gardening

This weekend we planted tomatoes and weeded strawberries.

The planting was the easy part. Prepping the dirt and getting the plants into the ground went well. But it was 28 or 29 degrees the night before with no promise that this is the end of frosts for the season. So, we put covers on all the plants, 55 in all.

For decades we have been using waxed paper “hot caps” for the purpose, but a few years ago some one invented a gizmo called “walls of water.”

It is a series of tubes that are filled with water, that modify the temp inside the structure. When they first came out I was not impressed, being sure it was an inventors gizmo and maybe not a gardeners.

But there are all sorts of studies to show that it works an works pretty well. So that is what we did. The problem is that it takes about 5 minutes to set each one in place and fill those tubes with water. At least it takes that long for us to do it!

But the job was done and now there are two long rows of tomatoes, along with a few pepper plants, growing ready for warm weather.

A couple days later I helped the nearby daughter dig the dandelions out of her strawberry beds. The two plants grow well together, that is the Dandelions grow with abandon, and eventually crowd out the strawberries.

But we dug out a big pile of weeds, replanted some of the berries and got it watered, ready for another season of good taste.

It was good.