Another beautiful day starting with some cloud coverage at dawn. The temperature for the last few days has been a low in the 60s and a high in the mid‑80s. With this nice weather you would think my cover crops would be sown, but that has been on hold since Saturday. They say bad things come in threes. I have to say that is true in my case.
On Friday the county mower ran over the water spigot station, which is evenly placed down each of the 10 roads. When the system was built each road head had a main valve so if there were a leak we could just turn off that road. Rust has frozen all the valves, so when we have a leak the whole garden goes down — roughly 500 gardens do not have water. A lot of gardeners are planting their fall crops or cover crops and need daily watering. In this case the board member couldn’t fix it, as the break was deep and needed a digger. Even after digging and trying, the leak needed a county plumber, as the leak or crack is in the main line.
Bad number two happened to me also on Friday — my tiller wouldn’t crank. I had James the tinkerer look at it, and he said he will bring some tools to look at it the next time he is here. In the meantime my friend let me borrow his tiller, as the Back 40 and quarter plot needed one final till. This took awhile as I was breaking down the boxes and incorporating the small bits into the soil. It looks really good. I put off the final raking and smoothing it out as there was no need if I didn’t have water. I didn’t want to seed it yet, as the seeds do sit a little on top of the soil, and if not watered in it makes a tasty treat for the birds and rodents.
While the water was off I was ticking off other things on my “to‑do” list. I pulled out the India and Armenian cucumbers and tilled the trellis strips with my 12‑inch tiller. I pulled the double layer of landscape fabric along the north fence that is behind the tomatoes. It pulled up so much easier than the first side walkway. After removing it I raked and pulled any roots that were under the fabric and raked it smooth. I plan to use the 12‑inch tiller to get the back tomatoes ready for cover crops. Another task I completed was in the Learning Plot — I removed all that was not producing, and all I now have left are the butternut squash. I moved and piled the boxes to the boxed‑side front of the plot where they are staged until I know where in my main plots they will be utilized.
Since I am toting water I brought 7 gallons, which is just enough for what I wanted to do today — finishing sowing the fall bed. I started the fall bed the last full moon in August, and here another full moon and I am finally getting it sown. It didn’t make any sense to plant during the heat dome. In the meantime, while waiting, I redesigned what new seeds I needed to make room for. That meant jockeying rows or even eliminating some seeds like daikon and mustard, as they can go up by the trellis bed since they don’t need to be rabbit‑proof. Nothing will be rat‑proof. I am hoping with Jon Linn’s field of Chinese purple sweet potatoes the sweetness will draw them there and ignore my little plantings. My new seeds that rabbits love are parsnips and kohlrabi.
This will be my third time trying parsnips — maybe like the saying, the third time is the charm. I soaked them for one hour, so fingers crossed this new method of soaking and fresh seeds — the best‑by date on the package said good until 12/31/2027.
The kohlrabi is actually a seed I have in abundance that I bought a couple of years ago. I bought a pound as I thought I needed a lot to use my seed planter. I just can’t see the seeds being dispensed. Any light‑colored seeds show up in the black hopper, but black small seeds are impossible to see. Maybe the hopper color should be a bright yellow or green — just something that all seeds can be seen. If I were planting 50–100 ft rows then I would probably use it, but my little squares can be sown by hand. What I don’t use in the fall bed will be incorporated as part of the cover crops for the Learning Plot and plot 107, as those seeds are cheap — plus I want to start out next year with fresh seeds.
The third bad thing happened today. I am normally a very careful driver — just ask my husband, as I am his copilot telling him if the right side is safe or any of my words — careful, tires, woah, etc. I didn’t always used to be like this, but after being in a car crash where a car crossed in front of me — I guess that is when it started. I call it the careful club.
The board was asked to drive around when they turned on the water, as gardeners turned the water on but didn’t turn it off. I was heading toward my roads 1 and 2 when I spotted an open faucet, and not thinking, I turned hastily right into the corner spigot. The water was spewing out and I couldn’t get my phone to work to find the board member’s number quickly, so I went and turned off the faucet that was on and went to road 3 where the main leak was and told him I hit road 5 corner water.
He was very calm about it and said the leak on road 3 needs more repair and he would check on road 5. To make a long story short, my break wasn’t so bad, as that spigot was added much later to the system and it had its own shut‑off valve. So the silver lining is he can take his time to dig the hole to repair it and there will be no down time for any of the gardeners.
I also found out that there is a club for this too, as our little group — the one that broke road 3, the board member, and I — have all broken spigots out in the gardens. At least I don’t feel too bad, as community garden stuff happens. I have to say this corner spigot is a magnet, as it has been repaired already in the spring.
Time got away from me as it was about noon —I harvested okra, yellow squash and my final two small watermelons. I forgot to take any photos of my completed tasks, but I did take a few sunrise photos and the blueberry progress yesterday as well as my watermelons that were ripe.
Now that I’ve had 3 bad things happen, maybe something good will happen next. From tillers to planting to water leaks, I keep this log honest so I can look back and remember exactly what happened.