Change takes Time!

After nearly 30 years , we have achieved, what we thought was the impossible! We are able to put a car into our double car garage! This was made possible by the initial Covid purge, which created enough new space to give us hope. Careful re-alignment of the remaining must keep??? items, got us closer. Then the large task of counting, repacking, and reorganizing the Elite Dance Challenge storage items.

Hee Haw!!! As you can see there is still a ton of stuff in the garage and Covid purge 2.0 will see yet again more available space.

On the garden front, well, we had a lot of rain, and we had quite a few days of very high temperatures. These 2 factors contributed to the demise of a successful Marijuana crop for 2021. everything seemed to be going on as normal, then the first shoe dropped. Checking the plants one day i saw what every marijuana grower does not want to see, one of the plants had become male. I immediately destroyed and removed the plant, to reduce the chance of another plant being infected. It was still early enough that i started another plant to replace it. One of the plants then seemed to be in distress, reflecting back, I think i gave one of the plants a double dose of nutrients and it went into shock. seemed to get it back into a regular growth, but it was considerably smaller than previous plants have been at this time. I had topped all of the plants and could see the results of the topping was showing good results. Then low and behold, another plant went male. again I destroyed immediately. Now I was left with only 3 small plants. As the daylight hours dwindled, the plants moved into the bloom stage. I believe the watering pattern was altered by the fabric bags I used this year. Last Year i had 10 gallons bags, I thought they were too big for my needs and purchased 7 gallon bags for this year, since they were still as tall as the 10 gallon bags. the quality of this years bags were inferior and resulted in water leaking away during watering. Excuses, excuses, I know! I have the plants drying presently but the yield will be very minimal. Next year, i will use the 10 gallon plant again, but i will only be growing one plant. probably be the last year I do it, just want to see a good result again.

Veggies this year also were impacted by the weather. Cucamelon crop, 1/2 eaten by squirrels, I ate the other one. Yes, you understood properly, only got 2 off the whole plant. Tomato plant I bought ( I thought Beefsteak), was not, Got quite a few , but very disappointing when you are waiting for Beefsteak and you get Cherry. It may have been the best year I have had with cucumbers. Got over 10 full size cukes off of the one plant. Then to my peppers... not sure what is the reason but they always seem to grow like crazy. Sweet peppers, Purple (6) and Big Daddy (12+), Hot peppers Jalepenos (50+) and Ghost (20+). Had enough at the end to pickle . Definitely are spicy!

On a whim I planted Winter Squash and Gourd seeds in the back corner garden. Well they can certainly take over! Had them growing up trellises, over the fence into my neighbours yard. Had quite a few grow, but nowhere near the numbers of flowers that bloomed. Had enough to adorn the table for Thanksgiving. Will probably not do these again, but it did prove the soil in the back garden is fertile.

at the end of season I planted the Maximilian Sunflowers here, lets hope they live up to there claim to be perennial. I also moved quite a few plants to different locations as well as planting over 30 bulbs of Allium, Narcissus, and Hyacinthus.

Saved seeds from the Crocosmia that i will germinate and plant in the spring, it is a striking flower when it is in full bloom. I moved a number of hostas into the hosta garden and will split more in the Spring.

Stugglng getting picture into the blog easily, but will attempt to post a few of the better flower shots from this years garden