Tag Archives: cucumbers

Whining and Sighing

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Photo by Puwadon Sang-ngern on Pexels.com

An already hot morning at 10:30 on this day 23 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am on the brink of giving in to the everythings of this world. I haven’t quite fallen in. The sun is unbearably hot with less ozone protection. Researching, I find that Canada’s and the northern regionss ozone have thinned by an average of about 7% since the 1980s. Supposedly the ozone layer is healing. Truth or fake news? Our planet seemed to be heating up every year.

I’ve discovered that cucumber male flowers can become sterile due to heat. My plants in the greenhouse are full of male flowers, more than the female ones. I have pollinated the girls and yet besides the one cucmber we already ate, none came to fruit. So I’m guessing that the males must be shooting blanks. They can recover with cooler weather. If heat can do this to cucumbers, what does it do to us and all living things? Is this not a signal for us to change how we are conducting business on this earth? We can’t eat the greenbacks. Why don’t use them resuscitate this one earth we have?

I probably should stop reading the news. It makes me more melancholic than my natural melancholic self. There’s no fun or use in it. It’s not something I want to bring to the keyboard. I have to pull myself up by the bootstrap, snap out of my old mold, crack the whip and do whatever I have to do. I have to admit that I am a little buried under a little pile of mental overwhelm. Life seems to have no rest stops when you have a 95 year old father. Not complaining. It is what it is. It is not at all the physical thing. He is very low maintenance. It’s the emotional and psychological components that weighs on me.

Enough whining and sighing. Time to get on with the rest of the day. Not sure if my father is being discharged from the hospital today or tomorrow. Will find out soon enough. My brother is there now and he will let me know. Good to have younger siblings. They have more energy and reserve.

AFTER THE STORM

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It is late afternoon, the day after the storm. Happy to have some sun off and on during the day. It’s playing peek-a-boo. I’ll take what we can get. I’m feeling a bit deflated and despondent. I’m feeling with the weather. What is out there is in here. We had quite a storm yesterday with wind and snow. I thought the greenhouse held up well considering we had no sun at all yesterday. The sensor showed that we had above 0 temperature till after 2:30 and the lowest temperature was -1.2℃ at 6:48 am. We had survived -6℃ before. So I was surprised to find the scarlet runner beans looking poorly but not the cucumbers. I was sure the tomatoes would be ok. They were under heavier covers. Not so. I lost 3 of the first 4 planted and 3 or 4 of the others. 10 or 11 survived.

On second inspection later in the afternoon, the cucumbers are not looking good any more. It’s a good thing I had moved my 2 trays of seedling into the house. I still have one Gateway cucumber and lots of Long Keeper and Black Krim tomatoes left. Alas I only started 3 Red Alerts, the early variety. Never put all your eggs in one basket.

This was a good learning experience. It showed the ‘cold’ spots in the greenhouse. The sensor was placed under the covers yesterday. It probably didn’t show the true temperature. The buckets of water had thick layer ice in each except the ones that had covers over them. Next spring I will not plant tomatoes, beans and cucumbers till 2nd week of April. The greens were just fine overnight, even the newly seeded and germinated. They just had a crop cover over them. They are a sure bet for early spring along with other cool loving crops like radishes, daikons, carrots, kohlrabi…

It’s a learning experience this year with the greenhouse. It’s trial and error. It is the time to have fun and be daring and try new things. I think you have to fail a little to get wisdom. I’m not at all discouraged. I’m just feeling the end of the day sag. I’m experimenting with making paper pots for transplanting tomatoes. It’s fun and the paper is free. The pots are deep for the roots to grow and they will hold the pot together. You have to give them time to develope before handling them or else they will fall apart.

EXCITING TIMES AHEAD

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A beautiful sunny morning. We slept in till almost 8 am. We have no jobs or appointments to rush to. No big deal. It was -1℃ in the greenhouse and -4or 5℃ outside. These days the weather and temperatures are unpredictable. That is the pattern. I’m learning that I have to play it by ear day by day with the greenhouse. It is almost noon and 3℃ outside and 15.2℃ in the greenhouse. It is suppose to be sunny all day. I shall be planting more tomatoes, cucumbers and scarlet beans after lunch. We are almost into April but there are still snow and minus temperatures predicted ahead. Night time coverings are still wise and necessary.

It is afternoon, 4:30 to be exact. How time flies. I’ve planted more cucumbers, scarlet runners and tomatoes in the greenhouse. I always forget to put some crushed egg shells at the bottom before I put the tomatoes in. It helps to prevent bottom rot. I have to be satisfied with scratching them in around each plant. All in all, I’ve planted 8 Long Keeper Tomatoes, 6 Black Krim and 3 Red Alert. Both the Long Keeper and Black Krim are indeterminates which means they will climb like a vine. They will keep growing and produce fruit until frost arrives. They mature in 70-80 days. The Red Alert is a determinate/bush. They mature in 50-55 days. The determinate stop their shoot production once the blossoms form on the ends.

I have 3 cucumbers and 3 scarlet runners in one corner along the wall. I hope they grow and climb up and over the ceiling to provide shade to cool the greenhouse in the heat of summer. How to do that is still in the works. Meanwhile I have germinated 2 bitter melon seeds by soaking them in water overnight. I then clipped a tiny bit off the rounded end of each seed, wrapped them in a wet paper towel and put into a plastic bag. Next I put them into the oven with the light on. They sprouted in two days. Amazing! They are now potted up. I’m waiting for them to burst through the soil. They are also climbers and work as the cukes and runner beans. Exciting times ahead.

Now it is almost 5:30. Time to close shop. The sun is still shining bright. I have closed the vents in the greenhouse to save the heat for the night. It is sitting at 20.5℃. The outside temperature 7℃. The low forecast tonight is -2℃. It is all good.