Time Marches On: Nasturtiums, Milkweed, 2nd Greenhouse, WWIII

Two Greenhouses, Like Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson, the Composer

While it would be difficult to guess it from a glance outside the window, spring is coming, and there's no time like the present to bust out the second greenhouse. I've learned a lesson about why we "pot up," and WWIII may have started.

The Little Blue Electric Snow Blower that Could

The "Delicious" variety of tomatoes that I planted are going completely nuts. The lesson I've learned here is #1, they are apparently a great variety, as they have grown 3-4x as fast as the "Beefsteak" variety or the yellow pear tomatoes. #2, it wasn't such a brilliant idea to plant them in the 3" pots to start. An advantage of the smaller seed starting pots is that you can then pot them up. This allows an opportunity to bury the stems deeper, thus deepening the roots. I'm going to do this anyway, but it's going to be a pesky bit of work. Also, while planting 4 seeds in opposite corners of the pot hoping for 1 successful one seemed like a good idea, I had great germination rates, almost 100%, which means that it feels a little wasteful when you have to kill off the little babies.

16 nasturtiums & 10 milkweed went in last weekend. 

Also, by the by, the Russian Federation invaded the Ukraine. War crimes are being committed. Their glorious leader Vladimir Putin has already threatened to use nuclear weapons. There's a very sick feeling in the gut, having watched history unfold about two years ago when the COVID-19 pandemic started, that this sort of thing happens just exactly this way. How different does this feel than hearing the news, back in 1939, that German tanks had crossed into Czechoslovakia? 

It is just one more reason to plant a vigorous garden this year. If things do not escalate beyond sanctions, it should provide a little insulation from rising food prices. If things go badly and civilization is not broke, but badly bent, not all-out nuclear exchange, it will provide food. If civilization really does get vaporized, at least we went out doing something fun.