Diatomaceous Earth - Enough is Enough

Like a weed - arugula from last year, I'm going to eat it all!

I finally broke down and bought some diatomaceous earth to fight the pill bugs.  This stuff sounds terrible, it basically dries them out, sucks all the moisture right out of them.  I read that humans should seriously limit the amount that is inhaled so I wrapped a wet rag around my nose and mouth when I spread it.  I already realize that I need a tool to properly apply this stuff, I'm thinking a turkey baster may work well.

Yesterday's storm gave me another ~30 gallons of water.  Second sowing of carrots have emerged and I just realized that what I thought was a weed growing all over the South end of NS1 is arugula!  I let my arugula bolt last year and I'm paying the price, although on the other hand it's nice to have it in salads.

Meteorologists are Retarded

• Rain coming
• No rain coming
• Gonna rain Tomorrow
• No it's not
• 60%, 40%, 20% 5% chance of rain
• Ugh!

So I've been in Chicago on work, came back late Saturday and was excited to check on things Sunday morning.  Peas in EW3 look great, carrots were almost all eaten.  Spinach too.  Neighbors cat shit all over EW4 (or is it EW5?).  Peas in back wall planter haven't emerged.  All in all a very disappointing set of developments.  I walked back inside.

Later that night I walked out to see what was eating my plants.  My old nemesis the "rollie pollie" and her bastard children were swarming on everything green and sacred!  I hate them, I smashed 50-60 in between my fingers, their little isopod liquid guts squirting out.  I went to bed, unsatisfied.

Flipped compost Saturday, added the stuff from the tumbler as well as a bucket of chicken manure.

Looks like a Miss

Maybe .000056" of rain fell. maybe!.
They were drops, not drizzle but not even enough to get the road wet.  Major disappointment.

Rain Tonight

Forecast is for rain moving in Tonight and sticking around most of Tomorrow.  I put my tools away, covered the compost with a tarp, set out all my buckets to catch rain and cultivated the beds a little so more water would soak in instead of running off. 

I'm leaving for Chicago Wed. morning and I didn't want to worry about my peas in the 50 cell tray, so I transplanted the few that actually emerged into their new home.  No real work Today, that all took about 10 minutes.

Like Fire

sunrise

Sunday Morning Mystery

Special Sunday Sock Supplement

And I searched for it's brother...

(?)

Plumbing Time-Kill

I had a good list Today, lots of different things but the pipe fix ended up taking 3-4 times longer than expected.  First I had to head out to the store to buy more glue.  Once I got back I made quick work of the broken pipe.  Turned on the irrigation zone to test and what do you know, the hole filled up with water!  I know how to assemble and repair PVC, so I was confident that my repair was solid.  I baled out the water and had Vinessa turn the valve on so I could watch what happened: Another, big break in a branch line that I didn't see before due to low pressure.

All my previous work down the toilet, I cut out the repair and began digging away to access the newly discovered breach.  Of course it was right up against a Tee so I had to really cut things back and clear a larger area.  I'm getting low on 3/4" couplers now and dreading another trip to the store.

Real ugly, but it doesn't leak

After laying everything out I was short about 1/2" on the lateral patch line so I had to sort of push everything out of plane to close up the joints.  I drove a stake down to ensure that things stay put, once the dirt is backfilled it'll be fine.  And like I said, I'm bad ass on PVC repairs and those joints aren't going to slip.

Vinessa came over to "work" and by work she sat on her butt and read.  It's cool though, always nice to have the company and she DID help with the sprinkler valve and DID make a food run.  I put up the 6' chicken wire in the new bed for the peas, dumped the compost out of the compost tumbler (that thing doesn't work) and shredded Pam's giant sunflower.  Oh, and I planted about 50 snow peas in the new bed as well.

Oh, HELL Yeah!

Blueberries just around the corner

That's a solid 158°F

I'm back on top!  Hot compost makes me real happy, real happy- especially after my admission last week that I'd lost my touch.

No work Today, too much office work.

More Sowing, Buying and Maintenance

Although I haven't written in a few days I have been putting in my customary ~1 hour a day of farm work.  Today I sowed my third succession planting of Red Cardinal, this completes the NS2 bed and already has me thinking about where I can plant more.  Red Cardinal spinach is by far my favorite crop I've grown and I can't wait to stop buying baby spinach at the store and instead go back to harvesting my home grown stuff.

Snap pea seedlings. Nice straight rows, yep!

 My snap peas that I direct sowed into EW3 look absolutely incredible, probably ended up with 95% germination!  My rows are crooked as all hell though and now that the seedlings are peeking up it's actually quite embarrassing.  All 3 of my corn crops have emerged and look pretty good, the weed screen mulch trick works great.  I also sowed another round of the same carrots Yesterday.

Finally I fired up irrigation zone #7 which has spur lines running to several large pots in the yard and saw a stream of water shoot up about 10' in the air.  Shit, another broken pipe.  This won't be easy to get to, it's deep and the soil near it is clay and a real PITA to work in.  Gotta fix though, not really worth complaining or thinking too much about.  My compost pile is cooking right around 154°F and has been there for 3-4 days, that's a good sign, this pile should finish quickly.  I've started to stockpile browns and greens to be used as browns in the future.  See, in winter you don't have enough greens, but with all the leaves on the ground you have plenty of browns, in summer the problem is the opposite.