Growing and Growing

The boys are having a "playdate" in Mr. Smarty Pants' room at the moment. This is very brave of Mr. Smarty Pants, since Mr. Autism is capable of vast amounts of destruction in minimal amounts of time. For now though, the living room is blessedly quiet, and I'm enjoying the (temporary) peace.

Payday came a day early, which was a pleasant surprise, and much needed, since we are out of almost everything, not that I really feel like going shopping with the boys. It's been the kind of hot lately that makes you wonder how on earth anyone ever decided to colonize this mad state before air conditioning was invented. It's so hot I don't want to get in the car and drive across town to go swimming. Unless you've experienced Florida in July, you may not understand that statement.

Anyhow, moving on. The banana peppers and jalapenos are producing nicely, although the soda bottle self-watering system does have issues. The soil in the topsy turvy needs to be wet enough to wick through the water in the bottle, which can lead to the interesting situation of having a nearly full soda-bottle reservoir and a wilted plant. I've been solving this problem by watering the plant slightly while refilling the reservoir, unless there's been a decent rainfall and the soil is still moist up to my first knuckle in my pointer finger.

The last of the loose-leaf lettuce has gone to seed, which doesn't really surprise me in this heat. The romaine and mesclun mixes are growing slowly. I'm misting them with the hose for a few minutes every morning, and they are hanging out on the new table in the partially-shaded northwest corner of the backyard.

I ran a trial with the self-watering milk jugs to see how they would work before committing to starting seeds in them, with some success. Mr. Autism knocked one over and messed around with the strings so I don't consider that to be a good trial. The other one successfully wicked the water up until the reservoir was empty. I refilled the reservoir and dampened the soil on top, and 24 hours later, with no rain, it was still moist. I am now starting butterfly bushes in that one, since I feel pretty confident in it. Since it is very fragile, I have it resting on the ground under the table.

The very, very large experimental self-watering overflow plastic tray was a bust. It's simply too heavy and sags in the middle. The little seedlings are still alive though, and hanging out on the front porch. I spend a lot of time misting with a water bottle throughout the day.

The smaller overflow plastic trays seem to work as self-watering containers, although honestly, the milk jugs are more portable, easier to refill, and more compact. Since space is an issue, going even slightly vertical whenever possible is handy.

I think I will be making more of the milk jugs, and just making sure that they are out of Mr. Autism's reach. Since my beloved has requested that I try to restrict my seed starting activities to the great outdoors, that should be easier. In my defense, I don't think either one of us could have predicted Mr. Autism's fascination with dumping over the seedling containers, or trying to water them from across the kitchen with the hose sprayer.

Live and learn.

The cherry tomatoes are producing prolifically, and the first of the big tomatoes are turning ripe, finally! One of the two cayenne plants is growing nicely, while the other is struggling mightily in this heat to survive. The bell peppers are almost ready to be transplanted into a bigger container or into the ground, and I need to decide whether to put the new banana pepper sprouts into the topsy turvy with their big brothers from the seed packet or into the ground and grow them "normally".

The carrots, beans and peas are outgrowing their "temporary" containers.

The mulch needs to get finished this weekend so I can plant them in their permanent home. It's hot outside, but it has to get done, or all this effort for nothing. The City people were not there when my beloved went early in the morning earlier this week, so it's shovel time on Saturday.

With money being fairly tight, we will be glad for the beans, carrots, peas and peppers in a couple of months. I have a strange feeling that the north side of the backyard won't get redone in time for any real planting before September. I'm okay with that, as long as we can finish what we started.

In quasi-related book news- it is still growing, too. :)