Readers, I apologize that I have not been posting any updates since we moved to our new property in fall 2021.  There were many things to do and adjust.  As you know, it is hard to pick up something after you have stopped for a long while.  But spring is here and I am hoping to resume our country/farm journey on our little blog.

The previous owner did not plant any garden, so we have to start from scratch.  There is, however, a silver lining (somewhat).  Our property has a lot more trees than our previous home so there is no lack of dead branches which can be turned into wood chips.

Have you ever seen utility crew cutting down branches and using a big machine to turn an entire tree into wood chips within 10 seconds?  Well, that is not what I have.

I purchased a 4″ wood chipper from TMG Industrial. I spent quite some time in research and finally plunged a good sum of money into this chipper.  “You get what you paid for” is a true saying in most cases.  From what I gathered, many small chippers under $1000 are only good for a season or 2.

Now I could elect to rent a commercial 12″ chipper but that would cost me $500 per day (ouch!)The tiny chipper did not disappoint me though and as long as I feed it with branches under 3″ in diameter, it keeps churning out fresh wood chips!

	This will be our new garden.
	The last thing we did before winter after the move was to plan some garlic.
	We planted 50 asparagus crowns  2 days ago and one of them has already sent a shoot up!
	New seedlings of tomato, zucchini, cucumber, squash and watermelon waiting to be planted in ground after Victoria Day.
	Potatoes.
	This is my new 4″ wood chipper.  Most woodchips you see in the garden came from this tiny workhorse (some from a tree company).
	These are some of the dead branches waiting to be turned into woodchips.  It is an arduous task to cut down, pile and trim these branches so that they can fee properly into the wood chipper.

It is a hot summer with high humidity this year. I have been busy working on our new home and property. It is difficult to leave a property that we have lived on for 15 years. All of our children grew up on this piece of land and I have spent so much time and effort in building up the garden, fruit tress, vines,fences, sheds and what not.

I pray that the next owner would benefit and take good care of this land.

	I made a mistake this year of growing the cabbages too close to each other.
	But some of them turn out alright.  I love savoy cabbage.  Comparing to green cabbage, they are less prone to split.
	My 3 apple trees that I have grown for years.
	This is Pristine apple tree which I planted in 2007.  It did not give any blossoms (so no fruits) for 10 years! I once wanted to chop it down and replace it with another variety,  I am glad I did not give in.  Since 2018, it has been bearing good crops of apples each year. Pristine is an early mature apple and read to pick in August.
	I think I have over 400 apples from the single Pristine apple tree this year. About 40% were dropped prematurely, but they were not wasted: the chickens love pecking at the apples.
	This is Somerset grape that I planted in 2014.  It is a table grape variety. I am going to miss my grape vines and fruit trees. Every time I prune my vines, it reminds me of the teaching from Jesus Christ in the Book of John. “For any branch that does not bear fruit, God would cut it down.  For any branch that does bear fruit, God would prune it so that it would bear more fruits.” (paraphrasing) One can certainly learn some gardening tips from the Great Gardener in Heaven.

We had a surprise cold and wet snow morning on May 28 and the snap killed some of the beans, cucumbers, sweet potatoes and tomatoes seedlings already planted in the garden.  Usually it is pretty safe to transplant after Victoria Day, but nobody can control the weather and thus it reminds me that all of us, Christians or not, depend everything on God and Jesus Christ for his mercy and grace:

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.  (Matthew 5:45)

	Garlic is growing tall already.
	Apple trees in their full blossom.
	Salad greens growing in the mini greenhouse since April.
	Chickens on pasture again.  They sure look happier.

It is Thanksgiving weekend and daytime temperature starts to get below 10°C, especially early in the morning.  Light frost begins to hit, which usually signifies the end of growing season for most vegetables.

It is also the time to harvest whatever is left, clean up the debris, plant garlic and close the garden for next spring.

Overall, I have great success with tomato while disappointing result with cucumber and zucchini.  I also find out my family loves arugula  so I am sure I will continue to grow salad mix next year.

	Harvesting sweet potatoes and cabbages.
	Chinese daikon.   The odd shape denotes that I planted 2 seeds too close to each other.  They jointed at the top while the roots grow in separate ways. Weird.
	Tasty Potatoes.
	Collard can be grown until heavy frost in November.
	I am growing broccoli and kale in the mini greenhouse. I would expect the kale to survive the winter.
	This is a new garlic planting tool that I “invented”. To help speed up digging rows of holes, I cut 1″ dowel into 4″ long and sharpen the end. I placed 6 of these dowels 4″ apart along a wooden stick with 1″ holes pre-drilled. I thought I can simply push the tool into the ground, but in reality, the soil and wood chips are difficult to press in.  The solution is to use a rubber mallet to hammer the dowels into the soil.
	Planting garlic using the new tool. The tool is not ideal but it did save me some time than digging a hole one by one with a trowel. I think I have planted about 400 garlic this year, not including other family members’.
	Firewood time!  I purchased 3 bush cords and my youngest 5 children volunteered to stack them for me. They showed great team spirit in stacking all of them in less than 2 hours.  I DID NOT have to do anything this year except paying for the delivery. Way to go Chan family!

I have always wanted to build a greenhouse to extend my growing seasons. I thought about buying the traditional glass greenhouse with sturdy frames. On the other hand, a high tunnel greenhouse with 1/2″ EMT conduits or PVC pipes seems more economical.

In the end, I decided to try it out on my square foot garden raised bed. I wanted the ability to open and move the greenhouse easily.
Well, if I have thought of something, chances are someone has already tried it. Taking the idea from the following video:

Here is what I got in the end.  As long as I built the base for another raised bed of the same size, this greenhouse can be easily attached via door hinges.

	The base of the frame is about 50″ x 47″, built with 2 x 4s.
	One hinge on each end so that it can be opened on a hot day.
	I am growing heat loving plants here: sweet potatoes, cantaloupes and peppers. I cannot wait to see if the plants will grow better under the greenhouse.

My old compost bin has completely rotten at the bottom and is falling apart.  It is time to build a better one.  Again I found a great idea from youtube:

In order to prevent the bottom from rotting, I decided to staple some 6-mil black plastic film to the inside of the bin.

	Hmmm, the door is not level because the ground is not.  Oh well, as long as I can open the door.
	This pile of dried plants and stems were from last year.  I did not do a good job turning and adding water and nothing has broken down. I got to do a better job this time to turn these into black gold!
	June is time for asparagus!

Fall is here and it is the best season of the year IMHO.  Time to harvest and close down the garden.

	Cucumber is my favorite summer veggie.  I was able to harvest continually about 4x 5 gallon-bucket of fresh cukes.
	This is the oldest apple tree on our farm.  I suspect it is over 30 years old. In previous years, the apples had blight, scab and were usually sour.  We could use may be 10% of the harvest. However, this year we have a bumper crop and the apples are sweet and crisp, without much blemish. I did NOT do anything this year to this old tree so I am feeling overwhelmed.
	Drying garlic for storage and planting in October.
	This is fall lettuce.
	This is a new 3″ x 8″ square where I will be planting garlic.
	3 plants of spaghetti squash produce 18 fruits.

So far we have a pretty good summer.  There were a couple of hot humid days but overall it is pretty good.  I have expanded the garden again this year by using solely  chicken manure plus wood shavings from cleaning the chicken coop.  Once again, the plants grow substantially better in the compost.

	Pristine apple that I planted when we first moved the hobby farm.  It has been bearing more fruits in recent years. I am also using a yellow sticky sheet to trap bugs and I have been spraying kaolin clay/water mix to protect the tree.
	Corn, garlic and cucumber cramp into a small space but growing well in chicken compost.
	White bitter melon.  This is the first time I have ever seen or planted such a variety.
	Squash and cucumber (on trellis) growing together.
	Spaghetti squash.
	Carrot (front) and providence green beans (back).
	Grapes.

We have been raising layers for more than 10 years and we noticed  holes being chewed out of the chicken coop floor starting last fall.  I noticed that “tunnels” were being dug  beneath the floor.  Upon further investigation, I found out the chicken coop has no concrete foundation and is sitting on wood beams, but the floor is insulated with 2″ thick foam board with plywood on top.

Being inexperienced with rats, I simply patched the hole with concrete, hoping that would stop the invasion.  Well, new holes would pop up every other day randomly, even on walls (plastic board).  Initially I thought the unwelcome guests were moles or voles, but after research on the internet, I finally realized that the nightmare was brought about by rats.  You see, moles love to dig tunnels, but they do not eat grains; they eat earthworms and grubs.  Voles are rodents but they mostly eat plants.  Rats, on the other hand, eat anything and are notorious for chewing holes through thick wood.

The rats are attracted by the chickens because  seeds and feed would fall around the feeder during pecking and when food is scarce in winter, the warm chicken coop is a perfect habitat.

Arming with the discovery of the real enemies, I purchased a rat “high power kill” trap and baited it with peanut butter.  Sure enough, the trap was triggered but was pulled all the way to the hole.  Next, I screwed the trap to the floor but again the peanut butter was gone with no sign of rats (trap triggered).

I then purchased a rat bait station but the rats were not attracted by the bait.  Later I found out that the hole was too small for the rat to enter!

Finally I decided to try the Havahart® X-Small 1-Door Trap.  I had success with this trap for catching squirrels.  Sure enough, after a few nights, I finally caught the bugger!  It was a big grey Norway rat!

But….that was not the end of story.  I ended up buying the traditional wooden snap trap as well so I continued to set the snap trap, live trap and bait station.  Subsequently, I found out the snap traps were only effective against baby rats.  The adult rats could wriggle away after being snapped!  The live trap was the only effective way.

We ended up killing 4 big rats and 2 small ones.

But….that was also not the end of story.  After a few days, there were still signs of rats.  What in the world!?  By this time I have 2 live traps but this rat never visited them, yet it started to chew holes everywhere again.

Finally, I decided to take the rat bait from the bait station and dropped it through the hole in the wall and then sealed the holes up with spray foam.

Now after 3 days, no signs of rats yet…..but I won’t be able to tell until at least a week is past.  Unfortunately, here in Ontario only licensed personnel can purchase rat poison without bait station and in my situation, the rat bait was the last resort.

Coming spring, I would have to dig around the coop and seal the holes.  I would also lay down a layer of hardware cloth on the floor and put new floor on top.  Lots to do on a farm.

It has been a hot summer this year. Several occasions of above 40°C weather. There was even a “camp fire ban” issued by the fire department in our township. Thankfully, thunderstorms arrive and relieve the mini “drought” for our garden. Plants start to grow rapidly.

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	This is a ROUND zucchini!  An heirloom variety.
	This is a normal green zucchini but somehow grows like a staircase!?
	Very early apple crop.  Almost every apple has blemish and some are rotten.  I still have a long way to grow the perfect organic apple.
	Potatoes:  Alta Blush, German Butterball and Purple Viking.
	Green cabbage, yellow zucchini and cucumber.
	Daikon (big white radish)
	Purple peacock pole beans.