Friday, May 18, 2012

More and Less

I had a slow start today and couldn't get myself to the garden until this afternoon. I've been 2 days behind on watering, so it had to happen today. I also moved a lot of seedlings to the garden still in their cups, so they'd dry up really fast.

After watering, I grabbed a chair, faced where the sun should be, and read for a while. With the little bit I got, I still turned pink. More to come.

There was a lot of activity this evening. There's always a crowd an hour or two before the sun goes down, but this gang wasn't just watering. Today was a building and planting day.

It really began to feel like rain and I realized it would be a good time to get the cupped seedlings in the ground to get settled in over tonight and tomorrow's rain. The tomato seedlings I started, but hadn't planted toughened up. The plan is that they will climb up the sides of the arbor thingy from the inside and the outside. A few days ago, I saw that some of last week's tomato seedlings completely disappeared, but when I got to digging around, I found them. They were smaller than I remember and they were barely above ground, but they were there and alive. I've got all the tomatoes I think I have space for now. I have more plants. Some will go to friends. Some might be back-ups in another part of the garden.

I put in the last of the peppers that were cupped - at least 7. Looking at them now, I think I've put the peppers too close to each other. There's a big empty spot next to them I have no plans for. I have other empty spots I've decided to keep so I might have room for the squash vines. I'm still not quite sure what I'm doing there. I've been very successful with butternut squash in the past and I've struggled with space. I think I've got it down all right.

The lettuce, spinach, herbs area is really stiffled. Things aren't nearly as far along as I'd like.

I churned and scuffed up as much of the soil as I could to prepare for the rain. Things were getting too smooth and crusty from the rain.

All that's really left to figure out is the brussel sprout bed. The broadcast seeds are coming along nicely. The seedlings that were being out-paced by the weeds last week are big enough to be identifiable. They're turning up in clusters and will need to be thinned. That's happy news. I have some cupped seedlings too. I'm giving them a lot of room. Not only are they delicious, but they're kind of cool. I've seen stalks almost 4 feet tall with hundreds of sprouts. I'll have my own little field of them and I'll harvest after the first frost or two.

More plants have survived that I thought would last week. Less worry, and less dirty work to do. I will watch it grow, harvest in a few weeks, and watch the birds in between. 

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