Uh-oh: Moisture problem in the skylight

Hmm.  It's only a problem in one of the 3 skylights that I'm using.  The view in this photo is looking straight up.

The difference between this skylight and the others: there are two trays.  Perhaps it's the sheer volume of respiration going on.  And this moisture shows up a day after I pour water directly into the cachement tray instead of on the soil, but I doubt that matters.

Will need to experiment.

I've promised the hubby that I'll have the trays out of there today.  I'm going to intercrop these with stuff that was seeded outside.  My two rows of bush beans didn't germinate, so there's lots of room.

A day of work

Yesterday, I did a tonne of work.  I want to write it all out so that if I ever get down about body aches are making me wanna stop, I'll be able to read this and know that I can actually accomplish a lot in one good day, so it's ok if I slump a few days.
These photos are out of order.

I discovered one of my raspberry bushes had been covered in dirt by fucking mole activity.  I hate them so much.  I won't kill them, though.  I guess I'll have to plant daffodils around every fracking plant I care about.  This pic is from after I uncovered enough leaves to photosynthesize.  I'll have to check on it again.  After uncovering it, I watered it with EM-1.

Er ma gerd!!  Little radishes!!!  I only planted these a few weeks ago.  Charles Dowding was right about them!  I'm gonna taste a couple.  I didn't plant many, but seeing them makes me want to plant 10 times as many next year.  If I like them, I'll leave a few to go to seed.  I think they aren't GMO (and thus not engineered to produce no seeds or infertile seeds).

The peas are doing well.  The bush beans didn't come up yet.  I'm going to keep the covering off anyway.

Whoa!  A stronger looking leaf than my indoor miner's lettuce.

Here's the thornless blackberry at the end of the top bed.  I thought there were grass sprigs emerging.  I almost picked them out.  But nope!

They're sprouting garlic!

And here's why I'm removing the fleece now.  Look what the fleece does to potatoes.  Actually, this happened to my potatoes last year too.  Is it that moisture was touching the leaves--wet fleece here, and wet weed leaves last year.  I'll have to suss this out.

Every single potato is affected.

I brought the orange tree out from my office.  There's an orange!!  I have plans for this puppy.  I'm going to pick the warmest area and plant tropical stuff that I can protect with a greenhouse later.

I brought out the EM-1, read up on it, and then set up a brew that I can use in a week.  Then I made up enough to fill my 5-gallon backpack sprayer 3 times and watered all of the stuff I photographed above.  I also watered up the entire trunks of the damaged fruit trees to get some good bacteria on the wounds.

I watered these.  They need it every 2 days now.  Look at them!  I need to plant them out ASAP.  Now that I know brassicas, kale, khols, mustards, and beets need to have bacteria-dominated soil (in their own bed), I've earmarked a dedicated bed for them.  I'll interplant some of these with the potatoes outside.  Next year, I want to buy styrofoam floating trays.  It's been a hassle to climb up on things, slide the trays off, and water them.  Floating trays mean constant access to water for days at a time.  I also want to rig up a pulley system to drop my skylight shelves.

Here are my nightshades!  WOW!  Another thing I learned is that the city compost dries out faster than the horse manure mix.  I caught them in time, though.  

Need to repot these soon.  I found out from a friend that you should repot when lots of roots come out the bottom.

I know I did more.  I can't remember what.  I made a trip to the hardware store again and got a couple starts.  My neighbor gave me a great 4-tire cart, and I want to repay her by planting a mini-bed just for her, on the other side of the house because she's so allergic to tomato plants she can't even get close to them (or presumably eat off of a plant that might have had tomato pollen blow onto it).
OH!  I think I sorted seed for my next batch of planting in trays and outside.

A tale of Asperagus and Rhubarb

Our mom & pop hardware store has amazing deals on plants in spring!!  I got 20 asparagus crowns of two different varieties for $1.50 each.  That's a lot of asparagus to plant.  I also went crazy and got 6 crowns of Victoria rhubarb.  More work than my achy body looks forward to.
They sat in the garage in some coconut coir for I think more than a week.  I misted them every once in a while.  Rhubarb seems not to do well in my yard, but who cares.  I'll give it a go.
Well, roots started forming long before it was safe to plant them out, so I panicked and decided I couldn't wait, and I could protect them with mulch and leave the tall grass around them.
I chose spots in the food forest area, and I figured I'd put down some compost, lay out the rhubarb and asparagus, sprinkle with mycorrhizal fungi, cover with more compost, and protect with wood chips.  

Well, I got done on the west (left) half of the mirrored food forest.  I ran out of steam before the right (east) side--I omitted the fungi and the wood chips.  That was March 5th, 2020.

When I finally got around to checking them, it was March 29th.  I saw that some asparagus on the right (east) were dug up.  Damn animals!

Then I saw that some were just sitting on top of the compost.  WTF?

OH!  The penny dropped.  We had had a lot of rain.  So I hopped over to the left (west ) row.  No asparagus was exposed!  The wood chips had protected them.

So I hurried to re-plant them with more compost and top them with wood chips.  I forgot to use the mycorrhizal fungi again.  I'll just have to water them with the soluble version of the fungi.  Yeah.  Add that to the long long to-do list. 

Yesterday I checked them again (April 15th, 2020).  They're covered.  I saw one tiny shoot.  The grass is encroaching and the buttercup is coming up underneath.  If I had time, I'd pull them all out, weed whack to the ground, cover the ground with cardboard, then lay out compost, asparagus and rhubarb, sprinkle with fungi, cover with compost and wood chips.
I think I'll just weed whack around them and use the cut greens to mulch them.  I've got too many other things to plant.

Hack: Making a hat work well for me

I do NOT want to cut my hair.  But I will if I don't fix the problem of how hot hats make me.  Putting my hair in a ponytail or bun makes me wind up with hair on my sweaty neck.  I have to garden with a hat because my skin burns easily, extra thanks to the medication I'm on.

So I took a hat I hated, cut a hole, used a glue gun to secure the edges, and now my most hated hat is my favorite!  Yay!  

The brim is a little too big so I might yet trim off one or two rows of the material.

Work log: Every Friday

May as well start a routine.  This will be every Friday.  Soon I'll be able to drive on the driveable path (once the soil dries up some more), so I can start covering the chopped branches.

Mustang poop pickup and unloading.

Bring in and move around wood.

Work log: Compost pits

Finally!!  My neighbors wanna give me their yard waste, so that lit a fire under my ass.

I built these yesterday (April 12th, 2020).  I had to level the ground with a pick-ax.  That's my new favorite tool!!  You can do anything with it!  Forget grub hoes.

I used all the terracing block we had left from.the previous owner in odd spots.  Thank goodness we had it.

A couple months ago, I treated all of the pallets with raw linseed oil.  They look like they'll last a while.

I anticipate runoff through the holes in the blocks so I put a verticle layer of rotted wood chips between the blocks and the soil.  That has worked well in the wood terraces.  Once roots colonize the wood chips, that should stop most runoff.

Smashed my finger, though.  It's purple and puffy now.

In carving out some soil, I got some good pics of the clay and silt layers under the 4" of soil.

I also found 2 sprouted walnut seedlings and moved them near to the other walnut sapling next to the A/C unit.  Thank you, squirrels!!

Wow!  What a great start!  The neighbors dropped this off.

Seed Comparison: Peppers and Eggplant

Hmm.  Sown on 3/6 (the 6-cell closest to the orange tags), 3/12, and today (3/20).

The Renee's Garden seed is the best, and it's a year old.  The Burbee is doing the poorest.  Nothing from the Burpee hot pepper mix.  

Caveat, I don't know which end gets the most heat/sun in the bathroom skylight.  Should've made note of that.  The biggest sprout is corkscrewed so I've probably rotated the tray.

Sown: My First Flat

On 3/6/2020, I filled a flat of many many small cells, mostly with super small seeds.  I've never done this before, and boy, did I make a mistake.  I must've put too many seeds in.  

What do I do?  I need to look up when it's safe to "prick them out" and repot them.  The row of peas has one shoot coming out, and a ton of spilled seeds.  :)  

I think I'll fill the other tiny-cell tray with the composted horse manure and try this again with the same seeds.  I've kept them sorted into the sets that I've planted, including the peas and beans I sowed outside.

Sown: Peppers and Eggplant

In the top-floor bathroom skylight, the temperature gets pretty high.  If the sun is out, it can get above 90 degrees F.

On 3/8/2020, I sowed seeds in one 6-block for each of the seeds, and then again today in the second 6-block (3/12/2020).  

On 3/10, I pulled them down to check on the moisture, and my hand slipped.  This is after half of the mess was cleaned up.  :(

I really need to make my pulley system.

I'm worried about the compost I'm using from Bailey's (less than 2 miles away).  They double-ferment and double-screen it.  It should be top-quality stuff.  But there are so few worms.  And look at the tar-like substance that's left on your fingers after messing with it.  What is that?!?

Here's how they look on 3/20.  Not so good.  

Gonna get some more Renee's pepper seed if I can.

Sown: Beets, Brassicas, Micro-Tomatoes

March 12th:  Well, I missed the full moon by 3 days.  We'll see how these do.

I put them above the sink.  

These are sown in composted mustang manure from Catherine's.  I sprinkled mychorrhizals in with the seeds.

So, I know planting by moon phases is one theory.  There's also how close the moon is to our position on the earth.  Gotta look that up.

March 20th:  Wow!!  The biggest sprout is a... mushroom!!  But seriously, the sprouts are pretty uniform.  The water in the collection tray reeks!!  I rinsed it out, watered the cells, and left the dome on for another day.

Work log: Terraces and first annual bed

Too worn out to type much.  Our lawn guy helped me with the beds and terraces.  He's got the endurance of Superman.  Looking good!  Gonna sow something soon.

Update: April 2nd.

Finally all the wood is placed!!  Does it not look wayyy better?!  

Next, I need to lay the cardboard and fill in the next row of planting beds.  

Also, I want to come up with a solution to the slug-attracting problem of exposed wood.  Spraying nematodes might work, but I think I want to cover them with burlap or a thick layer of coir so I can sow ground cover into it.