weather..or not

Guess what I ate this morning? You guessed it, OATMEAL.
Loves me some oatmeal.

Speaking of food that I love, I got a care package from mom and sister this week.
Sourdough pretzels, fruit/nut mixes, seeds, etc. GOOD STUFF!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

So...
E had the chicken coop opened and the bunnies fed by 6:30 so I hit the greenhouse to see what I could see.

Cloudy, damp, cool morning? Little to no transpiration in the seedlings overnight? Need only spot-water a few things, but definitely a prime keep-the-greenhouse-closed day.

Morning meeting was rather abbreviated as we knew we had the chance of late morning/afternoon rain. Peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, leeks, scallions, lettuce, basil and parsley (phew...) were all up for transplantation today.

By 8am I had 19 beds (13 in Solar U and 6 in Solar L) marked for planting.



Peppers (Ace, Red Knight, Cayenne, Antohi, Jalapeno, a couple others..) went in first. Eggplant next and tomatoes third. All by hand.







Note to self: Tomatoes @ 18"/single row.. and they need to be planted rather deep (to first leaves). Also, very frost sensitive. As are peppers and eggplants.
In fact, we almost canceled our transplanting well into the first row as D got a call from his neighbor alerting him of a possible frost tonight. Don't think it's gonna happen, but we did lay out reemay (new fabric is so easy to work with) to be sure of their safety. Plus flea beetles just LOOOVE eggplants.





After the Solar fields were done we headed down to field Y with "the transplanter" to get lettuce in the ground. After some adjustments and a few stops and starts, we had a great looking bed of greens. Leeks, scallions, parsley and basil (smelled sooo great; never noticed the hint of licorice in it) were all done by hand.
Y is a bit of beast to hand plant into as it is quite rocky and the dead rye that was tilled under last week was still partially on the surface. No worries. We, and our hands, survived.

Not much more to the workday after that.
This was the actual point when we laid out the reemay on the fields for frost and pest protection. ...During which time we had this hanging overhead.



Surprisingly no rain. Just a bit ominous... beautifully so.

Post workday saw me consolidating and rearranging the greenhouse. So strange to see it only half full again. I hung the tarp partition as we only have to heat half the space tonight. Saving fuel/money...

Another wonderful salad + boiled potatoes and celeriac for dinner. Mmmm.

Looking forward to sharing all the fantastic foods we're tending to. Soon enough...

Dig