Productio Ad Absurdam

There’s a bunny nest under the woodpile with at least two baby bunnies.  I see them about the yard but they don’t go near the garden so the circles of protection are holding.  The babies like to hide in the jungle ferns when Slater is out in the yard.  I haven't been able to snap a pic, they aren't blithe and chill like Oliver was last year.

I meant to go to the library yesterday, to go through the seed library to look for sunflowers and carrots, but even as I stood there on the corner staring at the library the intention completely disappeared from my brain; menopause sucks.  But the housewarming party in 8 days will not look upon the garden of a total failure thanks to Foxfarm, Gersten’s, the Richfield farmers market and the Nokomis Rebel Gardeners; even if I had to cheat to give that impression.

Summer planting and transplanting is mostly done.  I transplanted 4 cukes, 13 sunflowers and 50 corn seedlings this morning.

Wait…you started *corn* indoors?  WTF?

Look, winter simply refused to get the hell out of spring’s way until  late May so I wanted to give those seedlings, the literal backbone of my planned 3 Sisters garden, every possible chance.  Thus, I started them indoors.  I’ll direct seed the last 14 tomorrow (they didn’t sprout indoors so redux).

I’ll direct seed the rest of the sunflower seeds tomorrow, they’re soaking with the seed corn now. I’m rubbish at spatial visualization and the indoor-sown sunflowers didn’t take up nearly as much space in the backyard jungle bed as I thought they would.  The lettuce, cabbages, arugula, carrots and beets all have teeny tiny little sprouts.  The shallots don’t but they aren’t expected yet.

I have two mater seedlings, but the eggplant and poblano haven’t sprouted yet.  So I’m leaving them outside because the weather the next few days is going to be very warm and very sunny.  I may have a dilemma though; typically my germination rates are 80% or less and this year I decided to adapt by sowing too many seeds, 4 when I want to plant 3.  Well all 4 of my cukes sprouted so that’s why there’s that one lone pot off to the side.  If the maters, eggplant and peppers do the same I’ll have a real problem because I may not have enough pots/beds to plant them.  Surplus will have to be planted in the jungle bed I guess.    If the eggplant and peppers don’t sprout?  I’ll buy plants at the farmers market.  A local grower sells some real beauties there.

I also rearranged the sunroom now that there are no seed trays nestled under the grow lights.  I moved the herb garden closer to direct sunlight.  That lush oregano, thyme and dill?  That’s from the farmers market.  That stunted thyme and basil?  That’s from Home Depot who left them out overnight in the frost and they never recovered.  That giant basil is one that I bought well over a year ago and it’s still growing beautifully.  I bought the parsley at the farmers market to make chimichurri.

Aren’t I worried about bunnies?  No, although I’ve had several in my yard the past few days.  Yesterday was the first baby bunny sightings of the year, one across the street while walking Slater (he doesn’t notice rabbits unless they leap a foot in front of his face) and one in our backyard.  I’ll use coffee grounds around the garden to protect it because they hate that smell, but they have to be regularly refreshed.  So I watched them carefully yesterday as they bopped around the yard while I was sitting there and noticed where they come in and out.  Patrick had to cut down a tree in front of the house that was ailing pretty badly so I just used branches and trunks from that tree to block their access points.  I don’t worry much about them digging new tunnels, our yard is fully fenced with wooden fencing and the yards around us only have chain link if any fence at all.  Our yard isn’t worth their time or energy.               

How it started yesterday afternoon, 3 cubic yards of garden mix, a couple of tons. My garden is 64 cubic feet so I'll have surplus. It smells like shit cuz it already contains compost, rabbit and camelid looks like. Shifting it in 30mph gusts yesterday was so much fun. Got some more done today after work. I hope to have it done by Saturday night because Sunday the forecast is pissing down rain.

MinneHONK! at the Mayday Powderhorn Park.

The big thing is that I have claimed the workbench built into the back wall of the garage as my potting bench.  I can make a mess in the garage and it not matter so it takes the pressure off, and it’s just ten feet out the garage door to the beds so it works well, and seed trays are easy to carry into the sunroom when I’m doing indoor sowing.  And it has a pegboard for hanging tools…that I can only reach the bottom half of because the previous owner must have been 7 feet tall (ask me about the kitchen cabinets).

The first shipment of bed liners arrived so they’re in the first bed, weighed down with rocks because it can get pretty windy.  The four potato pots are full of soil because one of my fellow Rebel Gardeners had a lot of very fully chitted spuds to give away.  So four yellow taters are planted when I was only planning on four.  Let’s see what happens when I double up.  It’s also an experiment:  I splurged on soil to fill the pots and got my beloved Foxfarm.  Foxfarm’s soils and amendments make up for nearly all of my shortcomings as a gardener, I successfully grew tomatoes in Las Vegas in August thanks to Foxfarm’s Ocean Forest soil.  So one pot is all FOF, one is all FOF with the cow compost sample I got at the lawn & garden show this spring.  The other two are half FOF and half Foxfarm Raised Bed.   So I’ll be making observations and travel the learning curve.  Just watch, with my luck all four will grow the same.

I bought a soil sensor to make sure I’m watering my veg properly, the kind you stick in the soil, read, pull and wipe off, then stick in the next pot/plot/bed.  I used to use Aquameters and I loved them, but they are expensive and replacing their insert can be a a pain in the ass.  This sensor also looks at light levels and soil fertility and pH, but I’m already suspicious about the pH function working properly.  I’ll keep you updated on that.  But the others seem to work well, as I used it both pre- and post-watering the newly established tater pots.

The herbs are all growing quickly, except the poor new basil that got knocked over at the store a couple of times.  But it’s not dying, so there’s that.  I need to stake up the oregano and thyme to keep them tidy.  

Look at all those lovely veg sprouts!  Green & red cabbages, buttercrunch lettuce, arugula and peas.  The first ones burst through a week to two weeks early, I think because I used humidity domes for the first time this year.  I learned about them in the seed starting class I went to at our local library.  The domes are off because the green cabbage sprouts are too tall for them now.  The days are more than 13 hours long now so the sunlamp is only on for 6 hours per day to get to the full 16. 

I’ll put the second bed together this weekend, liners for the first bed arrived and for the second bed have been ordered.  I was going to wait until it was closer to summer planting time to deal with the second bed but we decided to buy soil in bulk which I didn’t know was possible until a friend of my partner’s told us, so the second bed has to be ready to receive it.  I was worried about the soil budget until I learned about the bulk purchase but now it’s going to cost less than half of what we budgeted.

We went to the neighborhood association’s annual meeting the other night and I was invited to join the neighborhood’s Rebel Gardeners, which amuses me.  Yes, there will be seedbombing.  I also wound up on the board because nobody else raised their hand, go figure.

The backyard is getting very pretty, purple deadnettle and wild violets and dandelions.  Still have no clue what the tree in the backyard is, no leaves yet so the ID apps are stumped.  Mystery plants are growing in front and back beds, they look like they are growing from bulbs but they aren’t showing identifiable features yet.  Tulips? Lilies? Daffodils? Irises?  Who the hell knows.  Patience is a virtue, just not mine.  The back beds are also showing a few varieties of stonecrop, creeping coins, and there’s a paddle cactus in the front but it doesn’t look like it’s going to recover from being buried under snow for four months.  It looks like a prickly pear but the paddles are smaller, and it’s not wrinkled like an Indian fig.  Too bad I don’t like nopales for breakfast.