Walled In

We’re walled in by a field of corn. Same height as our fence posts, so 8 feet high. It goes on for acres and acres on two sides of us.

Usually our neighbour, the cattle farmer, rotates his many cows around in his various fields, which for some reason are scattered around the neighbourhood. Some of his fields are joined together. Sometimes when he moves his cattle around, he has to set up a cattle drive and block off everyone’s driveways until the cattle have passed. Always cool to watch, and always a perfectly good reason (out in the country) to be late for work or appointments of any kind. Always take a picture of the cattle going by.

The wall is cow corn, so it’s not anything that tastes good to people. The farmer sets his cows loose in the corn fields at the end of the summer, so it’ll be entertaining to see how the dogs react when cows come out of the corn field unexpectedly.

I’m looking forward to that day, when I start to get my view back, although this isn’t too bad. It’s like a tall green privacy fence.

I planted nasturtiums and sunflowers around. The nasturtiums flowered on the inside of the bush and their leaves are covering all the orange and yellow flowers, giving me a view of green……along with the wall of corn, it’s a lot of green. Good thing I like the color. I have one sunflower that just bloomed

Even after living in the northern part of the province for a few years, it’s still a crapshoot to get the gardening year right. Some years the weather is really uncooperative, this is one of them.

Last year my sunflowers bloomed like crazy, and pots of nasturtiums were full of color.

This is what it’s like gardening in the north, with an outside growing season of about 2 months. Plus, this year had a heat wave that was a bit of a shock to many plants. Berry bushes didn’t fruit, except for a few raspberries that were well shaded in the woodlot. Strawberries that were in the sun, cooked on their plants, and didn’t produce again. The little plants are healthy so maybe next year’s crop will be abundant. Provided we don’t have another heat wave. 

Greenhouses make a big difference, with the length of the growing season –  next year maybe I can get started earlier in the season.