Almost In The Ground

I don't know if I'll be able to close a fist with my right hand tomorrow. The beds I'd turned with a spade Thursday night got a couple more turns as I tried to break up the clods and get the soil pulverized. I didn't have access to a rototiller, which would have been just as much of a workout (if memory serves) but would do a lot more thorough job.



Actually the bed furthest west looked pretty good when I got done. The other two didn't and I spent more time on them, the soil was just clumpier there.




So having a good eight inches or so busted up, I was ready for compost. Except my friend with a pickup had another commitment today. She said she'd come during the week maybe if I wanted to take off work, but here I had plants in cups, and while at the Ace for bone meal and a trowel, I saw they had 2 cubic foot bags for a little under five bucks.



I thought 3 cubic feet was a cubic yard, so this looked like a better deal than it turned out to be. Nonetheless, I got home with what turns out to be about three quarters of a yard (ten of these bags). And I think that'll do for this year.



Mr. Worley (who grew my plants from seed in his greenhouse) told me not to stress, basically echoing the mantra of another of my hobbies, 'Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew.'




I do all kinds of things to coddle my beers and make them grow up to go to college, but I don't stress out over it. I busted up the dirt, I added bone meal and a couple inches of compost. I have bone meal left to add a pinch in each transplant. I'm sunburned and sore and I still need to get the plants in the ground.

So my tomatoes might not have quite the advantages they could have, if I also had Tomato Tone on hand, say, or if I rototilled the compost into the soil and/or dug deeper. But they'll have a reasonable chance to at least attend a state college if they work a part time job, and I'll bet you I've got tomatoes, peppers and basil running out my ears in August.



I started worrying about whether cotton burr compost was the right kind, then I stopped myself and said, Smell it, dude. Anything that stinks that bad has to be good for plants.



I tried to recruit the girls to help me. Mo wasn't having it, she's going through a Blue Period. That was the only color sidewalk chalk she would use to deface my front steps. Em wouldn't dig, but she gleefully cut up brush. In a few more weeks, I think most of the tree waste in my yard will have finally been cleaned up.