For the past week, I’ve been out of town in Chicago. In the meantime, my wife watered the indoor garden, had the mower repaired, and (probably) continued to throw her sandwich crusts in the front yard to attract crows (we’re not trailer, I swear).
Lawn Mower
Last week, I thought the mower may have a cracked block due to the profuse oil leak from the air intake filter. When Emily took the mower into the shop, the repair man said he’d charge a $20 inspection fee and then roll that charge into the repair charges if needed.
She spent less than an hour in the shop before leaving, having only spent six dollars. That day, several important things were learned:
1) When buying a used mower, always assume poor maintenance. I replaced the spark plug in January, but I never replaced the air filter.
2) Apparently, you can’t possibly generate enough torque to properly install a lawn mower blade with any wrench shorter than two feet. Though it may be easier to remove the blade and take it in yourself for sharpening, the gent we dealt with indicated that you should just bring in the whole mower. It won’t cost any extra and you won’t have to deal with problem #3 either…
3) Finally, you can’t roll a mower on its side. The oil will drain into the air filter, then get above the cylinder and create billowing clouds of oil smoke and cause oil to sputter out of the muffler. Oops.
So, in conclusion, know what you are doing before you fiddle with your mower. Odds are good that you didn’t crack the block and that you may not need to buy a whole new one when the old one starts acting up.
Yard
The second Weed & Feed application I put down last weekend (two weeks after the first application) worked extremely well. Yesterday, I raked the tree debris from beneath the trees and re-seeded these areas. With luck, we’ll end the summer with a fairly nice yard with all of the low spots patched and filled.
Garden
The garden had become quite green in the week I’d spent away. Unfortunately, most of the green was weeds.
I spent about 5 hours hand-picking undesirables out of the garden, throwing the weeds into a bucket and the grass blades out into the yard.
Current inventory:
Pumpkin A: 4 plants
Pumpkin B: 4 plants
Beets: tons of plants
Watermelon A: 1 plant (maybe)
Watermelon B: 1 plant
Canteloupe: 1 plant
Sunflowers: 1 plant
Peas: ~15 plants
Soy: 5 plants
Onions: ~5 plants
Indoors
Inside the house, I still have strawberries, hanging tomatoes, several tomato starts, and several other sprouts growing.
The cat has discovered and destroyed the trays of lettuce, dill, and cucumbers. I disconnected the hydro rig for a few days and managed to kill off three strawberry plants. Of those, one has shown signs of new life emerging from the dead leaf matter. Perhaps the others will come back as well.
The tomatoes are doing very will now. The ones closest to the grow lights have grown rather large and I believe it is about time to move them outside. Some other tomatoes that have been farther from the lights are still about the same size as when I transplanted them. I’ll move those ones into the place of the now outdoor planters.
While I was away, my new industrial fog maker arrived. This one will produce several times the amount of mist. Now I can finally complete the fogger project and get employ all three growth bays.
