Hoop hoop, hooray!

Among the many things we've found ourselves busy with lately, we've spent a good deal of time in the garden. All that dirt we had turned out to be a heckuva lot of dirt, and we're just now getting to the end of it, after covering the whole garden, filling a new bed, and cardboarding and covering some rather annoying weed patches. While Erin was gone last week I set up soaker hoses, which are doing OK, except for a tendency to create rivers out of aisles.

This weekend the potatoes popped, and are growing like crazy. Also, I learned that moving the potato patch and putting onions where the pots used to be results in one thing: Potatoes in the onions. So there's that. I'm picking out the ones in the beds, but leaving the one in the aisle and a couple on the edge of the beds.

Our starts that sat too long (peas, salad, spinach, chard) have failed, except for the chard, which I think will end up OK. We were manacled by our dirt project, and they just sat in their pots for too long. So no peas for us this year, and we'll have to wait for salad and spinach (the seeds are just now sprouting).

I've been aphid hunting every couple days or so on our back plum tree. In past years it has been the neighborhood aphid headquarters. It's never had a plum, and we were set to cut it down if it didn't produce this year. It must have heard us talking about it, because it was loaded with blossoms, and now seems quite well-endowed with little green fruits. Anyway, I've been aphid hunting, just smushing them when I find them. And I've been smushing some eggs, too. And then today I decided to Google aphid eggs, and found I'd been smushing ladybug eggs. Damn! I haven't destroyed too too many, but I've definitely squished over a hundred eggs, I'd guess. I'm very depressed about this, since these eggs are set to hatch pest-munching larvae right in the heart of aphidland. I'll be more careful next time, I promise. Augh! I felt feel like an idiot. Probably because I was am one. Lesson learned.

This weekend we're picking up some basil starts, now that the hoop house is up. We'll put in a nice long row. The hoop house is very tall--maybe nine feet--and is both longer and wider than last year. And rotated ninety degrees. I'll have plenty of room to walk around and keep those tomatoes under control. Since it's so big, I'm wondering if I should put plastic on the ends so less heat escapes, but I'm worried about wind picking the whole thing up and dropping it in the lake. We'll see how things seem to progress. Maybe I'll add ends at a later date if the temp seems low inside.

Good earthing to ye.