Tomatoes and Peppers - May 3, 2020

Yesterday was yardwork day.  Both our yard and Nanny's needed mowing, and I wanted to get the garden tilled and planted.  In retrospect, I realize that this was a rather ambitious plan.

While The Husband mowed Nanny's yard, I worked on our yard with the push mower.  Our yard is crazy.  There are hills, ditches and small spaces that are difficult to mow with the riding mower.  There's a wrought-iron garden arch that is too narrow for the riding mower.  I took care of those places with the push mower.  It took about an hour and a half to cut it all.  When I finished, I was pooped.

But not long after I finished mowing, a friend called, and while we talked, I rested enough that when we finished the call, I was ready to start working in the garden.

It has been two years since I've tried to raise a vegetable garden.  The garden spot gets mowed with the rest of Nanny's yard, but the ground hasn't been broken since 2018.  I dragged the big black tiller out of the shed, checked the gas and the oil, crossed my fingers, and yanked the cord.  It cranked on the first pull.  YES!

I went to work.

It took nearly two hours of plowing to get one row ready to plant.  I sent The Husband up to our house to get the tomato and pepper plants that I'd bought two weeks ago while I began "hilling up" the row with a rake.  Then I remembered that I'd bought epsom salt to sprinkle in the holes, and I jumped on the riding lawnmower and rode it up to our house to get it. 

While I was in the house, I decided to fix myself a bottle of water to take back to the garden.  The instant I started to fill the bottle, I realized that I had not visited the bathroom since I rolled out of bed at 6 a.m. (it's pushing 5 p.m. by this time).  I thought I could probably finish filling the bottle and still make it to the bathroom in time.  I was wrong.  Had to change my underwear and my britches before going back to the garden.

I'm moving a little slow today.  My daddy would have referred to it as being "stove up." 

And only one row done.

After we finished the day's work, I said to The Husband, "We need a tractor."  His eyes lit up.  I may hold off on tilling for a couple of days to see what happens.

The baby wrens in the window box flew the nest yesterday.  I am going to miss them.