On Friday morning I got a shower, chores done, and my post up before my general helper arrived at 8AM. She brought soil up from the cellar and started laying out pots in trays.
I was getting seeds out and writing up the starting notes and markers for the pots. The first starting is always the smallest. This is what we did:
Cortland storage onions 75
Mesclun 14
Agrimony 9
Arnica 15
Columbine 6
Heliotrope 6
Sweet Cicely 6
Verbascum 6
Total: 137
We’d forgotten to get Columbine and Dianthus seed so once all the others were done and we’d cleaned up, she went looking for them. She found the columbine that we needed but couldn’t find dianthus. We have until the April 1 starting to find that.
Some of the seeds need to stratify to germinate, so we had 3 trays that went into the downstairs fridge. The columbine was also one.
The verbascum was the tiniest seed she planted this time. She took this photo.
The timers are all set correctly and the lights working and the cat hasn’t knocked anything down, yet.
I had 3 pots that I couldn’t fit in a tray, so I used an old aluminum baking pan. I have to watch that one closely as it heats up in the sun.
When we first put the pots in, they are dry and rigid. But once they have absorbed water, they are more malleable. We can only get 18 in a tray dry but can get 21 in once they are wet. So I will move those 3 into the white tray as soon as I can.
Once she was back home, I asked her to feed all the house plants and she had just enough time to get that done. I had sat down in my chair once the seeds were done. I was waiting for the phone call to go get the soil. It didn’t come while she was here.
I later went in to lie down and read and dozed off. My son left for work and still no call. Ten minutes after he left, the call came so I tried the neighbor to see if she was free to ride with me. She came over and we went off in the truck.
I was bit dismayed to see a full pallet of soil. I thought I’d bought a half pallet. It was still on the forklift and they put it right into the truck and we headed back. The truck had sunk pretty low on the springs so I went slowly.
If the call had come in the early morning I could have pulled the truck behind the house. But the ground had thawed some so I got it as close as I dared. It would have to wait until Saturday morning when the ground had refrozen. I had to walk back to the car at the barn and on my way, I picked up many of the fallen branches from all the wind the last couple days.
Next I measured up the bulkhead because I know it’s not a full 4’, only 42” but it is 8’ long. Then I went and found the heavy black plastic. And then I drove back to the barn and left the car running because the battery seemed very low. I was looking for pieces of plywood to cover the bulkhead stairs. With plastic on, we could slide the bags down.
The only 8’ ones were full sheets, so my brother will have to cut the plywood to size on Saturday morning.
On Saturday I have to organize the cellar to accommodate the soil bags. Then when I go up at 7AM to do chores, I need to set up the sawhorses, etc for my bother to cut the plywood. Hopefully it will fit in the back of the car.
Then I come back and start emptying the trash shed until he gets up. He’ll get the truck positioned by the bulkhead and I will slide the bags down and he’ll move them either into position, or out of the way. The main goal is to get them into the cellar, if not put away.
Once the truck is empty, then we can load it up to go to the dump at 9AM when it opens. I ought to be finished for the day by then.