Shallots and garlic and water.

The shallots have been sprouting for a few days now. One of the cloves was popping out of the soil in it's little paper cup. When I tried to push it down, it wouldn't go. It doesn't have and sprout yet, but the roots are working hard. I hope I'm not stunting them in the paper cups. Maybe I should go plant them outside?

The garlic is just showing sprouts today. I think I'm going to have the same stunting/crowding problems with the garlic that I'm having with the shallots. I'm going to study up today.

The greenhouse is assembled to it's full size with four shelves and five bulbs lighting and heating the space. I noticed seedlings are starting to droop, especially the squashy-type veg. I'm not sure if they're just too top heavy from stretching tall with only one set of leaves. Some of the short squashy-types that have just emerged are short but are already putting out true leaves. Others have withered and look dead.

The lettuces that were doing so well flopped over and are mostly dead and withered. It's happened every single time I've tried to grow lettuce in a container, but in the past, if I take the container outside and leave it in the garden with all of the other growing things, it's rises from the dead and throws out beautiful, healthy plants. Maybe it's the heat in the greenhouse. Or the light? I haven' succeeded yet, so I don't know what works. More reading. I contacted the Master Gardeners at the university, but I didn't get an answer for growing seedlings other than advice that lettuce is sowed right in the ground, not transplanted. But I don't plan to transplant these. I just want some fresh containers of lettuce and greens. I'll have to keep looking.

I don't feel confident about my seedling management at all. I've had massive failure in previous years. This year I've used seeds from previous years - not heirlooms, seeds left over in old packets. The greenhouse thing is new. I turn the lights on. I turn the lights off. I open the door for circulation. I close it for humidity. I'm watering from the bottom. I've broken some stems when I've moved things around - some plants don't mind, some drop dead. If I get 40 plants from the 150+ plugs I've seeded, I think I'll feel successful. I'm well on my way with only 5 plugs or so without healthy looking seedlings, but I'm not confident.

I refreshed the water in the trays the plugs sit in. I'm not scientific about watering at all. I try to keep water in the trays. I've messed up a couple of times. I try to be mindful of the seedlings that are working hard to throw up stems and leaves. Air circulation and temperature affect the moisture too. Dozens of plugs sit in the same trays together even though they are different varieties. That seems like it's wrong, but I don't have the space to sort everything into it's own special places.

I've spent about $50 on seeds and soil. Pflaums sell pots, 3 for $5 with 3 seedlings in each plot. I can always fall back on them for the things that don't succeed.. I'm going to keep trying.

Frozen muck

We had warm weather on Friday and again yesterday, so I decided to look in on the garden.

My plot is on the southern end of the garden. It's in the shadow of our building until late morning, then I have full sun until sundown. 

The ground for the whole garden slopes with the high point in the northeast and the lowest west and southwest. The eastern border for the entire garden is dry, and the plots are dry all the way west, except mine. It's got an inch of ice or more on the low end.

Some of the chicken wire I used last year wasn't rolled up nicely and it blew around in the wind over winter. I tidied up what I could, but some of it is still embedded in ice and won't come free without a lot of working. I've left it for the sun.

I was frustrated with the brussels sprouts I grew last year. I used about 20% of the garden plot to grow them, but none got more than 2 feet tall and the buds didn't get larger than marbles. I left them standing to freeze over and it looks like I made a lot of wildlife friends. All of the leaves and buds were gnawed to the stalk and the top of the stalk was chewed off too. My plot is covered in little poops - maybe bunny. As things were melting, the dung smell was getting strong. It's all good for the garden, I say.

I left some onions and herbs in the ground, covered them in hay, chicken wire, and laid stakes over top to hold things in place over winter. I've never done this before, so it's all guessing. I removed the chicken wire and stakes. Parts of the hay were still blocked in ice. If I did it right, onions should sprout in a few weeks. I put in 300 sets last year and had a really bad show. I'm not sure how much is left in the ground, but any harvest is an improvement.

Parks of the ground are hard and easy to navigate, but I sunk in ankle deep in spots. I didn't fall, thank goodness. Some of the elderly neighbors were watching me. They already think I'm crazy. Crazy and covered in mud is more than I want to give them right now.

I broke up the icy chunks of straw and spread them around a bit. We'll have below freezing days this week. I won't be outside to work for a while. The action is indoors.

In the apartment...

I decided to add the top shelf to the green house. The green beans are over a foot tall and  were running out of space fast. I repotted them and moved them to the top shelf. The squashes are growing fast too, so I put those in bigger pots.

I tried out some marigold seeds I bought at the dollar store. I put marigolds on the three external sides of my garden plot for pest control. I think the border is about 80 feet long. If I succeed with the marigold seeds, I'll save myself a lot of money. They sprouted quickly and look good.

Friday, I decided to try garlic, chives, and ginger root. I planted around 50 cloves and just one nub of ginger. Like the onions, my garlic and shallots didn't do well last year. I'm doing something wrong. 

I love the plants I get from the Pflaum family, but I want to do my own this year. Well, as much as I can. They generally sell 3" pots of seedlings 3 for $5 and there are 3 seedlings per pot. They've been really helpful these past few years and I visit them every weekend at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market when things warm. By early June, they are nearly out of everything and their plants are well mature. Since I started my seeds mid-March, I hope that my seedlings are ready to plant in very late May too.

The annual kick-off at the MplsFM is 27 April and I'll surely be there the first weekend it's a sign of the season for me. I'm not sure I'll buy from anyone that weekend, but I have to go.

I've noticed the starter beans on the green bean plants have withered and started to turn brown. The little energy bombs are nearly depleted.  They're still adding at least an inch per day and they were looking dry this morning. Many of the fast seedlings were looking droopy. I watered everything and closed up the greenhouse. Last week's mold made me really sick and I worried about it hurting the plants (making me sick later) so I left the door unzipped to dry things and move the air.

The trays under the plugs and pots have been refilled, everything is zipped up again, and the lights are on. I added 2 more incandescent bulbs last week for a total of 3 and there are 2 compact florescent bulbs. It gets warm in there fast, so I've had to be mindful of seedling placement. I'm afraid I overheated the lettuce I started. It's made very little progress this week. I put the pots in my refrigerator for a few hours and now they live on the lowest shelf. The leaves are showing more signs of being ruffles. Onward!

It's condensing in there again. It's a dim day, so I've got the lights on, but I'll turn them off after an hour more so it doesn't get too steamy. I hope the little boost of light will perk up the droopy plants and the warm lovers will perk up too.

I am not a confident gardener. I have killed off a lot of seedlings at this stage in past years. If I could get to really nice true leaves, I'll be so happy.

I need to stop messing with the plants for now. Water. Light. Leave it be. If you've got some spare kind thoughts, I could use them.

I spent some time clearing out the edge lawn-edge of my garden plot. When I was digging out the weeds and clumps of grass, I dug up Japanese beetles and some kind of larvae I've only seen on websites and pesticide packages.

I've tried to be "brave" about squishing up the posts that will ruin my plants, but doing it with my hands is so hard. I have to be wearing gloves, and it helps if I can pick up the creature with soil so I don't have to look at the guts or feel the crunch.

The wind has been blowing around the green mesh fencing I have on the outside edge of my plot. It's an east-west fence and it billows in the northern and southern wind. The posts are holding up well, but the bottom edge isn't secure. When I cleaned it up, I pinned down the edges with garden staples. I probably bought twice as many as I needed, but I'm covered to be sure and I have extra just in case.

I cloched a few of the greens I bought at the farmer's market on Saturday. It really worked well with the spinach and lettuce. In just a couple of days they look really great.

Some of the baby tomato plants I started and transferred to the garden have completely disappeared. Not even a wilted, flattened stem. I hope that they might just be sleeping from the shock and they'll perk up in a few days. It's happened before with other plants, but I've never started tomatoes before. I still have some that haven't been moved, so I will let them grow more before I put them in the ground. I'm very happy to say that not all of the tomatoes I've already planted have died. I'm very excited to see what happens.

I didn't get to the garden today, but I plan on going out tomorrow when it's not very, very hot. I churned up the dirt a bit. With the rain and watering, the silt washed away leaving a shiny shellac of silica on top. The water just runs off to the low spots. So far I'm not able to churn up all of the garden because in areas I've seeded, the plants aren't big enough to see clearly. When the water washes over the top the baby plants are deep enough that their stems are locked into the silica and they aren't washed away.

I'll take more pictures tomorrow. I've also got to install the strings for the beans and other climbers (they're doing great).

This bit of weather coming up is really warm for Minnesota in May. We've had a really warm spring (and winter, and fall), but there is always a chance that something strange can happen with the weather. I think we'll skip the tornadoes this week since it's already been warmish.

Pictures! Tomorrow! Yay!

My kingdom for a hose

Trouble. I know, I'm trouble.
Last week I went to our apartment building's office and asked for the tool shed to be unlocked and the hose to be set out for us to use at the garden.
This week, I watched for the hose. Nothing.
Yesterday, I went to the office, saw the building manager in the hall and asked her about the hose. She said she needed to fill out a work order and it would be done yesterday or today. I said yesterday would be better. It wasn't out by 6p yesterday.

I went to the garden around 4p. Still no hose. If we don't get the hose today, we won't have it until next week.

I went to the management office again. I asked after the hose.

I planned on the water being available and since it was not there, I might have had to plan differently. I was just trying to get an answer - would we have water this weekend?

She does this backward, spinning, evasive thing when she's got bad news, even if it's something small, so it's hard to tell how bad the news is. It takes a really long time to get to a straight answer and it seems to be an attempt to wear a girl out while throwing out ridiculous excuses/reasons/accusations in the process which contradict each other.

She didn't put in a work order. She doesn't have to put in a work order. She did not notify maintenance to do it. This is not going to change until next week because maintenance is on call during weekends, but otherwise not available.

The swamp of crud I went through to get that information out of her is ridiculous and entirely unnecessary. Even when I restated the above, she refused to confirm it. I could only get a "maybe" and "that's not what I said."

This is one of those integrity-break thingys that make me crazy. If you did something or did not do something, and someone asks you a direct question about whether it has or not happened - answer the bloody question so things can move forward. If you've got bad news spill it. If you've set consequences, enforce them.

I'm universal on this one, I'm not excluded from responsibility or penalty. It's easier that way. I don't do "politics." It's an autism thing. I literally don't understand it, don't know how to do it, and I don't always recognize it. I prefer things predictable. I am monumentally focused until "the end" is achieved.

Any hooo....

Without access to the garden hose, the most efficient way to get water out of the building is to fill the container in the craft room on the main floor of the building, go down the hall into the stairwell, through a one-way locked door, past the non-functional greenhouse to the garden. Return to the building via the main entrance which is also locked, but our passkeys will let us in. Go past the office, down the hall to the craft room and repeat.

When we have access to the hose, it's connected to the corner of the building, and it's 50 foot length almost goes to the north-east corner of the garden, but not quite. Those gardeners (most of us, really) keep a water heater tank and use a spray nozzle to aim water to fall into their tank, then they water by hand.


In my new spot, I am exceptionally lucky because I am so close to the spigot. It worries me terrible that 70 and 80 year olds are trying to carry gallons of water in and out of the building. Easily half need a cane or walker to get around. It's a contradiction of reason. Plant as early as possible to get as many crops as possible versus risk falling. It's made worse that most keep their walking paths under 10" wide to keep the growing area as large as possible.

So I'll carry water out this weekend, hope for a hose on Monday, and keep the onion, garlic, and spinach going by hand until then. Someone stole my watering can, so I'm going to find something else to use, like a waste basket.

and on...

nothing to do but wait

Around midnight, I noticed a sign in the lobby saying the garden tilling would be Saturday or Sunday.
In reality, most of these seedlings cannot go outside yet, they are too small, but I started to think about structure and design more.
It's been a grey day. Temp is about 45F. I needed to get out of the house, so I went in search of hay bales. I've been reading a lot about how useful they are with peppers and tomatoes so I went looking.
The first place, a big greenhouse place, had "totally nu" hay "bales." The hay was shredded into bits less than an inch long and it was packaged in a one cubic foot rectangular bag, like the peat moss I bought. Twelve bucks.

I went to a place called the SouthSide Farm Store. It's in Minneapolis at 38th Street and Bloomington Avenue. I know they sell urban chicken supplies, so I thought I'd check it out. 

Bales of hay like you would imagine them were stacked against a fence under a tarp. Nine bucks per pop. Small local business owner. Chicken feed in South Minneapolis for goodness sake. I thought I wanted three, but only two would fit in the station wagon.

I didn't realize they'd be so big. They are real, farm-sized bales of hay - 3'x1'x'1'. Satisfying though, to drop off those great big bales in my garden spot which still wasn't tilled when I got home.

I went to Home Depot and walked around in circles. I touched all the things I thought I would buy, but don't need yet.

I bought the 45 gallon wheeled garbage bin I planned for water storage. At home I installed the washer and nozzle bit so water will drain from the bottom and can be connected to a hose. It was really easy. The whole thing took 15 minutes.


I moved my tools and miscellaneous stakes from my walk-in closet to the bin, so when I'm able, I can wheel all the stuff out in one go. They were getting scattered about the place. After the first go at it, the cat isn't interested in smelling them anymore.

hmmm....

What to do? 

I took a nap. The seedlings have taken a pretty bad turn. I don't know why. More reading to do. 

More planning to do. I paced the garden and it's about 60'x10' with a 4'x5' patch of rhubarb already set.
Back to the drawing board as they say.

Go! Go! Go!

I got the net fence from Katya today. We did a walk-through of the full plot I'm getting from her and the half plot she's getting from me. With the official (?) hand-over, I can really get started on the outdoor stuff.

In the past, we've paid one person who has hired someone to till, but there seems to be a problem finding someone this year. I really want to get to work on improving the soil. If the group isn't going to hire someone, I might just do my own plot myself.

I found a place to rent a tiller for a pretty good price. If I decide to rent it, I'll offer to do everyone's, but I'm a little nervous about the language barrier, timing, and politics. I'd have to clear out my station wagon to bring the tiller home and right now it's full of garden stuff.

If I don't rent, I'll do it myself with my new spading fork. I will definitely pull many, many muscles, and be sore for a long while, but it's a good sore and a nice chance to get dirty.

 I have about 100 pounds of soil additives to fix up our silty, sandy soil. I'll need to double it for the full size plot. Manure didn't go very far in the smaller plot, I used about 120 pounds (3 packages). I think I'll need at least 300 pounds for the new space since it hasn't been take care of very well. Everything I have is in my car since I don't have any storage except my apartment. Things left alone outside will be stolen, even peat moss.

I'm planning a big day of buying, loading, and unloading all of the soil stuff. I'll need to get it all out of the packages and lightly worked at minimum so it can't be taken.

I'll take another day to layout the garden and built the arbor and climbing structure and put up the fence if there's time.

Another day to assemble and install the watering system and lay the outdoor carpet for walking paths. I'll have to dig in the cedar plank baffles to help with erosion and drainage.

We don't have access to water outside yet and the garden shed (tools, stakes and fencing) hasn't been unlocked. That will dictate when we can move plants around outside, but I've got plenty of things to do before I'm ready for that.

I'm very happy to get started.

Gravity Fed Water Bin

Since I garden in a community plot, I can't install anything permanent in my garden. I also share one spigot with twenty other people, so at the end of the day, we all want to water, but must take turns. Most of us have used trash cans or the like to store water and then water by hand, but last year, I decided I really like the even application I get from a sprayer nozzle.

Since this is on wheels, I should be able to move it easily. In the spring, I'm going to use it to move compost packages from the parking lot to the garden. When it's filled with water, it will be too heavy to steal and I can water at my leisure. In the winter, I can load it with my garden tools, cedar planks, arbor materials, and planters in it and wheel the whole thing out of the garden. Less expensive than a garden cart and much more useful.

As a secondary theft measure, I may use a couple of long shank padlocks to fasten the hose to the bin. The curved bit goes inside the bin and is threaded through holes in the side, and padlock is fastened tightly around the hose.

Watering the garden

It's another "no touchy" day

Pain woke me at 5am. Vicodin helped me sleep. I take maybe 6-8 Vicodin per year. It usually doesn't help much, but I needed to try something.
When I woke, I had double vision from the Vicodin and had to go back to bed. I thought I would have to cancel everything today. I made it to my appointment and getting out of the house cheered me up.
I'm back home. I haven't figure out a way to not hurt (can't sit, stand, or lie on either side).
I'll have to do some garden time and water before it gets hot tomorrow, but it may not be tonight.

What Character: Anatoli

Anatoli is my garden neighbor to the north. He is from Ukraine, like many of my neighbors.  

I had to get a picture of him watering his plants. Notice his watering can has a vodka bottle attached to the nozzle. We joke he will have fat, red, drunk tomatoes.

Garrison Keillor used to hint about secrets for gigantic, envious tomatoes in his summer stories. Vodka isn't Anatoli's secret for fantastic plants - I checked.

Just before garden season, Anatoli had a complete knee replacement. Ever since, he's been walking with a cane or a walker. Gardening has been a real challenge for him, especially setting up is plot and getting the seeds and plants in the ground. He wants to have as much in his garden this year that he had last year. Some days are pretty bad. Since he's not as mobile, he wanted to make his watering can longer instead of reaching for the plants and possibly loosing balance.
Ta Da! The vodka bottle is attached to the watering can with plumbers tape to keep it from leaking and holes in the bottom.

Watering systems vary in our community. We all share one 50 foot long hose. The hose isn't long enough to get to all of the garden plots, so watering needs to be creative. There are hose people, watering can people, and hybrid folk. 

Anatoli is a watering can person. He has a large covered garbage can at the west side of his garden that he fills when the hose is free. Since it sits in the sun all day, the water gets warm. Plants like warm water.

Katya is a hose person. Her plot is closest to the spigot, so she can use the hose for the full length of her plot on its own. Most hose people use some kind of sprayer on the hose to get the coverage and distance for their plots.

I am a hybrid user. I have a water container buried in my garden. It holds about 20 gallons. When I can use the hose, I use a sprayer to water my plot, but when I don't want to wait, I use my storage water and refill when no one else needs the hose.

You've got to think "community" when you have a community garden plot.

What a day

I went shopping this morning as planned. I picked up some peas and soybeans at the garden store. I went to the hardware store. The temp raised 10 degrees in an hour and humidity was ridiculous. I took a nap.

When I made it to the garden, there was no one there. I measured and built the top portion of the arbor-thing I've been working on for the big climbing veg. I thought I was being clever, but I had some problems. It sounds easy. In my head it sounded easy, but the uprights kept twisting out of true. A neighbor saw me struggling and came to help. Then another. Both speak English well, but they kept talking to each other in Chinese and I was kind of left out. She spoke the best English, but even standing next to her, she couldn't always hear me speak - double hearing aids.  It got a little ridiculous.  By this time, I'd been in the direct sun for a few hours in 85F+ temps. I was getting a little heat-stroke-y: shaky, nauseous, headache.

We were going three different directions for a while. More neighbors came out, so a peanut gallery ensued.  There was a constant chatter in Chinese about the next step in building, but it did not include me. The wind came up, I felt sick, and no one was listening to me. Eventually everything that was to be upright, resembled vertical. Stakes were planted and tied to the verticals. I just wanted to get on with my life,
BUT
first one, then another neighbor and another came by pointing and made comments in Chinese and English mixed together. Collectively, the nay-sayerss were that the arbor is to tall, "unequal" (crooked), leaning, and that I was a fool for trying to build it on a windy day (it wasn't windy when I started).

As I tried to explain, getting more and more pissed off, Mr Hu came into my garden plot, grabbed an upright and started to rock it to show me how the wind would blow it over (loosening the dirt and rocking the stakes.) He started arguing with another neighbor (in Chinese) about how bad or good the structure was. Occasionally, someone would shoot me a quick translation, then jump into the argument in Chinese. Eight people arguing in Chinese getting louder and louder, trying to talk over each other, not a soul paying any attention to me. Yelling, arguing, and gesturing. I don't speak Chinese in the slightest, but I know the words for yes, no, good, bad, tie, cut, measure, and of course, I recognized my own name.

I lost it.

Speaking basic English "You must stop pulling on that Hu. I know it is not straight. It is OK" turned  into  "You are making me angry! Listen to me! You are really pissing me off! Everyone! Stop talking! No more 'bad Jennifer, no Jennifer, bad Jennifer.' STOP. HU! Stop pulling on that! It's not finished! Stop pulling on it! Leave it!" Zhenfang was laughing at me. I don't think she got it. I pantomimed covering my mouth and pointed at Hu and then at anyone I could make eye contact with.

I was completely soaked in sweat. My head was throbbing. I was pissed. I'd added crossbars to keep the whole thing from torquing. Everything was good enough for me to leave it. I packed up, came inside, rehydrated, and fell asleep in the air conditioning.

Two hours later, I went outside. Hu was there. He told me he thought the arbor was OK. (I think they started to understand how frustrated I was after I left.) Everyone else from the afternoon building saga were gone. I intended to get the planting in, but I spent my time truing up the arbor. Then it was too dark to plant.

Zhenfang came out to water her garden then went home. She came outside again, told me to stop because the sky was black (night). I finished what I was doing (she helped) and put away my tools. She handed me a bottle of water and threw an arm over my shoulder.
"You're a good friend," I said. We came in together.

I peeled off the gross clothes to get in the shower, but there was a knock at the door. It had to be Zhenfang. She brought me food - sweet potato mash and rice steamed in banana leaves. I love her!

The shower commenced and I hung all the wet, gross stuff to dry out. Oversized t-shirt, comfy shorts. Cat asleep on my lap.

I booted my computer so I could share these deep, deep thoughts, but Norton Security didn't work. A very nice man online fixed it remotely (LOVE)

Now, here I am.

The wind picked up. Thunder. Little flashes. I might have sunburn on my face. Rain - it would have been perfect if I'd planted today. The TV is beeping and flashing tornado warnings. Well shit.

I'm going to bed with my dinner, my cat and a puzzle book.

so there

Ooo... it's 1:01a, so it's a new day.

so there

Perfect Timing [updated]

There isn't much to do in the garden until the volunteer plants are big enough to identify. I got squirrly and went to the Mpls. Farmer's Market and stopped by Pflam's booth. They had pickling cucumbers I was looking for. I also picked up two more pepper plants - these are early bearing. Pflaum's only had yellow beans so I searched elsewhere. I bought an "asparagus bean" seedling (aka Asian longbean).

When I got home, I planted the stuff just as it was beginning to rain. The thunder rolled in and I finished just in time. Now we've had a nice downfall. Rain for another day or two so I don't have to water anything.

I'm on the couch with my favorite blanket. Chilly but not cold - just right. Cozy.

[Update:]
The storm passed quickly and blue sky followed. I took a sun nap. The sun is setting with wispy high clouds showing gaudy orange, pink, purple and blue. I could go outside to work on my latest construction project, but I'm not gonna. xoxo

Success!! The water well is done! (I think) [updated]

Since the whole lot of us share one garden hose, evening watering sessions can lead to lots of waiting for one's turn. It's nice time to chat with the neighbors, but no fun if you're in a hurry, or worse, you didn't water the day before and you're in a hurry.
To handle this, many keep really big containers of water in their garden plot so they can water when it's convenient and fill the bin when no one is around. The container of choice is a large garbage can. Like everything in our garden though, you must have a place to keep it. Not only in the garden, but over the winter.
Since my garden is short and wide this year instead of long and narrow, I thought I'd give it a try. I buried a collapsible recycling bin I bought at IKEA, lined it with black garbage bags, and filled it with water. It's about 8" above ground - not so high that it will block sunlight to anything important and settled enough that the softish sides won't fold, I can't knock it over (dumping all of the water) and no one can steal it. I've put 4 foot tall stakes around it so I have something to hold onto when I'm walking by  and won't fall in (I hope).
I hope the black bags will warm up the water and keep it water tight. It's got a lid so the city won't be upset about it being a mosquito breeding spot.
I watered tonight. The seedlings are so small, it's hard to tell what's there. Onion sets I put in are sprouting really well, but I don't think any of the seeds I've put in the ground have done anything. It's hard to tell since so many weeds are coming in. I have to wait until things get more leaves so I can tell them apart.

Fourth Day

I just woke up and it's the fourth day of pain. By now, I know it's fibromyalgia. I can't always tell right away.
I woke up with pain, nausea, and anxiety. Part of the anxiety is my body's natural reaction with a fight/flight reaction.  The other part of anxiety comes because I know I can't make it go away and I don't know how long it will last and I don't want to do anything that will make it worse.
I dread the commitments I've made for today. I'm supposed to tutor English this morning for two hours. My student and her husband asked me to help them switch their checking accounts from one bank to another this afternoon. I feel bad about cancelling.
I was at the garden yesterday. I had woken from a nap and felt really good. I needed to water since the plants are so little and the seeds haven't breached ground yet. It was sunny so I thought I'd get too warm, but it was really windy.
It's sunny again today, but it was supposed to be 38F last night, so it's not going to warm up until this afternoon. I'm going to go cancel tutoring, take some Oxycontin, and vegetate.

Zucchini! I forgot the Zucchini!

It rained last night and might rain tonight, but I decided I would water the garden a little and check on the planted seeds. All was fine and good until someone mentioned how much they love zucchini and yellow squash. I totally forgot about them! I love them but apparently not enough to remember to start seeds. They are high maintenance when they are growing fast. Actually a pretty big pain. I'm going to plant more butternut instead. I don't have to harvest those until after the frost. Lazy fruit! Yay!

Cut Off

 OK, I'm pretty much cut off as far as garden spending goes. There is only a small square of unplanted space, and I still have 20-30 seedlings, some of which I'm sure won't survive. Since everything is pretty much done, I just have to wait and watch things grow whilst watering daily. The weather is coming along nicely, and I appreciate the rain. "They" haven't fixed the water spout, so we have no source of water on the outside of the building. We're all making laps in the front door, water from the craft room, out through the back door to garden, and repeat. It smells like rain tonight. Pictures to come.