Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A Wet Wednesday

Thanks to all you wonderful people who commented last night.  I won't go over the events of the last two days, other than to say that there is one thing that proved this cretin who did the bombing wrong. 
People ran TOWARDS his cowardly bomb to help their fellow man, not away. 

So there. 

As promised, today I have transplanting pictures.  I sure am glad I got things transplanted, because I am out of space under lights in this house. 

Those of you in the KC area... J and S, for sure... will have read many stories in the Star lately about the police watching those who have bought hydroponic supplies from local gardening stores.  It seems these are "clues" that people are growing marijuana in their homes, and, indeed, a couple (who turns out to have met when they worked for the CIA) from a tony Johnson County suburb endured a police raid on their home because of this suspicion, only to find that they were growing tomatoes in their basement.  This couple is suing the police.  Having said all that, I have lived in fear of my grow lights in the bedroom being assumed to be over pot plants!  And I'm not kidding! 

Instead, the tomato farm groweth! 


Please check out the VERY professional pile of wood that these lights are resting on, especially the third piece down. 

I am asking Keith this afternoon when he gets home to please hold the lights up while I redo the wood supports.  
These are on a card table.  

'This is the new mix I am using, on recommendations of my friend at Howard Pines Nursery. 

I mixed it with Miracle Gro garden soil. 


Here it is in the ubiquitous Homer bucket... it made a nice planting medium.  They also recommended putting some sand in the mix, but the only sand I had was in 80 pound bags clear across the yard, and frankly, I was not up to it.  


I took the bottom out of each smaller Jiffy pot when putting them into the larger... in other words, I did not uproot the plant again.  


And these are the pots into which they went... they are six inches across.  
I got these at Wal Mart, but had to go two different places to find them.  One had never had any in stock. 



I marked each plant marker with the second transplant date.  I filled the containers full, because I have found if you leave them short, it wicks water off the plant. 
Do you see how thick the stem is? 
The green leaf to the left is a cotyledon, I found a few plants where I had not removed them on the first transplant. 

When it comes time to plant in two weeks, I'll plant the whole container, pulling the bottoms out carefully. 

In two of these plants, I found root systems hanging down as I pulled the bottoms off.  I tried to take a picture of the long, long roots, but it did not come out.  

The two tomato varieties doing very well are Gypsy and Abu Rawan... both heirloom varieties.  The hybrid Super Sauce is still not as robust. 


You see why I wanted to get them moved! 

I am giving away a bunch of these plants, but I am glad they have gotten off to such good starts! 

Today I planted out a zinnia seed mixture that I made myself of about six different colors from Landreth Seeds.  I was super pleased to find that some inexpensive lillies I bought at the end of the season from Wal Mart in full bloom, are coming back up!  Yee ha!  I planted the zinnia seeds in the spot where the sunflowers grew last year, in our south perennial bed. 

It is raining out today, and everything is getting a good watering.  My friend writes of putting her horses out on grass in the next few days... she is 75 miles farther north... but things are greening up nicely around here! 

That's it for a rainy Wednesday from Calamity Acres! 



9 comments:

  1. It's suppose to rain here tomorrow.

    We are going to the arena again tonight to practice because it's still too wet from all the last rain.

    I got all my zinnias, 4 o clocks and vines planted last weekend.

    Your tomatoes look wonderful.

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  2. It is very cold, rainy, hail, lightening here today, plus this is the third day in this office that there is no heat, still waiting on the furnace part to come in...i am freezing///this probably isn't to good for my cough i am still trying to shake.
    stella roses mom

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  3. Good point on the movement of the crowd. I hope the people win their lawsuit. Modern cops tend to shoot first and ask questions later.

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  4. I'm sure you heard of the couple up north that got raided for a suspected meth lab when they were making maple syrup!
    Gosh, your tomato plants are beautiful! I really need to get mine into bigger pots in the next few days.

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  5. Everything is coming along so nicely! Wow, that's amazing, putting her horses out on grass! Mine won't go on their pastures until at least early June unless it rains like crazy around here, but even then very late in May. I'm glad things are greening up! They are starting here for sure. I agreed with your post too about Boston. It was heartbreaking on many levels but yes, these people need to realize what they are doing won't work and won't break the spirit of good either. Have a nice evening Mary Ann!

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  6. Hey Mary Ann! I posted an old postcard special for you over on my blog! ;-)

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  7. Those tomato plants look as if they are ready to go in the ground. You've done a fine job growing them. Hope they take to the outdoors the way they've taken to growing inside. Unbelievably we are to be in the up 70's today with rain moving in later. It'll only last a day and then back we go to the 50's. Everything is nice and green here too.

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  8. It has been raining so much here in mid-MO that I'm wondering if we'll ever get anything planted. The farmers are getting worried, I'm sure.

    Your plants look good and hardy!

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  9. Jenga! That's what you are playing with your lights right? Heehehehe! Just teasing. We do what we have to for our gardens, don't we?

    All your tomatoes look wonderful! Mine are all spindly this year. It's been cold and I did not start them the same as last year. I also did not get them thinned as early as last year. I think the lack of thinning made them leggy. Frustrated but they will still plant in the ground and work just fine.

    Have fun gardening!
    Dee

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