Cats and Dogs!

I know this sounds extremely familiar and I am so hoping that this summer is not a repeat of last because it has rained, almost literally, cats and dogs. Pouring, nonstop, for 4 full days. Not one stream or beam of sunlight in just as many days. It's been unbelievably gloomy, dark, wet, and humid. Luckily, those days occurred in April and I am attributing them to April Showers. That's all it better be because last summer was rain, rain, and more rain. The most rain in the DMV area in 20 years or something along those lines. Quite possibly it was the most rain in the history of the DMV because they ran an article on it in the Washington Post, it may have been 20 days straight of rain (I don't I'll have to look into it.) 

Good news, the rain made everything flourish. I thought it would drown my tender seedlings but it didn't. There were 4 inch deep puddles surrounding every raised bed. It was unbelievable when I woke up this morning to sunlight and warmth. I ran outside breathed in the warm air and headed straight for my boxes. Everything looked amazing! There were even red berries on the strawberry plants I've yet to install in their permanent spots! 

The radishes grew in groups and the lettuce seeds have popped through. The romaine seedlings are a vibrant green and the strawberries that are planted look, just, OK but that's good enough for me! 

Radish seedlings (L). Grew in tight groups. I'll have to do a fair amount of thinning. Romaine lettuce green as ever (R)! Lemon Boy tomato plant (Bg). 

Lettuce seedlings (L) popping through. Sweet basil (R) greener then the day I bought it. 

Major Change

Rain Day...1

The weather for the week has luckily changed from all rain everyday but today to no rain except on Thursday when we'll have thunder showers. I'm so glad... My plants need the sun. We've had the rainiest month of May in a long time. I hope July isn't going to be like this too. When we get a rain spring season we usually get a July filled with thunder storms bad enough to take out trees. For now its sunny days ahead, unless it changes again.

Patch Market...

I went straight into PM today and had a look at everything. I wasn't going to water because I thought we were still going to get rain all week, at this point. So I just looked. I noticed that the second rotation of radishes have germinated. They look a little different then the last bunch, darker leaf color, but strong. It may be due to the warmer soil temp or the fact that I plant there before. I should have amended the soil with some compost but didn't. Anyway, I moved over to have a look at the strawberry buckets and noticed that a few of the blooms have berries starting. Not berries like the first one but ones already double the size of the ones produced by the small initial flowers. These will definitely be berries, well hopefully. Then I noticed that most of the blooms and berries on both the buckets and the topsy turvy each had the little dark striped crunchy bugs. There tiny but when you kill them they make a Big Crunch noise. I have no idea what they are but have seen them inside the house all my life and smashed them all my life. I've never once seen them outside. To keep my strawberries safe I went in to get the Cpt. Jack's spray. I sprayed the strawberries then checked the weather. I wanted to make sure the weather still called for rain because it was/is hot and dry. It didn't so I watered everything in Patch, carefully. I didn't want to wash of all the Cpt. Jack's I'd just sprayed. Then I moved into Potagar Schoultz.

First sizable start of a strawberry. Few more but this is the biggest. 

Same bloom in 5G bucket a few days apart. 

Second round of radishes. 

Potagar Watering...

Everything in PS needed to be watered so I hooked up the new hose and hose gun. It was amazing. I watered the entire garden in a matter of a minute. I filled the watering can with the "bucket filler" setting on the hose gun and watered all the potted plants and plants waiting to be planted. Then I grabbed the EcoSmart and sprayed the grass in the far beds, again. I don't recommend EcoSmart for grass it works way too slowly. The party pan and crookneck squash are dying to be transferred they have squash blooms and baby squash starting. The party pan plant bloom basically overnight. They are ready. So I tore the grass up with a large wooden board and mixed it in. We need to get the Corn Gluten preemptive weed killer before it starts growing back and we need to add some compost to the bed to stifle the turned grass and get it to start breaking down. 

It was so hot I came inside but I still have more to do like spray epsom mix and weed. I'll cool off go back out and write a second entry for the one I didn't write yesterday. 

Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day...

I'm glad I wrote two entries yesterday because I didn't have the time to garden today. I spent the better part of my day with my mother. We spoke about the garden and why I hadn't brought her the radishes I'd harvested. She didn't realize that only 2 were ready to harvest and harvested. My older sister, Angela, apparently loves to snack on radishes so the Cortes family will definitely be getting the full harvest. I knew my mom liked them but I had no idea my sister did. Good to know because the two I harvested and put in the crisper here are still just sitting there along with the lettuce. I probably should have taken them over just so that they wouldn't go to waste. It may have been a tease, one radish each, but at least they would have been enjoyed. 

               My mom (L) and Tia (R).

Windy...

It was windy all day but around 6pm when I got home from celebrating with "la mama" the wind picked up even more. I was sitting in the basement reading when I heard a "thwack." For some reason, I immediately thought of my Topsy Turvy. I looked out the window in, which happens to look out onto Patch at ground level, and didn't see the TT bobbing in the wind. I looked down and saw it sitting on the sidewalk. I grabbed my coat and ran outside, it was a cold wind, to find the Topsy Turvy sitting on the sidewalk unharmed. The shephard hook had buckled but because of the weight it slowly lowered the TT. Thank GOD! It seems that all that rain had weighed even heavier on the TT and caused the earth to soften significantly, so the hook didn't hold in the wind. I took the Topsy off the hook and re-positioned it. Then I tried getting the Topsy back on the hook, no luck. I ran inside to grab pliers and another type of hook. No go. Finally, I asked Mike to come out and help me get it on. He was able to help me but the earth was too soft and the hook didn't hold. In the midst of trying to get it on the hook I broke a few stems, I'd feared that exact scenario. I had to resign to taking it off the hook and leaving it on a chair. I could have left it on the sidewalk but I figured I can avoid some pests if I leave it up a little higher. Oh, and when I went to look at the hook it was basically bent in half, I'd loosened the rusted adjuster with the pliers but I didn't think it'd done anything because I couldn't adjust, at all, it had weakened the hold though allowing it to bend. That hook is done for... I'm going to have to figure something else out for the Topsy before I break every stem on the darn thing and never get a berry. Topsy Turvy's should only be used if you have a solid place to hang it, in a sunny place, like a support beam.

Georgia's Don't Jet...

Sadly, when I was running back and forth, to Patch, dealing with the Topsy I noticed that the sweet potatoes haven't made any progress. They look just as limp and dead as they did when I planted them, maybe even more so. I planted them on a good day but at a bad point, weather-wise. I had no idea it was supposed to be so cold today. I mean, technically, it was 73 and sunny but the wind chill was serious. It didn't feel any warmer than 55 degrees and sweet potatoes like warm/hot days, leaning towards the HOT. We have a few extras and can buy some plants with "shoes" at Home Depot if we need to replace them. It won't be a waste either because Burpee will reimburse us if they all die. That's why I take the chance ordering from them.

                 Still not looking so hot.