Catching up part 2

 I had a very early morning today and as such it was very foggy and cool. Long pants and jacket was needed. By the time I got home it was clear at my end of the county and promising to be warm. 1pm it is 83 but no AC yet, will likely start that up soon as the sun comes over the building again and heats up the wall. 

Meanwhile....

Bird of Paradise doing their thing with a double bloom and a visitor on one that I believe is an assassin bug. The plants in our complex are just getting started blooming.

Another butterfly visit the other day, she was having loads of fun getting all the nectar from the flowers. There were enough that I decided to cut some for bringing inside. 

Found a freebie little vase at the table and the flowers work perfectly in it, coloring is even coordinated. Poor picture due to lighting unfortunately. And now... actual progress!

I spared a little of the babysitting money I was paid and got two bags of soil. They had put their seeds away for the season (stupidheads at HD) otherwise would have gotten more seeds too. Just have to make a trip to the library sometime this week.

I used the cultivator and loosened the existing soil, moved all the pots to the ground and then made a decision on whether to dig up the onions.

Apparently there was a seedling of something coming up and I didn't see it until I had yanked it up, oh well. One bag in and a bit uneven leveling. I used the back of the cultivator to tap it down a bit before adding the second bag. Really should have taken the trellis out as well but it'll work out.

I could probably use another bag but I think this will good. Man those bags are heavy! I don't remember them being that heavy when I was working at HD, but I know I'm out of shape. These are 40lb bags of soil and that's always been my limit.

And that's four cubic feet of soil added to the top. Sure doesn't seem like a lot but as I was digging up the onions the trowel was hitting the logs below, that's only about 4 inches down. Not nearly enough room for good roots. Still enough room to add one more bag for sure, that will get compressed down by spring I'm sure. I replanted the onions and watered really well (or so I figured). Those poor onions barely have grown any roots. I will likely toss the rest of the fertilizer in there before I plant the next crop of seeds. 

I tried to level as best I could but sweat and heat and all that makes for difficulty in seeing things. Need to find that short log I used for leveling before I try the seeds again. The weather is cooling down at least so here's hoping I can find some radish and carrot seeds that actually will sprout. 

And before ANY of that happens I need to get those pill bugs under control! The trap I made sort of worked when I pulled the can out there were lots of them in the dirt UNDER the trap.  I likely shifted a lot of them around with the cultivator so now the entire bed is chock full of the little buggers. Need a funnel type arrangement that drops them into a trap.

I just looked up more ways other than the beer trap and there is a potato trap method. I do have potatoes and will try that this evening. I have some potato skins I didn't put in the composter so will rig up something. Pictures and results when they happen!

The pepper plant is recovering nicely (picture is from yesterday before the new soil) and the flame trees are going off like crazy. You can see how most people would think that's a flowering tree rather than seed pots. I found a baby seed pod on the ground and there are three lobes with two seeds each so that is 6 seeds per capsule. Times hundreds if not thousands of pods. 

So yeah, not a good tree for urban areas. I suspect in the wild there were animals or insects that ate the seeds so forestation would not happen.

AC is on, cooling is happening.