Garden ponderings and math

 The weather is definitely cooling down now, wok up this monring and it was in the mid 60's outside and I thought, 'hooboy going to need to check my long pants soon'. Which also means weather cool enough to set up that garden bed. I got some birthday money and am still debating whether to spend it on garden or more needful things.

A garden is food for the soul as well as for the body so I would call that needful right? I did get out the other evening and water. The peppers are doing good still and I watered the other beds again because it's just wrong to leave dirt like that untended.

I even watered the poor jade plant because it was showing some serious stress. Maybe the gophers are getting to it.

And yes I put more water down the holes just to let them know I am there still. You can tell by the water tracks I didn't have my nozzle on since I'm only watering the pepper now.

It was quite wilty so I soaked it really well. Took a picture of the BoP that's about to bloom, two stalks on that bush. The flower buds and the flowers (of course) are some of the most fascinating flower shapes out there. 

I also noticed active termite frass on a piece of bark from the logs. That is definitely not good. Management and owner don't understand that the entire building this is up against could have termites in it from that log pile.Termites and ants can access the interior of the wall through the gap where the wall meets the foundation.

This is the electrical closet at the end of our building. Lizards have made their home in there and you can see the stucco just almost falling off. (My OCD wanted to pull that stucco off but I didn't) Rocky was disappointed because we both heard a lizard scurry in there and he really wanted to catch it. But that ledge at the bottom is what I'm talking about. Any break in the wall is a potential entrance for all manner of things and this complex was built back in the 80's. If they ever have an inspector come by for whatever reason..that is going to be a huge issue.

And still more holes. I swear I'm going to plant garlic and onions around the beds for the fall so I can do some planting in the ground as well. I would love to have some chives at least but that would be grown in the raised bed. I feel greedy having three beds and the other lady only has the two but that's pretty much all we have. I toyed with the idea of sharing the raised bed but then with the way she gardens that would be like having a messy roommate that is hardly there.

I'll consider letting her have the netted one next to hers when I get that other bed going. I've done the math again and again and it looks like I'll need 6 cu ft of soil even with filling the bottom with logs. That's two 3 cu ft bags or the opposite all depends on what my local HD or Wally World has in stock.

Quick look is HD has 2 cf bags for $10 each of the Kellogs brand (and my favorite to use) and the local W Mart has nothing on the website I can use so HD it is. Which is fine, I need either window screen or shade cloth, neither of which are cheap or in small amounts. Some nurseries sell shade cloth by the foot at 6 ft wide... will figure something out. Might get a roll of the 1/4 inch mesh but even that's a bit big to keep the soil in. Will check things out when I go out and about this coming week.

Just building the frame for the bed is going to be a chore. My sweetie may want to help me out and it really is a two person job even at this size. Will need the cordless drill/driver to make it go faster of course. I have to keep reiterating what I need to do so I don't forget a step. So if I'm repeating myself, I am on purpose because I can't do much anything else.

Crossing fingers to get started in a few days.