And another beautiful clear sunny day.

On the cold side if you're in the shade but overall it is lovely weather. I opened the door and got a waft of cold air and said, 'jacket time'. Got my jacket and regretted it when I was working in the sunny garden. Allergies are kicking my butt today and yesterday. We have no anti-histamines in the house, have to go get some. Make smelling the wonderful spring air kind of hard. Going to be raining again from Monday to Wednesday next week. Bleh. Hard to say what triggered our allergy attacks (Jon has it too) the weather/spring plants or the peat pellets I got. 

 

 

The HDR setting sure makes a difference in the picture quality! That south bed is true to life and so are all the other photos. The cilantro is gaining speed there and now that the peas have something to grab onto those are kicking into high gear as well. In hindsight 4" grid is too big, the netting was too weak so what I need is 2" grid. It's out there, in 50' rolls. The radishes are also going good and it's time to put more out since there's only 3 out of the dozen or so seeds I originally planted.

 

 

The potatoes are still going strong for leaves, the stems are a bit weak though, which is concerning because that is also tied into what makes potatoes form, the P and K. Potassium and Phosphorous, so once again the high iron/nitrogen in the soil is making for healthy leaves, not so much for roots and stems.

The aloe that I want to move is blooming. I had hoped to move it over to the other bed but even after getting my gloves it was too heavy and partially rooted into the ground. I moved the long planter thing out of the way and rearranged some of the logs near the north bed. And what did I discover? Decollate snails and termites (and worms of course but those aren't a problem).

The termites were expected, annoying to me personally but knowing this pile had been there for years, if not decades, I can guarantee you this entire complex is riddled with termites.

 

I remember finding an empty Decollate snail shell about a year ago and hoped it was from even longer ago. These two and two others I found were very much alive and the reason for the holes in my potatoes and lettuce.

'Decollate snails are beneficials' some say but I beg to differ. I covered this before when I found the empty shell. They were discovered many decades ago that they eat baby garden snails and the eggs but when there is a lack of their preferred food, they are just as vegetarian as garden snails. I also saw snail slime tracks near the potatoes so that is postive proof. You deter and kill them the same as regular garden snails so that means (no salt!) copper tape, coarse sand or crushed shells, there's bread/beer traps and my personal favorite is a product called Sluggo. Will have to see if I can afford that because we're out of eggs and have no sand. Might try using the bread/beer trap since we have some sourdough and other bread.  Experiments in gardening! For science!

 

So I took that red piece of metal and decided to probe around where the compost used to be. It is a 12' long stick. I got absolutely no resistance the full length of it in several spots. Gophers are still chewing up that spot or the dirt has just collapsed enough to make it easy to dig. Am I going to plant there? Nope. Not without metal mesh under it for sure. Not level ground and too much shade for most things. Carrots supposedly grow in shade but not according to my experience.

On my way back I looked over at the patio and there was a nest there! It didn't look well kept so I suspect it is abandoned. I managed to get on the wall and look on the other side (much to Rocky's protests) and the other side was kind of mashed down. So the babies have flown. Too big for hummers, too well kept and small for a dove. I suspect it's a sparrow nest, about the right size. Wish I could have seen it when they were there. Testament to it blending in and no one mentioned or saw it.

So that's it for today, going to go to the store and hope to get some allergy meds.