Tagged!

Most of the beds got tagged this morning - here's what the patch looked like - an experimental agri station (got to avoid that "p-l-o-t" word...we've all been very good in avoidance).

Ran out of tags for the lettuces and some other ones - guess we can recall the factory worker of 1 to make some more as we do have surplus wire hangers.

Seeded some more lettuce, radish and beets, and more celeriac -realized we have a humongous bed - have left about half of that for Elzy's celeriac starts...

The plan will need to be updated again.

Oh no, a leak!

Elzy was right! The water container has a slow leak - yesterday when she pointed it out we said "nah", it was likely condensation...

They discovered the leak on a water barrel run this afternoon, so she and Mr. Z ended up giving the plants a good dousing (oh, and the seed beds too) as there was no point trucking (oops, it is a van - vanning) a less than empty barrel home... The leaky bucket (aka container) is toast as a water receptacle - it's going back back to garbage duty while Elzy calls up the back up - Oma's other container.

Not just any potatoes

This morning the "French Fingerling" potato chips (they were sectioned off into single-eye bits 2 days ago and left to dry out a bit) went into the patch. We planted them all (about 70 bits) into a full size bed that didn't get used for the tomatoes. And that finished off the water in the container...(used a wire hanger to secure it to the nearby fence so it wouldn't go barreling across the fields when the wind gets up).

The temperature was cool this morning, and overcast - perfect planting weather. The tomatoes and peppers weathered the heat of yesterday very well. Even the frissee lettuce and spinach have developed more leaves.

water brigade to the rescue

For the second day in a row, temperatures reached 28+ C - the top soil was parched with fissures opening up in the patch. Dry, dry. The transplanted veggies were in pretty good shape but we watered them all this evening to keep them going! The water container is almost empty - this calls for another barrel run (how about another few days of rain...).

Elzy observed the tomatoes seemed taller...

Tomorrow should be cooler - around 17C; the fingerling potatoes will go in bright and early.

More tomatoes

Well, only 2 more tomato plants, and 5 more hot peppers were planted this morning. The soil was still wet around the plants that were watered last night as of 7:30 this morning. No droopy heads like Mr. R farmer's roma tomatoe-lings..

The basil and Tom Thumb lettuce beds were seeded as well this morning.

We also tagged the beds that have green (not counting weeds) - no, not the seed beds (what if the seeds don't sprout? how embarrassing!) - will wait until we actually get green shoots before tagging.

Brilliant! (to Mr. Z's credit)

It was so hot today the heat (28+ Celcius) created cracks in the patch's pathways... the frissee lettuce looked like they were going the way of dehydrated salads - we had used up one of those large water jugs (the type at the water cooler stands you know) when we planted the tomatoes and peppers this afternoon and we were faced with a constant parade of those water jugs to the patch, plus perhaps raiding some one's water cooler stands - now that would not be good for office morale!

Mr. Z came up with the idea of letting gravity do the work - so this evening the water brigade came to the rescue of the transplants at the patch. Mr. Z ran a hose from a loaded 200+ litres water barrel (which sat strapped upright at the back of the van) down to a redundant plastic garbage container (courtesy of Oma - Elzy wanted to wash it out but was vetoed) set up in the patch (good thing the patch is lower than the driveway) and lo and behold, gravity caused the water to flow from barrel to container.

It took about 40 minutes to almost fill that up; in the meantime, the water crew went to work watering the plants. Then Mr. Z drained the barrel dry by watering directly from the hose.

We have made sure Oma can rest content her labours have not gone to waste. By this time (nightfall), the mosquitoes were having a feast (our legs & arms).

But, we do have enough water in the container for next few days... next time the water brigade comes out, it will be way earlier to deprive those pesky "zanzare" of their feast.

pictures of transplants

Here's those leggy tomatoes in the foreground, and the "normal" height ones behind them.

The hot peppers that were transplanted today - a little leggy but not overly...