It's been a long day, my legs are tired and my feet hurt but by golly, the garden is IN!
All of a sudden we're having cool nights. Down to 43 this morning with a few more of these mornings coming and that's not good for beans trying to germinate. 5th Gear helped me get the plastic on the bean bed tunnel and by 11am the soil temp had gone from 60 to 75. I left the sides up so it didn't get too hot and lowered the sides at 7:15 tonight. This is the bean bed with the Spring Treat corn bed in front and the Silver Queen corn area behind..
Then I put the three wall 'o waters I had on three of the planted okra hills and black buckets over the other three hills to get that soil temp up.
The zinnias got planted in this bed and the tithonia in a different bed. I alternated the red zinnias with the yellow. Some say a solid block of one color is better. Meh... I like 'em mixed.
Then I dragged out a pallet, filled two pots and planted the Thai Red and the St. Kitts/Nevis roselles. I did the Thai last year and want to compare the two this year. That's the trombone squash in the foreground in the middle of the now-defunct asparagus patch.
The last chore of the day was pulling sweet potato slips and planting them. I got twelve slips but am only planting half as I'm giving the other half to a good friend. We got all the sweets we wanted from five hills last year so six should be OK this year. If any more slips grow, there's room for two more in the row.
I've already got my shoes off. Time to crack a cold celebratory brew and let the recliner work it's magic. The day is done and so is the garden! Woo Hoo!
