We'll have a lot of business on our vending machines tomorrow for 2 reasons: Superbowl (the employee television is located in our area) and rain! Ron and I used to have a morbid joke back in the days of the deli, if we had a good night, it must have been cold, rainy, or both.
We've been having warm weather and FINALLY some sun. I got to get out in my garden yesterday and today. I fixed up garden bed 1, wow. It has fantastic soil, just beautiful. I can hardly wait to plant something in it. What plant? Whatever goes in there will be spoiled rotten - the soil was already fantastic before I added 5 gallon buckets of compost, shredded leaves, and mulch. I can't forget the 1.25 gallons of composted steer manure either. That's some good stuff.
I hate to say it, but none of the other beds look that good. I have decided, for one, to adopt a minimal tillage policy. I haven't tilled garden bed one in years. Not so with the other beds. They look like they have clay soil. Bed one, all I notice is the richness. The other beds received more tilling and more amendments. They look worse.
Another reason I'm reluctant to till the soil - over the last few days I've discovered a toad and a snake. The little brown garden snakes are harmless to me and the cats, but they're death, literally, to bad bugs. Same with the toads. I could have killed that toad if I'd been using anything other than my hands to move that mulch. As it was, it jumped, I screamed, I picked it up once I realized it was a toad, it urinated on my hands, I put it down in a safe, mulch-protected location. I've also found lots of nice fat earthworms, my little tractors, in the garden beds as I did. I don't want to hurt my freinds.
I get a little tired of the fatigue. I won't stop taking my Lithium or even reduce the dose. It works; I'm not sick. It's that simple. I just get sad when it's a beautiful sunny day, my garden is calling, it's 1 in the afternoon, but I need a nap because I'm so tired I'm almost walking into walls. I have to set my alarm, nap, wake, then go play in the garden. I want to have the energy I used to have, without the accompanying illness. Good luck with that! I had to take my nap, when I wanted to garden, 2 days in a row. It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow too. AAgh.
I planted 7 more collards and nearly all my onions. I've planted well over 100. Some transplants went into the garden bed right away (before torrential rains). The collard I planted right away is not doing well. Ooops. The onions are all happy. I planted some of them 2 weeks ago, a few 1 week ago, and the rest 2 weeks after I bought them. Some of the ones I planted today were definitely "sub-prime", and one displayed symptoms of "Pink Root". I won't be planting that! I'm glad I have the Texas Vegetable gardening book, it had a photo of an onion afflicted with pink root. It actually looks pretty until you realize "That is bad".
I gave my "Stupice" tomato a vacation out in the backyard while it was sunny the last couple days. I guess you could say it's my "Pre-hardening-off" period. It seems happy. I've been giving the seedlings nice diluted drinks of seaweed and fish emulsion. Once the "Stupice" gets bigger, I'll pot it up from the Jiffy Pellet to a 4-inch self watering pot. Walmart has some good ones that work well.
I got my seeds from Johnny's today. Now I can start my red-veined sorrel, red romaine, and some other romaine lettuces. I like romaine, can you tell?
I'm a little annoyed at Bubba-cat. He knocked over my peat pot with the broccoli raab. I hope the seed is OK. We'll find out in a few days. I potted up my NZ spinach yesterday and put it outside. It needs low temperatures in order to germinate and we're supposed to have some nights in the 30's.
Years ago, I made some compost and stored it in big plastic storage bins (18 gallon). One of them was fantastic, one was good, and today I opened my last one. It was fantastic!
What a nice gift to give myself. I'm getting myself a compost bin this month so I can keep making more.
Maybe I can get Ron to give me one for Valentine's day.
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