Today's Work

I went out in the morning to finish cleaning up the tomato plants. I couldn't however. It had rained last night and the plants were still soaking wet. So that and the spraying will have to wait. Hopefully tomorrow will be drier. At the very least it is going to be in the 70s all day tomorrow so I can always do it in the afternoon if I have to.

While I was out I did a little hand pollinating of both the zucchini and melons. Then I picked some chocolate mint. I decided it was big enough that I could dry it. And indeed it filled up my dehydrator just fine. I put it outside to dry. I have an outlet by my front door. The scent of the mint wafted into the house all day long on the wind. What a wonderful small.

Then I decided if I couldn't work outside in the garden because of the dampness. I'd go into the nursery and finally pot up my broccoli. The plants were getting really crowded in their little blocks.

They were much happier in their new newspaper pot homes. As soon as these are ready to be planted I'll rip out the old broccoli, which despite the heat is still giving me some good side shoots.

Since my hands were dirty, I made a whole flat of soil blocks. Then immediately filled them all up. I put in five rows of a kale mix. I put one seed in each block. I only need about 18 plants, so the thirty blocks should be more than sufficient. I was afraid of doing more than one seed though since it was a mix. I might pull out the weaker looking ones and end up all the same variety. Or I might leave some of the weaker ones and find out that they were actually week seedlings. I think before these get planted I'll be able to tell them apart a little bit more. At least I'm hoping. I haven't a clue what kind of kale is in the mix.

There are twelve rows in a whole flat (6 blocks per row). So for the next three rows I put in some bok choy. I don't get big ones during the heat, but little tiny ones will grow. They are so cute when they get pulled. They won't grow nearly to the size as in the spring or the fall.

The last four rows were lettuce - Red Sails, Deer Tongue, Little Gem, and Jericho. I propped the flat up so it would be close enough to the light.

In the middle of this somehow I got outside. Don't ask me how. I haven't a clue. But it was after I had made the flat of blocks, but I hadn't planted them up yet. I was probably thinking I needed to thaw out some of the seeds in the fridge. I know I did that. I have a tenancy to flitter from one thing to the next before the first one is finished. It is how I go out into the garden for 10 minutes and end up there for hours.

Anyway I noticed the ends of the tomatoes were dry. So I started to clean the first couple out. But sadly once I got to the third one it was still wet as it was closer to the middle of the jungle. So once again I went back inside. I'll get to it tomorrow. I know I want to spray now, but really we will have some rain in the forecast for the next couple of days so I ought to hold off until Saturday anyway. That way it won't get washed off.

Lunch was a very simple meal. Some lettuce with homemade French dressing. Some carrots. I didn't even bother to chop them up. Some left over grilled snap peas from last night (they are amazingly good cold the next day). And some cheese. I was going to eat my zucchini lasagna for lunch but I decided to have leftovers for dinner. I'll eat the lasagna and my hubby will eat some pulled pork.

In the afternoon I made some little slings for the melons out of bird netting. The melons really need support soon. I'll get it up in the next few days. And still to go this afternoon I have to make some seed tapes for the carrots.