September 01, 2018
Another problem I've discovered about using the watering can is that I've failed to sprinkle the plants leaves. I don't want the transplants, or the plants in the original row, to fall over, so I always just fill up the mote around them. Yesterday I accidentally sprinkled the leaves of a foot tall cauliflower plant and a swarm of white fly's flew off. I would have never known I had a white fly problem this fall until the plants stopped growing and started to wilt..
I need to start watering the leaves of plants before they get this big. I went and got my spray bottle full of soapy water and sprayed all the flies that I had knocked to the ground. Hopefully I can nip the problem in the bud..
September 02, 2018
I've been watering my 8' row of peas with my watering can since they sprouted. Today at noon they were wilted. They are a foot and a half tall and I was still giving them water at their base and not the surrounding ground. I realized that with an empty corn patch on one side and a creeping jenny patch on the other they were not getting overhead watered. I put my soaker hose on them and within an hour they were perked back up. I'm relearning watering methods that are not water miser based. My initial gardening training was in an area of water rationing..
We collected rain water from our roofs into barrels for garden water. A summer storm brought pond pumps out to the gutter to divert the water to our lawns. Car washing and sidewalk hosing were regulated as to only certain days of the week based on your address. Reading Organic Gardening magazine was a constant reminder of things you could do to keep your garden healthy using a minimum amount of water. It's better to under water plants than to over water them but I need to learn to open up the spigot..
September 03, 2018
The row of corn farthest away from where I put my orbital sprinkler is shorter than the rest of the patch. I need to move the sprinkler so that it waters two feet past the row instead of right on it. My son had the same problem with his oscillating sprinkler. His pole beans at the end of the watering arc were not as full as the ones closer to the sprinkler. By adjusting the sprinkler the beans flourished. A science based garden is always more productive than a whimsical one..
Nature cares not for our feelings, it is a fact based, number oriented, formula driven process that overwhelms us into believing mystical enchantment must be at play. I hate that life and it's interactions can be a big book of facts. I want to be rendered immobile by the sanctity of the moment. ..
