The Nu Leaf

Indoors
Due to the unseasonably cold spring so far, I have opted to keep my upside-down tomato planters inside until I am confident the sprouts have taken firm root. Out of 7 hanging planters, six of them had at least one sprout survive the first week. I probably broke the root of the sprouts that dying.

I have plenty of starts to spare, so I re-planted the dead sprouts and put some more lights up for all of the plants.

This photo shows the plants hanging above a mirror so the tomatoes below can get as much light as the lettuce above.

Outdoors - Yard
The dandelion killer I used did a really good job of suppressing the flowers and seed puffs, though most of the leafy foliage is still around. I’ll lay down another layer of the dandelion product this week and fill up yet another wheelbarrow with dandelions.

Hopefully I’ll have the yard to a point where I can reseed it soon.

The front yard, which I stripped bare, re-leveled (no new dirt), and re-seeded last June is looking as lush as ever. A spray with that same Weed & Feed did a great job knocking back the crab grass and dandelions while leaving the grass unharmed.

Our lawn mower came with our house. It’s a pretty good Crafstman model; it has power drive, but it only has one blade speed. Anyway, I just checked the blade for the first time on Saturday. As it turns out, I hadn’t been cutting the grass so much as battering it with a cutting surface the equivalent of a gnarled coat hanger.

I removed the blade and took it to my local mower shop for sharpening. It’s only about $8 for sharpening and $17 to replace this particular blade. The guy at the shop said it was far from the worst he’d seen (apparently some people like to mow their gravel too), and that this clearly had a few sharpenings left in it before it needed to be replaced. I’ll probably get the blade back tomorrow and give my yard the first proper mowing its had in a while.

Garden
I found that my tent-style netting was doing no good. Apparently the creature that had acquired a taste for my watermelons and onions was small enough to creep under the 8″ tall tent and between several 3″ spaced wires to continue gnoshing on my tender fruit sprouts.

I decided to stake the tent to the ground with enough slack for the new plants to push up against it with minimal resistance. My soy beans are doing nicely this way; they’re now more than a foot long. The other plants are surviving, though I’ll have to rethink this soon because I can’t go this route all summer. Weeding and watering are problems as-is. I may have to invest in a chicken wire tunnel for the whole garden.

As for the other seeds, I’m not seeing any action on the pumkins, beets, or sunflowers. I am seeing several peas sprouting, so they’ll require some cages in a few weeks.