On Monday my general helper had stayed the night so we were out in the garden by 6AM. I got the row of celery and the one of leeks in and mulched with leaves of hay. She did the 3 little rows, 2 of beets, and one of parsley, and all the mulching around each plant.
When I had gone to find the celery, I discovered a tray of broccoli under the cold frame covers hadn’t gotten rained on and had wilted. So I got some water in the tray and by the time we were ready to plant, they had revived some.
Mulching done, sprinkler ready
For some reason, it’s seemed to us to take a much longer time to plant this last section of garden. We did have to move mulch more often, and we also had to go get another load of hay to finish mulching. As it was, we did not get the last row of kale done on Monday. But all the broccoli was in and mulched.
We did get the walkway mulched, so on Tuesday all that’s left in the Big garden is planting kale and mulching it.
Monday afternoon I checked the re-started seedlings and found almost all of them up. So there might be paprikas this year…
The other tray had calendula, 3 types of cosmos, and some herbs.
The allergies were hitting me badly and the doctor prescribed some meds. My brother got them for me when he got home but they didn’t seem to do much. I called the doctor at 9PM to report this and she suggested getting another med on Tuesday. The bad news was the prescribed meds don’t reach full force for 2 or 3 days. So I coughed all but 4 hours Monday night.
My general helper said she’d come for 3 hours on Tuesday morning, so she slept over again and we were out there at 6AM. We got the kale planted and mulched and finally the Big garden was finished (except for paprikas that are too little yet).
The last row finished
Done!
So we quickly moved over to the Small garden. I had selected all the sprawly plants while she was doing the tucking of hay around the kale. We planted a hill each of:
Cucumbers (2)
Acorn squash
Butternut squash
Sweet Meat squash
Kabocha squash
Summer squash
Howden pumpkins (2)
Zucchini squash
Melons
White pumpkins
Watermelon
Gourds
I had weeded each area left open for planting, while she broadforked and spread a small amount of amendment. Then I planted and she followed me putting the loose hay around the plants. We finished right at 9AM when she wanted to be done. So both vegetable gardens are finished!
I had asked her to take me to get the new meds and we actually never finished until 10:30AM. While in line for the meds, I saw the hayman with the bad eyes, and the very first hayman we had back 40 years ago. I asked the latter if he knew anyone who might want the hay in our fields and he gave me the name of someone here in town.
When we got back home I took the med on an empty stomach and when nothing happened in half an hour I called the pharmacist to find out how long it took to work. He said 2 to 3 hours. So I asked if I could take one of the other meds with it, and he said it was safe to do so.
So I did and about an hour or so later the coughing started to subside. I was able to sit back in my chair and rest most of the afternoon. I found contact info for the possible new hay guy and sent a message.
But when I went to bed at 8PM, the coughing started again and continued until midnight, when I finally fell asleep for 4 hours.
Wednesday is to be another warm sunny day, and I really want to work in the flowerbeds. But with so little sleep and the coughing, I expect I’ll probably just clean the kitchen and finish laundry and rest.