Garden Diary

One quarter of the hoop house beds are double dug and amended with our generous neighbor's horse manure.  Kohlrabi, carrots, radishes and peas are planted (all seeds because I was too short of time and too disorganized from moving to manage to start anything early).  I did manage to start amaranth, malabar spinach, lemongrass, and chile peppers in Jiffy peat pots yesterday.  They are on a heat mat in the living room, which is usually 65 degrees during the day and 55 at night... I didn't think they'd do well without the extra heat for germinating.  (All the seed info said they could liked to germinate in soil at least 70F.  Tomorrow, assuming the weather allows it, I'm going to clear the old 5'x10' cement trough of the trash tree in it, the trash shrub next to it, and the remaining layer of weeds.  I will probably NOT do anything about the pile of rocks next to it at this point, because I have other, more time sensitive, jobs to do... like emptying the green shack so it can be torn down on Saturday.  In fact, if I can find the RoundUp, I may just hack out the tree and the shrub, and simply spray the remaining weeds.  Then I can go work on the shack tomorrow, and deal with turning the bed Sunday after church, assuming the weeds are dead.  But that does put off getting the manure in the bed.  At least we have established that my little wagon DOES actually attach to the tractor, and I will not have to haul anymore manure uphill by hand (which experience taught me to appreciate cart ponies far more than I did).  El Jefe has apparently stayed late for Hapkido class after the usual TaeKwonDo, seeing as how he isn't home yet, so I think I will go find some bowls and start nicking and soaking morning glory and snake gourd seeds to start in the remaining peat pots tomorrow.  Then I will have to go buy more peat pots, because I will have more plants to start at the end of the month when the first sets are moved to the hoop house.

My week-by-week garden planner arrived in the mail yesterday - It looks to be very helpful, and allows me at least three years of space for weekly notes.  The One Line A Day Five Year Memory Book turned out to be far too small - one line per day that is only three inches long is simply not enough for my verbosity... I'm glad I ordered the other book at the same time.