Thirty-five out of ninety-six – that’s how many of the new tomato babies I managed to save (or more accurately, recover) after the wind knocked down my seed start containers. There are a few in that number that still might not make it, but I’m crossing my fingers.
Anyhow, that’s the reason for writing so late today. I had gotten up and it was beautiful and sunny again, so I took most of the plants outside and went about my business. Right about the time I would sit down to write, we heard a crash outside, and it seems the wind had picked up and blown the containers off my railing. I was meeting with the contractor who will be building my plant shelving system at the time so my wife quickly collected everything for me to recover those that survived. I had already planned on potting all the adolescents in larger pots this weekend, so I decided to avoid traumatizing the babies multiple times and just put the survivors into the larger pots right now. I am curious how they will do – it seems the sooner they go into larger pots, the better they can grow, so maybe some of these will end up doing well.
And yesterday, I encountered our first toad of the season! It was while I was cleaning up and prepping Toad Hollow – I had planted what I wanted and was cleaning up and rearranging the bark structure that I set up for them to climb into a potted horseradish plant that they all seem to love. I had moved the layer of bark, and was brushing away some debris when the little guy hopped out of his hole, and sat there staring at me – probably grumpy that I woke him early from his hibernation.
I quickly reset the wood and bark to cover him back up, so hopefully he just burrowed back in and the rude awakening will be just a weird dream when it’s the regular time for them to all emerge.
There are a few tunnels that lead in and out of Toad Hollow, likely old gopher holes. The toads use them in the summer to go in and out as they want, though I do my best to keep the habitat pleasant for them to want to stay. When I water the plants there, I usually also run a bit of water down the tunnels to soften the soil for them and provide moisture to those hanging out in there. At the bottom, I dug out a little area and took some of the clay soil to shape a small bold to capture the water and provide a small pool for them as well. I may some other small rock features down the line, though I really want to really fix up the whole thing into a more permanent display – but that will be sometime down the line after finishing the multitude of other projects that need my time.
Anyhow, it’s late and almost time for dinner so…
Song of the day: Where the Streets Have No Name by U2
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