I took Monday off, which turned out to be a stroke of minor genius on my part. The weather was in the 80s by days end, at last, so I was able to be outside working at 9 am, not freezing for a change. Both boxes now have tidy 1' grids laid out on them in royal blue nylon cord, which we happened to have around the house after a rather disastrous attempt on my part to create roman shades out of polar fleece (royal blue) as a way to insulate the kitchen windows. It's a bit gaudy, but I figure the plants will cover it up eventually.
Last week I bought the official Square Foot Gardening book, which has some very useful information in it about plant layout and how to set up vertical supports (I think those are in our very near future). After a few calculations, it seems to me that I didn't plant out enough in my 70-cell Jiffy seed starter (even though it's full). Because my 70 seeds (and I don't think they're all going to germinate - some of them appear to have molded, and that can't be good) will only take up 37 of my 64 available square feet - and that assumes I really want 6 pumpkin vines and 6 canteloupes, both of which need 2 feet per plant.
Next on the list: irrigation. We need to set up stuff for drip, because I guarantee that we won't be in a position to stop by our beds daily this summer to hand water all however-many plants. I start out with good intentions that way, but they peter out pretty quickly. That's why the weeds got out of hand every year without fail. Anyway, I know what I want to do (thanks to the Square Foot Gardening book), and it should go pretty quickly, which is a good thing, because the peas in the Jiffy seed starter are starting to tangle up with each other, and I think it's time to get them set outside. And I'd like to get some lettuce and spinach planted while I'm at it.
Of course, it's supposed to snow again tonight. Can we be done already?
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