got a good watering, too.

The bed still needs a mulch added to it, but it’s getting late, so that will be done tomorrow, when I will also started working on the next bed. That one needs to be shifted a lot, too, but it’s not as weedy and isn’t infested with creeping Charlie like this one was, so it should go somewhat faster. The hard part will be breaking the sod in the new location – and I don’t have anymore carboard that can be put over it, before shifting the soil on top.

This bed is where the last of the San Marzano tomatoes will finally be planted. There aren’t a lot of those left to transplant, so there will be room for other things.

Hmm… I should probably set up the kiddie pool and fill it with soil for the Zucca melons, first. They need to be transplanted more urgently than the tomatoes. That means sifting several loads of soil from the pile in the outer yard.

Once the transplants are in, I hope to be able to do some direct sowing, still. It’s getting really late for that. Our first frost date is September 10, so we’ve basically got July and August for things to grow, since if I plant things within the next 7-10 days, they will take the rest of June just to germinate.

What we don’t have a lot of is stuff that can be harvested throughout the summer. I’ve got three types of beans planted, and the very first Seychelle bean was sprouting this morning. The sugar snap peas are going to be awhile before there’s anything to harvest from them. The spinach is doing so poorly, I’m thinking of taking them out completely, and planting some chard or something, instead. I think it’s getting too late to plant more carrots, but I’ll check the information on my packages to be sure.

What I will likely do is direct sow more summer squash, since right now we just have some in pots. They haven’t germinated yet. Since summer squash gets harvested while still quite small, planting them in late June should be okay. As long as I can keep the slugs away! I haven’t actually seen slugs yet, so hopefully, we won’t have a bag year of them, like we did last year.

We shall see how things work out! Hopefully, we’ll even get weather that will allow us to harvest more dead spruces and build the frames around these beds, and maybe even continue the trellis beds, by fall.

Much work to be done.

It’s a good thing I love this kind of work! Even if I do have to pain killer up for it.

Speaking of which… time to do that, before this broken old body starts to seize up! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: transplanting Crespo squash, San Marzano tomatoes, and direct sowing pole beans

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Today was a productive day!

After I finished my post earlier today, my daughter and I headed out for a dump run, then errands. We ended up going to the smaller city for her shopping, so that I could pick up some cat food at a better price at Walmart. By the time we got home, it was well past 3 and, I’m happy to say, starting to get a bit cooler!

After having a late lunch, I headed outside to finish at the new low raised bed.

Before I got started, I prepared a 4L size water bottle by removing the top and punching holes in the bottom, then brought over protective rings and support posts. The support posts were long enough to reach from corner to corner on the bed, so I used them to find the centre. That is where I partially buried the water bottle. This way, we can add water into it, and it will drain out the bottom and water the roots of the plants nearby. We’ve done similar in the past, including the first time we tried to grow Crespo squash, and it has worked well.

The pot with the single Crespo squash was the one where the stem had broken when the cats knocked the bin holding the pots off the table. I had it supported with a pair of bamboo skewers. Unfortunately, as soon as the skewers were removed, it immediately bent over at the break, almost snapping off. I had intended to plant it deep enough to cover the break, as the squash will develop adventitious roots, but I had to be so careful not to break it completely! I planted it in a protective ring and ended up filling the ring to the top with soil to support the stem. It still ended up lying on the soil. I just made sure it was running towards the side I wanted to train it towards, as it gets bigger – if it survives!

The other pot had two squash in it. I was planning to separate them, but the roots were too entwined, so they were planted together. They, too, ended up with their protective ring filled almost to the top with soil. They both got well watered, and I added water to the reservoir in the middle – which drained much faster than I expected! I ended up filling it again, a couple of times. before I was done.

With how the light hits this area, I decided to plant a row of beans along the east and west sides of the bed. I chose Seychelles pole bean seeds left over from a couple of years ago, that did so well for us when so many other things did not! These are a very straight green bean, and they were quite prolific.

Once the beans were planted and well watered, I set up supports to create an A frame, then added 4″ square netting. This will be enough to keep the deer from getting at the squash, while still being open enough to reach through to weed or pick beans. The beans themselves are planted about 8 or 10 inches from the side, so they will also be protected by the netting until they get tall enough to start climbing it. Hopefully, we’ll have a decent germination rate. The germination rate was excellent when we grew them before, but after a couple of years, I would expect it to be far less.

Though it was starting to get late, the days are so long right now, I decided to do more transplanting. The San Marzano tomatoes needed to be transplanted, and I decided to see if the retaining wall blocks could be used for that.

Aside from the chives in the corner, I planted mint in alternating blocks. Unfortunately, there’s some sort of plant in this garden that is more invasive that even crab grass or creeping Charlie! The mint is struggling to come back this year, and this plant is choking them out! I pulled as much as I could around the mint, but they’re so mixed together, there really isn’t much I can do.

In the other blocks, there was a lot of this plant to clean out as well. A couple of blocks still had some onions growing in them. There had been more, but they were choked out by this invasive plant.

I was able to clean up 10 blocks for the tomatoes, including two of blocks with a pair of onions in them that still had room for a transplant. I used my pH meter and was surprised the soil was just as alkaline as everything else. These blocks have been amended with peat in the past, and the cement itself can increase the acidity of soil. That meter’s needle was a hard 8. So I worked some sulfur granules into the prepared blocks, too. I wonder, at times, what the reading would be if I had a meter that went higher than 8! Even the solution in my soil test kit maxed out at 7.5. Ah, well.

In the tray that had the biggest, healthiest tomatoes, there should have been 9, but there were only 7 surviving. One of them was even starting to bloom! The last three blocks were planted with the smaller tomatoes that almost didn’t survive being moved to the sun room. This was the tray that had tipped and spilled after I’d topped up the soil in the cells, so they’ve had just a rough time, over all! After transplanting the three strongest looking ones, there’s maybe 5 or 6 left. There’s one, I’m not sure is going to last much longer. I don’t know where I’d transplant these right now, but being as small as they are, they can stay in the tray longer.

Each of the transplants got a bamboo stake that will be used to support them as they grow. They will likely need more as they get bigger, but that can be added later. Last of all, they got a very thorough watering. Hopefully, they will do okay here. The ornamental apple trees cast quite a bit of shade, even with the pruning we’ve done over the years, but we’ve grown tomatoes in these blocks before, and they did okay.

Once everything was put away, I did one last prep. There are three pots on the landing outside the main doors. Last year we grew herbs in them. I have decided to grow summer squash in them this year. This way, even if we don’t end up having the space to direct sow in the main garden beds, we’ll at least have some summer squash in the pots to enjoy!

One of the pots had spearmint in it, but it did not survive the winter. Another had a mix of thyme and oregano. The one oregano that survived to be transplanted had bloomed and gone to seed, and I was going to see if any of the self-sown seeds germinated, but decided having summer squash was a priority. The biggest pot had lemon grass in it and, wow, were those roots every hard to clean out!

One of the new seeds we got for this year were are a white patty pan, so I’ll plant some of those, for sure. We have both green and yellow zucchini, and I haven’t decided which of those I will plant, yet. If we still have some Magda seeds left, I want to plant some of those. We really like them, but they are the ones that have been the hardest to grow! With some of the seeds being a few years old, I’ll plant at least three per pot, and see how many germinate.

The pots are prepped, but the planting will be done tomorrow.

With so many winter squash that need to be transplanted, they are a priority for the low raised beds that are already shifted, with or without frames. Tomorrow, my daughter and I will finally drag the second 18′ log out of the spruce grove – between the rain and the high winds, we haven’t gone into the spruce grove since she got this last one cut to size! We have enough logs to frame one bed, so that will make things a bit easier.

Things may change, but I’m thinking of planting the winter squash in the middle of the bed, in a long row, then planting more pole beans on either side. We won’t be able to do an A frame support structure, like over the Crespo squash, but we should still be able to rig up a quick trellis for them, later on.

With how many winter squash we have, and how far apart they need to be planted, the two shifted beds might not be enough for them all. The drum gourds and the pumpkins will probably need their own hills. I’ll figure that out, later. We’ll be transplanting melons into the first of the trellis beds, all along one side, where the trellis supports will be added, later, but again, we probably won’t be able to fit them all in. Since they will have a trellis to climb, they can be planted closer together, but I don’t expect to fit them all in that bed. Something else we’ll need to figure out!

Still, today was a productive day, and it feels rather good to have fewer trays to return to the sun room for the night!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: eggplant and pepper experiment

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Okay, I am totally beat! It’s so hot and muggy out there, I had sweat dripping onto the lenses of my glasses while I worked. We’re at 21C/70F, with the humidex putting us at 26C/79F, and we haven’t even reached our high of the day, yet!

But, I got the third raised bed in the east yard planted, and I’m done!

I also took a chance on an experiment that has the potential to be a complete disaster.

Before I could even start, though, I had to deal with the water. There’s so much of it flooding the east yard, the the boards forming the path next to the bed I needed to work on, were floating. The year we put those in was a drought year, and we had no idea it would collect so much water! The path on the other side of the centre bed is gravel, though there isn’t enough of it. We were planning to eventually get more gravel from the pit, but I have no idea when we’ll be able to head out there to get a load with the truck. We do, however, have plenty of wood chips.

There’s too much water to use the weed trimmer around the beds, so I pulled them by hand. Then I filled our wheelbarrow as much as I could without spillages, three times. That path needed a really thick layer to weigh down those boards and get above the water. With the last load, I could add some to one end, and a bit around the other side. Eventually, more will be added, but for today, I just needed to be able to access the bed without trying to walk on slippery, floating boards!

Then I began the first part of our experiment. I needed to secure the box frame so that it wouldn’t blow away. I’ll explain why that can be good, or really bad, later! For that, I drove some posts salvaged from the Walmart market tent we had, until a piece of tree fell on it, into the soil inside each corner. Then I secured them to the box frame with twine. The box frame is tall enough that I can still tend the bed without needing to move it.

I also used the stirrup hoe and weeded the bed a bit, then started on the eggplant and hot peppers. west end of the bed, I planted the smaller Little Finger eggplants; of the 7 in the tray, two were too small and wizened to transplant. At the opposite end, I planted the Classic eggplant; there were only 5 of those. The last two in the tray died off a while ago. The Cheyenne peppers, however, had all 7 in the tray, though there was quite a difference in size from one end of the row to the other! I planted the peppers in between the eggplant, and the shorter ones on the south side of the bed.

Then, because I had material from the boxes I picked up at the grocery store, yesterday, I mulched the bed with paper. Mostly paper. Each of the boxes had a paper liner, and those are almost enough to cover the entire bed, with some overlap. I cut openings in the paper to go around the transplants. At the very end, after I ran out of paper, I broke down one of the boxes. Those had air circulation holes in them, but I was able to use the flaps to cover those. I ended up using one entire box, plus a couple of extra flaps cut from another one.

Then I got my daughter to come out to help me with the rest of it.

I did remember to bring out some of the supports I have for the peppers and put them in before the next steps. Though the soil was quite wet and didn’t need a watering, we did water the paper and cardboard, so it would settle against the soil more and not blow away while we were working on the box frame.

We took the plastic sheets off the arched covers, then secured them around the top of the box frame. We just used staples for that. The two sheets weren’t quite long enough to go all the way around, so there is a bit of a gap at one corner. We then took one of the arched frames and put it on top of the box frame, and the other over the bed with the German Butterball potatoes (which are coming up now!), mostly for storage. They were just sitting in the wet grass, so this protects them from moisture damage. One had been stored on the box frame, but with the plastic over it, the wind blow it off. That won’t happen again, now that it’s just wire mesh. Once the plastic was tacked into place along the top, the bottoms were weighed down with bricks and boards that we have around those beds, just for that sort of thing. This way, I can still access the bed by lifting the plastic from the bottom.

Adding the plastic around the bed is an idea I got from Maritime Gardening.

Last year we had one surviving Classic Eggplant that did surprisingly well, in the shelter of the wattle weave bed. The Little Finger eggplant were among the things that failed to thrive in the chimney block planters at the chain link fence, that we now know is because of the elm roots getting up into them.

This bed is much more exposed, so I figured they would need extra protection from both the wind, and temperature variations, but of the air and the soil. These plastic walls should help with both. The top is open to still allow rain in.

If we get high winds, though, the plastic around the box frame could potentially become a sail. Hopefully, the frame is secured well enough to the stakes, but it’s entirely possible the wind could pull the stakes out of the ground and the whole thing could go flying.

It’s a risk, but I think it’s worth a try, at least.

So this has been a productive day in the garden. Two types of tomatoes (out of four) are transplanted. Shallots and red onions were interplanted with one type of tomatoes – I don’t plan to have beds of just onions and shallots, but will interplant them as other things go in. Two types of eggplant and the hot peppers are now also planted.

We have one 18′ bed, the high raised bed, plus some space in the wattle weave bed, that’s ready for planting. We can potentially plant in the two shifted beds before they get their log frames. We just have to plant in the middle. Still, this is not going to be enough for all our transplants, never mind our direct sowing. There are three more low raised beds that need to be shifted over to their permanent positions, then they too can be planted in before they get their log frames. Then more beds need to be built, almost from scratch, for the trellis tunnels.

At this point, I honestly don’t know how much of a garden we’ll be able to get in this year. It all depends on how much progress we can get on those beds, in time!

Well, there’s only so much we can do, and there’s no sense fretting about things if we can’t get them done in time for planting this year. Things will continue to expand, year after year, so it will get better.

My eye appointment tomorrow is in the afternoon, and we don’t need to leave until 1pm. I was thinking I’d have time to get more done early, but it’s supposed to start raining in the morning, and keep raining off and on, all day. We are supposed to get almost 2 weeks with no rain after that, though, and even get some cooler temperatures, so that should be time to get things done in the garden. If we can get everything done by the middle of June, that should be enough time for our growing season.

We’re definitely into crunch time!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: transplanting tomatoes, onions and shallots

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It is really wet out there, but we’re not supposed to get more rain today. I was torn between continuing on shifting the beds or starting transplanting. We have quite a few things that are more than ready to get set out.

After looking at the weather forecast, and the state of our transplants, transplanting won. In particular, tomatoes. It’s either that or pot them up, and that would be a silly thing to do at this, when they would do much better out in the garden.

The first thing I did was go through my trays and see how many I had of each type. When I saw I had 8 chocolate cherry, I decided they should go into the 8 chimney block planters at the chain link fence.

I then cut some of our many distilled water bottles to create rings for the transplants. With my husband needing distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, we have LOTS of these gallon/4L jugs. I had a few rings left over from last year, but a lot of them seem to have disappeared over the winter.

Anyhow.

I had some of the tomato transplants in individual pots, and some in a large celled tray. There were three rows of four Chocolate Cherry, Black Cherry and Forme de Couer, and the remaining cells got San Marzano. Those ones are the strongest and healthiest San Marzano. The deep celled tray with just San Marzano ended up in the sun room too early – we needed the space – and has only a few sad tomatoes left.

The tomatoes in the tray were so big and bushy, it wasn’t until I was taking the Chocolate Cherry out (they were in the middle row, of course) that I saw one had died off. I completely forgot we’d lost one in that tray. So, we have 7 Chocolate Cherry tomatoes at the chain link fence, and an open space for something else.

Once transplanted, they each got a ring around them. This is to protect them from the wind for the first while, and from the cats that like to go under the netting. The netting was draped back over the blocks and will remain until the elm trees are done dropping their seeds. As the tomatoes grow, the chain link fence will be their trellis support.

There were 10 Forme de Coure tomatoes, so I decided they should go into the rectangular raised be in the old kitchen garden. This bed already has a soaker hose set up. There is garlic growing down the middle, though not very many. This bed got the last garlic cloves, so some of them were pretty small and did not survive the winter. The garlic will be ready to harvest before the tomatoes are fully mature, so they should be okay together.

These tomatoes got their protective rings around them, which are being held in place by pairs of bamboo stakes – the rings blow away if they’re not anchored – which will become their trellis supports as they the tomatoes grow.

Once those were in, I saw there was space enough to transplant some onions. Because I’ve got those started in repurposed mixed vegetable trays, it was quite easy to pop out onion starts in just one section and bring them over. I started with Red Wethersfield, because they were the largest, and I have the fewest in the trays. They were planted at each end of the bed and in between the tomatoes, with a few extras tucked in among the garlic. I think I got half the Red Wethersfield onions done.

There was room enough along the south side of the bed to add a row of the smaller shallots – planting a larger bulb onion might have been a bit too crowded. I didn’t try to plant some on the north side of the bed, as there wasn’t quite as much space, plus I figured they would end up getting shaded out by the tomatoes.

All that took about 3 hours or so. I decided to take a break, and will get back at it, later. The next bed I want to work on is the empty bed in the East yard, next to the peas, spinach and carrots. I will be putting the eggplant in there, and want to try something different to protect these heat loving plants. I will probably be planting the hot peppers with them.

After that, I have some space in the wattle weave bed. I think I’ll put the luffa next to the double lilac again; they did well there last year. Peppers did well there, too, but I might put the Black Cherry tomatoes there, instead. Some of the peppers can go into the high raised bed. The first of the trellis beds, however, is being saved for the melons, and I think the winter squash will be going into the two beds we are shifting, with our without their walls in place. The Crespo squash in particular really needs to be transplanted, but it needs a LOT of space. I might just make a whole new squash hill, just for them. Then there are the mulberry, which are way overdue for transplanting.

Much to do, that’s for sure! Tomorrow is going to be a write off for me, as I’m getting my field of vision test done, which includes pupil dilation. My vision is going to be messed up for quite a while, so I want to get back out there and get as much done today as possible.

But first, hydration and sustenance!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: starting to rework the low raised beds (video)

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As I write this, the video I made is still uploading, so I’ve scheduled this to be published tomorrow morning.

One bed is prepped and ready for logs to be placed around it. My younger daughter is working in the spruce grove to get them for me, but has to clear away pieces of trees and branches that have fallen in high winds, and other debris, just to reach them. She handles heat even worse than I do, and the humidity sure didn’t help. She ended up needing to use a cane to get around the house until the painkillers kicked in.

She’ll have tomorrow to recover, though. The rain started up again this evening, with thunderstorm warnings. It’s supposed to keep raining all through tomorrow (meaning today, by the time this is published). A good day for me to be helping my mother out with her errands.

Sunday is supposed to be sunnier, though rain is expected to start again in the evening, so we might get a few hours of work in during the day. Then the rain is supposed to be back on Monday.

This weekend is a long weekend, when many people will be putting in their gardens. While we could probably direct sow some things, our area still has a while to go. Looking at the 14 day forecast is frustrating, since it seems to change every time I look at it, but at one point I was seeing predictions of overnight temperatures dropping below freezing in the last few days of May. When I look at it now, though, it shows a few chilly nights, just above freezing, and then overnight temperatures are predicted to be considerably warmer. Once I look into June, the daytime highs are all supposed to be 20C/68F or higher, for the entire month!

Of course, that might change completely, the next time I look.

Well, whatever ends up happening, we’ve got a lot of hard work to do before we can plant in the main garden area.

The low raised beds have been wildly overrun by crab grass in particular, with some beds heavily invaded by dandelions, and at least one has a pretty bad infestation of Creeping Charlie. Since they all need to be heavily reworked anyhow, we’re going to go ahead and redo them. Or, more specifically, I’ll be doing the weeding and shifting. My daughter will be harvesting and processing the dead spruces to build walls around them. This late in the game, I’ll be happy if we build them just one log high. They just need to be done! We can add more height to them, as time goes buy. Once these low raised beds are reworked, we can switch our focus back to building the trellis beds. Those will require even more work, since we’ll be bringing soil in from what’s left of the purchased garden soil pile, as well as layers of organic material at their bottoms.

For transplants, we’ve got the winter squash and melons, which will take up the most space, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, onions, gourds, some thyme and Orange Butterfly Flower (a milkweed) plus the mulberry saplings to transplant. Depending on the space available, I want to direct sow summer squash, shelling peas, bush beans, pole beans and more carrots, plus the dwarf nasturtiums. If we really do well for space, I’d like to plant at least one variety of corn, but I don’t expect that to happen. There will be a fair bit of intercropping, plus we plan to have things growing vertically as much as possible, so that should help with space. Still, there are quite a few things I expect to skip entirely this year, like cucumbers, beets, radishes, chard and lettuces, simply because I don’t expect to have the prepared space for them. Mind you, things like radishes and chard can be planted later, after the garlic is harvested and those beds are freed up.

Weather willing, I hope to be able to get at least one of the low raised beds weeded and shifted over in a day. With one done today, there’s four left to do. If the weather forecasts are at all accurate, that means they should be done by the end of next week. Then the log walls need to be placed and secured, and the soil amended with sulfur granules. Hopefully, that will also get done by the end of next week, because the week after has me doing a lot of driving around, from getting my mother to a medical appointment, to our monthly stock up shopping, to hopefully being able to connect with a friend that is back in Canada for a while.

It’s a very busy time of year!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: hardening off begins, and new growth

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We had rain all night, with a foggy morning. We’re supposed to get possible showers this afternoon, with thunderstorm warnings for the night, and roughly the same tomorrow. Hopefully, this rain is reaching the fires to the north of us in adequate amounts. Currently, we’ve got 5 forest fires burning, with 2 still listed as out of control. That’s actually down two fires from when I checked, yesterday.

With the overcast morning, it was a perfect day to set the transplants outside to begin hardening off. Just a couple more weeks, and we can start transplanting them into the garden.

Oh, my sad, sad San Marzano tomatoes!

While I took out the trays in the sun room, my daughter brought the last of the trays that were in the mini greenhouse frame in the living room. As of now, the only things left in the house are three pots in the aquarium greenhouse; one Zucca melon that’s finally breaking the surface and one Pixie melon. There’s a second Pixie melon that has yet to emerge. The seeds that were left for pre-germination, however, have shown no progress. The Zucca seeds will be going into the compost, as they are starting to show signs of mold, but the three remaining Pixie melons look completely unchanged.

Most of our trays of transplants fit on the folding table we made, while a few went onto the set up we made above the seat of the laundry platform. A handy spot, though I always feel nervous going up those steps while carrying trays of plants. I’m never quite sure my knees won’t just give out at some point. Stairs and I do not get along, at all! 😄😄

While continuing my rounds, I checked on the bed with the peas, carrots and spinach planted in it. Of the first peas that were planted, there is one sprouting. I did see what might possibly be a second one, but it’s so tiny, I’m not sure yet. The second planting doesn’t have anything showing yet.

I checked the Royalty raspberries, as usual, and we are finally seeing new growth at the bottom of one of last year’s canes. These were supposed to be first year canes, which should have fruited for the first time this year, but they ended up producing berries last year, then dying back. I contacted Veseys about it and they assured me they would come back this year. So far, they are right about one of them! However, this does mean that any growth we get this year should not produce any berries until next year.

In other things…

I counted 25 yard cats this morning, though at least one or two more showed up later on. When I saw Broccoli while I was still setting the food out, I went around to the garden shed and left some food in a dry spot, then checked on the babies. They seem a bit more active. I ended up leaving some food for Broccoli not far from her baby nest.

With everything being so wet, and more rain and possible storms to come, I decided this was a good day to make a run to the nearest Walmart to get a few things. That took enough time that the transplants were brought back inside when I got back. We’re actually seeing a bit of sunshine, peeking through the clouds right now, too.

As I write this, it’s just past 2pm, and we’ve reached 16C/61F, with the humidex making it feel like 20C/68F. We’re supposed to get just a bit warmer before the end of the day. With how muddy things are, a lot of what we need to do outside has to wait. Very frustrating!

Ah, well. It is what it is! We just shift gears and do other stuff, like going into town for some errands, a bit earlier than planned – which I will cover in my next post. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: planting everbearing strawberries

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Much to my surprise, I’m feeling pretty good today, after the unexpectedly difficult work I did yesterday afternoon.

With the bed prepared, the Albion Everbearing strawberries we got from Veseys needed to get into the ground.

There are 10 photos in the Instagram embed, below.

I got the strawberries through one of their $20 specials. This was supposed to be a package of eight, but there turned out to be nine in the package. Bonus! Thanks, Veseys!

I’d gone to their website yesterday, to get the planting instructions. The first step was to set the roots to soak, while I continued working on the bed I prepared yesterday – which I found covered with kitty footprints, this morning!

I decided to add more soil, so I brought over the last of the amended soil left from when we redid the bed against the chain link fence. The extra soil from making the bed narrower has come in very handy!

After leveling off the new soil, I made holes to plant in and filled them with water. The instructions said to spread the bare roots over a small hill of soil, so I added soil back to make one in each hole, while the water was being absorbed. Next, the bare roots were spread over each hill, and soil pulled back around them, making sure the growing tops were above soil and supported.

After that, I brought over some straw that has been in the potato grow bags last year, and carefully mulched around each plant. I wanted to make sure the hills of soil were well covered so it wouldn’t erode when watered, as well as packing extra around the outside, to make it less likely for water to wash the soil out under the frame. Once that was all in place, it got a deep watering. Yes, we’re expecting rain this afternoon, but with our weird little climate bubble in our area, it could pass us by completely and we might not get more than a few drops.

From the information on the Veseys website, they recommend pruning away the flowers in the first year, to have stronger and more productive plants the next year – except for everbearing varieties. These are everbearing, so there will be no need to prune them.

Which means we should have strawberries to harvest this year – if they survive being transplanted!

I don’t assume anything will make it, anymore! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: planting and netting

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Today, finally, we planted the German Butterball potatoes.

Orders of perishables like this get sent out in time for planting, which means we could have planted them weeks ago. The Purple Caribe had to wait until the bed they were intended for was redone. We hadn’t quite decided where to plant the German Butterballs, but today we decided to use one of the prepared raised beds in the West yard, where we also needed to tend to the bed with peas, carrots and spinach planted in it.

The first thing we did was weed the bed, again. My daughter went digging around with the garden fork first, pulling out the bigger stuff she found, while I followed along and dug deep with my hands and pulled out the smaller stuff. Once again, we were finding lots of tree roots from the nearby Chinese elm. We went over the bed twice, finding more roots, each time!

I did remember to use the pH meter to see if there was any change, before we topped up the bed. At this point, the bed was amended only with the sulfur granules. I was thrilled to see the needle was actually, ever so slightly, moved. It’s still pretty much at 8, but the needle is now just barely touching the green colour at the 8, instead of about as far as it could possibly go on the alkaline side.

We then added a wheelbarrow load of soil left over from amending the previous beds. This soil has more sulfur granules in it, plus peat. Once that was spread out, we worked it into the bed with our hands – and pulled out more roots. Then, while my daughter went to fill watering cans from the rain barrel, I used the stirrup hoe to stir and level the soil – and pull out more roots – before using my hands to create a broad trench down the middle.

There turned out to be exactly 32 potatoes, so we laid them out evenly in two rows. Yes, they are probably being planted too close together, but this is the space we have available, so it’ll have to do.

Once we had the potatoes set out where we wanted them, I went around with a garden trowel and dug a hole for each one, while my daughter followed along and watered the holes, then I followed along behind her, planting each potato into the watered holes. Once she was done, she went to get more water from the rain barrel, while I covered the potatoes and used the soil from the sides to create hills over them. They got a final watering in the trench between them, then we put a cover over the bed, so the cats won’t go in and use that nice soft soil as a litter box!

Before we’d gone outside, I set the sugar snap pea seeds I bought yesterday to soak. Unfortunately, I’d put them in the bowl last night, and it got knocked over by the cats. My older daughter and I found most of them, but from the 24 seeds I’d counted when I opened the packet, we were down to 21 – and only because I found one more this morning.

I’m not impressed with the inside cats right now! It’s been no end of them getting into things they shouldn’t, lately!

Once the potatoes were done, my daughter went to get the peas while I used a bamboo stake to make a row of holes for them. I planted the previous two rows of snap peas, so I knew where I could do that, and not be on top of the previous rows. There may, possibly, be a single pea from the first planting emerging, but I’m not sure, yet. Last night, I found that something had dug into the bed over where some peas had been planted, and there was no sign of any peas when I pushed the soil back. I think most, if not all, that first planting of peas died off for some reason.

Once that was done, I went to the garden shed to get the trellis netting. That’s when I spotted Broccoli’s babies! I got the netting out, as a tiny calico hissed silently at me, then called my daughter over to look. She had already finished planting the peas by then. We paused for a bit to move the babies to a carrier, then my daughter went on mama-baby watch while I continued. I gave the bed a watering, first, then set the netting up on the T posts. Then it was back to the shed, partly to see if Broccoli was looking for her babies, and partly to get some netting to put around the bed. I’d already grabbed a bundle of supports and set six of them up around the bed. Unfortunately, the bundle of netting I grabbed was not long enough to go all the way around. There’s about 2/3 of one side that’s not shielded by netting. The netting is there to keep things from eating the spinach that’s coming up, as well as to keep the cats out. We’ll have to go through our other bundles of netting to see if we have either something short enough to fill the gap, or long enough to go all the way around, and replace what I put up today.

Eventually, we will need to set up something outside the beds to secure the T posts. If the peas actually start to grow, their weight will pull the T posts inwards, so we’ll need something to keep that from happening. There’s no hurry on that, though, since we’ll only need it if the peas survive in the first place! I don’t assume anything, at this point.

So we did manage to accomplish the goals we had for before things got too hot – we’re now at 26C/79F. 28F/82F, if I go by the website instead of my phone app.

For all the warmer highs we’re getting, over the next week to ten days, our lows are expected to dip to 1 or 2C/34 or 36F, which means we could get frost. If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, we’ll start to bed overnight temperatures consistently 6C/43F or warmer, which is about the minimum we’d need for the soil to get warm enough for direct sowing anything that isn’t cold hardy, like the peas and spinach. Mind you, with plastic covered covers for the raised beds, we could plant things and the covers will protect them.

What we really need to get working on is harvesting logs to build the raised beds we need. It’s too windy to try and cut down dead spruces, but we can process the ones that are already down.

We’ll have to make sure we use plenty of bug spray before going into the spruce grove. Not for mosquitoes. Those aren’t out yet. For wood ticks! It’s been a really bad year for them, already. So far, I’ve only pulled them off myself before they’ve attached themselves, but I’ve been pulling lots of them off of Syndol. With his long fur, he can’t get them off his neck or near his ears on his own. The short haired cats that let me pet them have no ticks. Just Syndol. Which makes me wonder about the other long haired cats, that don’t let us handle them like Syndol does.

Also, while I was writing this, Broccoli has been seen around the kibble house and walking around the sunroom, to the back of the house, but she has not gone into the sunroom. With her babies sleeping peacefully and not meowing, she would have no way to know they are there!

Moving them was a big risk. I hope she finds them, soon!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: cat damage and garlic

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While we no longer have cat food bowls in the sunroom, we do still allow them in, and I keep an eye on things through the critter cam.

I checked it shortly before heading out this morning, and had an unpleasant surprise. The extra board we put over the cat cage was on the floor. From what I could see, so was at least one of the bins.

I rushed out to see what could be salvaged and didn’t stop to take any before pictures. Thankfully, it was just the one bin on the floor – the one with only two pots with the Crespo squash in it. There was a tray that had a couple of pots knocked over, but the damage was nowhere near as bad as I feared.

The Crespo squash that has a pot to itself had a bent stem. I was able to use a couple of sticks and some plant wires to make a splint around it. I think it will survive. We’ve had one with worse damage last year that survived.

The cats did not actually damage the plants directly. The problem is that we have to keep one of the sawhorses holding the table at an angle. The board is there to cover the cat cage, but also gives them a ledge they can lie on, and not try to squeeze in between the trays and bins. One of the heavier cats must have jumped up onto the corner of the board that doesn’t have the sawhorse under it, and knocked the whole thing off. As it fell, it took the one bin down with it, but only jarred another tray, knocking over a couple of pots. One squash and it soil was almost completely out of it’s pot. Hopefully, it will survive being put back. A peat pot had a piece broken off and lost a bit of soil, but is otherwise fine. I will find a plastic pot of an appropriate size and pop the whole thing in, to hold it together. A couple of other pots are broken above the soil line, so they should be okay. It could have been a lot worse! I rearranged a few things so that, if the board gets knocked off again, it won’t take any trays with it.

Once that was fixed up, I did my morning rounds and checked the garden beds. The garlic continues their growth spurt!

I can see gaps in some places, particularly in the larger rectangular bed, that shows some cloves didn’t survive the winter, but most of them have made it.

The walking onions in front of the tiny raised bed are looking really strong and healthy. This is the second year for the bulbils I’d planted there. They produced their own bulbils that are just resting on the ground; we didn’t try to plant them, and are letting nature take its course with those. The only thing is to keep them from spreading into where my daughter had planted some irises, though we don’t know if they’ve actually survived. We’ve seen some try to grow, then disappear. It would seem they didn’t make it, but we do have those tulip bulbs that we thought had died, suddenly emerge this year, so it’s possible they survived, too!

The rhubarb in the south corner is also getting pretty big. Those ones always do better than the ones at the north corner. One of these years, we should transplant the lot of them, away from those apple trees, so they have better growing conditions. We typically get just one decent harvest per season, out of them.

By the time I was finishing up my morning rounds, my daughter was outside and starting on our project for the day, but that will be for my next post!

The Re-Farmer