There's supposed to be a "fireball" meteor shower tonight, with the peak happening in the middle of the night. When I saw the news article about it, I was reminded of the time my sister and I decided to go to the Ozark mountains to watch a meteor shower.
Our preferred destination was Mountain View, Arkansas, a little town I love to visit. I spent some time looking for a house (one that wasn't surrounded by trees) on top of a mountain, where we'd have an unobstructed view of the sky. Finally found a good one, and sent the link to my sister. She called later in the day to tell me that she'd called the owners of the property and discovered that they would not allow her to bring her little dog. I said, "Fine. YOU find us a place, then." Later, she called and said that she'd found a pet-friendly place along the White River. Now, I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I knew that most rivers are in valleys, where we might not have the most unobstructed view of the sky. As it turned out, it didn't make much difference where we were, mountain-top or valley, for that evening the sky clouded up and it began to rain. Oh, well . . . we enjoyed our little trip, anyway.
I did not set foot in the garden yesterday, though I'd planned to finish pulling up the pea vines and get the ground ready for butter beans and sweet peas. When I suggested to The Husband that we ought to go work, he gave me The Look. Too hot, he said. I didn't need much convincing. However, this morning on a "Planting by the Signs" page on Facebook, I saw that yesterday and today are supposed to be two excellent days for planting above-ground crops. In the limited time I have to garden, it would be next to impossible to clean up the pea rows and get new seeds in the ground today, even if I had butterbean seeds on hand.
Yesterday, I shopped for butterbean seeds, but couldn't find any. My local seed source said that they may have some in a couple of weeks. I do have a jar of dried butterbeans for cooking, and I have planted grocery-store beans in the past. The thing is you're not really sure what you'll get when you do that. The beans might be old, or they might have been treated with something to keep them from sprouting. One source I read said to put a few seeds in a wet paper towel, seal them up in a plastic bag, and see how many seeds will sprout. If half of them sprout, plant twice as many as you'll need. I did the paper towel thing last night. Of course, it may take a week or so to determine if the beans will sprout, and by that time the purportedly good planting days will have passed.
But I would like to at least get the pea vines and grass out of the rows this evening. It's supposed to rain tomorrow.
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