What's that?

After more rain (lovely thunderstorm late evening yesterday...) those pesky weeds have cropped up again! OK, someone somewhere must love them, but -

More veggies have made their appearance finally! Spring onions,




and this one (see picture) which is a little quiz for rest of you to answer - so what is it?



And here's a fingerling potato leaf bud, up close (in macro).

a rain barrel

Yes, the real thing (not to slight Oma's container that was pressed into service) - picked one up dirt cheap from the city works centre - had to queue for about an hour since all the early birds (folks) didn't want to miss out on one. Mind you, show up 1.5 hours later and you didn't have to wait...

dropped it off at the patch (ok, in the chicrabbit pen for security, as rain barrels do cost a lot) this afternoon. Will finish assembly tomorrow or monday - no rush since it will likely rain again tuesday :)

Whacked all the weeds I could find in the beds so that will be good for next few days. Noticed some of the fingerling potato shoots have leaf buds! wowee! The cornlings are very noticeable as they are in 2 very visible rows; and more beans and snap peas sprang up. Don't think anything else has surfaced yet.

Also placed more tags (especially for the lettuce as there are so many kinds). Will need to get more tags made.

It started to rain again while PC, ToniB and I were discussing location of the rain barrel - PC was very helpful and instructed ToniB on where to place it as well as height of the "base" - they took off to the patch in the rain so PC could show ToniB what needed to be done while I sat in the car - and it really started to pour. One can hope ToniB will also fill the barrel up? First I have to finish assembly of it - as in tighten the spigot assembly (otherwise it may leak) and tighten down the screws on the lid - yep, first thing tomorrow, before ToniB gets going.

After days of rain...

The ground is soggy - my boots were thickly caked with mud - one of the joys of farming! Lots of green shoots in the beds, especially the unplanted beds (yep, weeds). The tomatoes are doing well even the leggy ones (Rooibos has company as Mr. M farmer's are in similar condition).




Being a bit impatient for the lettuce to come up (the seeded ones), decided to plant some [gasp] commercially grown ones. Red lettuce, endive, red romaine... oh, and some more peppers - long cuban reds, hot bananas, sweet ones. Even got a 4-pack of white eggplant :)

After the rain...

Lots of little green shoots coming up after wednesday's all day rain (on and off) - some are likely the veggies, mixed in among the weeds! There'll be lots of weeding to do when the rain stops.
Here's a look at the yard long beans sprouting.

It's a weed - no, it's...

Watered the patch this morning (emptied the water container and wired it to the fence as it was so so windy...) and did some weeding - took a closer look and realized that they were not all weeds pushing through the soil! There was the corn (among the chopped weeds)...


and the sweet peas!

Hip hip hurrah! with the coming rain for wed and thurs, the rest of the seeds should really sprout! Of course, the transplanted spinach and tomatoes (most) are doing really well; the peppers and lettuce are so-so as with the potatoes...

New water cooler

Oma's second container made it to the middle of the patch yesterday - the transplants must have sighed in relief! They received their water rations again. Wednesday (when it calls for rain) is a long way away...

More weeds got chopped up this morning but there's a nice crop of clover starting up. Let's make sure they are before we start pulling them up - could be veggie seedlings instead!

Another update on patch plan

To reiterate, the best laid plans of mice and ... More modifications to the plan.