Water and Transplanting

Sunday was rainy, so Rick worked on the "remote" chicken pen in the basement. This pen is designed to let the chickens pasture in a specific spot, or conversely, to keep them out of a certain spot. Here Rick demonstrates the door mechanism.

We decided to make a quick run to the farm, thinking the rain might slack off a little. Hah! As soon as we got there, it started to pour! It rained so hard that water was standing in puddles all over the yard. Nonetheless, Buddy, Rick, and I hung out a bit. It was weird that I had to go out in the rain to water my plants, but the greenhouse and cold frames are full of starts that need daily watering.

The dogwood is even more spectacular. All over town it's the height of dogwood season.

On Monday, I brought over the starts I'd bought at the Farmers Market, and Rick helped transplant them into one gallon pots. Those are in the greenhouse now too.

Meanwhile, Rick tests his manifold for the chicken waterer.

And... yay! We have automatic water to the chickens.

Yesterday we picked our first carrot, and it was plenty big and amazingly tasty. Sadly, I wasn't quick enough to get video of Cathering dancing around singing, "We made this out of dirt! We made this out of dirt!"

I decided to transplant the biggest of the pepper starts: the Ancho, Big Jim, and Quad (yellow bell), While they were quite large on the top, the roots hadn't outgrown the paper pots. They probably had another inch before they'd be potbound. So I will leave the others in the small paper pots for now at least. The greenhouse is looking pretty full these days.

But even if the roots aren't at full depth yet, you can see that the tops need room to expand. They were getting pretty cramped in the little pots.

Once again, Rick joins in on the fun.

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Thought for the Day

Thomas Jefferson grew 330 kinds of vegetables, and 170 varieties of fruit on his plantation. He said he ate meat as a condiment to his vegetables.

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The ixias are getting ready to bloom. These came originally from Rick's grandmother.

Rick brought the pen to the farm and reassembled it. He had some excuse for the part that was left over... Today we'll probably glue it and ziptie the poultry netting on.