Watered yesterday morning, yesterday evening, and this morning. From yesterday's toll:

4 of my 6 chard definitely dead -- this one still true
all of my leeks half-dead, along with some of my walking onions -- jury's still out
very unhappy lemon verbena -- recovered
very unhappy horseradish -- plants not dead, just most of the leaves
one of my two lemon thymes is probably dead -- recovered
one strawberry plant dead -- sadly, it is in fact dead
three mint plants severely stressed -- two recovered, the third has one green stem and the rest of its leaves fried
one of my two lemon balm plants severely stressed -- recovered
my purple Iceberg rose very unhappy -- still unhappy, but recovering

And to add to the list, two marigolds and three lettuce dead.

This is the point where a lot of snow-bound people on my friends list may begin to resent me, but I think it's so awesome that I've gotta share. I love living where I do because yesterday I went out into my garden and picked a couple of vine-ripe tomatoes to put in my lunch bag.

Vine-ripe tomatoes. In January. I've never actually pulled off this stunt before and find it to be awesome.

Sometimes my laziness, this time in the form of not pulling up any tomato plants that still had fruit on them, pays off. ^_^

Gardening addendum: turnips may sprout faster than beets, but only by a day. ^_^ The Egyptian Walking Onions also started coming up today, which is good. Unfortunately it seems one of the neighborhood cats (most likely one of the ferals) decided that my straw-covered garden bed was a good place to do its business. Now, it did it in one of the currently unplanted sections, but why couldn't the stupid thing walk fifteen feet to the lovely soft rototilled unplanted dirt?? Pfeh. Cat dirt cleared out and tossed in trash bin. I'm considering whether or not to pick up some chicken wire at the store to lay across sections that are either unplanted or that have seeds in them, to prevent a repeat. I also did a bit of harvesting today; in addition to the weekly batch of tomatoes, the double row of Dragon Tongue beans are being pleasantly prolific, and the eggplants are going NUTS. I harvested nine of the Asian type, all at least 9" long, and fourteen of the round golf ball sized ones! Unfortunately the corn didn't fare so well; of the eight or so that I harvested, only five had any decent proportion of kernels, and even those were only about half a cob each. Plus there were three corn worms and signs of two or three more.... *sigh* Next year I need to plant a lot more seed at one go to end up with a block larger than 3x4, and possibly also do the 12" planting distance in a triangular grid rather than a square one, to increase density and thus pollination.

Clearing of back bedroom proceeds apace, if a bit slower today than I'd've liked. OTOH, Wonderful Husband, with help from my father, got my fabric shelves 'quake-strapped to the wall! *heart* I'm going to be hard put not to switch directions mid-project. But today I discovered his ties, my scarves, a whole bunch of really pretty handkerchiefs I inherited from my grandmothers, photographs and correspondance dating back to my childhood (WH was shocked at how skinny I was as a pre-adolescent), and some of my collectibles. Four of which broke during the move. Three were repairable, and in fact are sitting on the kitchen table even now with the E-6000 drying. The glass peacock, sadly, was irreparable.

We also took a walk around the block to the pocket park which is between our house and the freeway. It's actually quite a nice little park, and the jungle gym... wow. I wish I was in the 5-12 range just so I could play on it! It's very very nice. ^___^ It was also interesting to see how the houses on our street have (or have not) raised their back fences by a couple of feet. It was also stunning to realize just how hugenormous the tree in the corner of our property really is, viewed from the other side. It's like... almost Miyazaki-sized!!

Watering the patch of straw has finally started to pay off. The daikon are poking their heads through, marvelling at the sunshine, as are the beans. The beets and turnips seem to've likewise sprouted, as has the mustard. No sign yet of the parsnips and radishes, though; I'll continue to hold out hope. And something's nibbling on my jalepeno plants, taking tiny bites out of the leaves while ignoring all the other plants. Need to do some detective work and figure out what critter it may be.

Last night's dinner included some of the Ruby Queen corn I started and my parents grew. So yummy! I love the way it looks raw on the cob, this gorgeous dark ruby color. Unfortunately it's fugitive and ends up a marbled purple-and-cream after cooking. Still kinda pretty, though.

Wonderful Husband helped me cut out felt shapes last night and I now have twelve of the fifteen needle pads done for the embroidery class I'm teaching next weekend. I think they're kind of cute; hopefully my students will like them too. This weekend is going to be putting packets together and checking materials for both classes....

The plan for this weekend was to pick up the lumber and rebar for the next three garden beds (they get successively smaller) and put in bed #2. This would not be so difficult if the bloody thing wasn't fighting us every step of the way!

The metal blade for the sawsall gave up the ghost after cutting two stakes off the lengths of rebar.

The saw battery died on the very first cut of the planking.

The wheelbarrow tire died the hard death and the store doesn't sell replacements.

ARGH!

At this point the bed is finally built, the manure is mixed in to the dirt, but we still have a whole truckload of compost that needs to make its way from the driveway to the side yard. And we're due to return the truck to my parents in an hour and a half.

F*ck.

EDIT: Tire patched with internal goo that came in a lovely shade of radioactive green. Compost layered and mostly smoothed on top of bed. Dead now.

Stopped by my parents' after work to drop off cucumber plants and lightbulbs and KMR (Kitten Milk Replacement). Little Cupcake is already looking a lot better (eye medication working) and plumper, and is a lot more active than she was a couple days ago. That said, she still looks all wispy, like she forgot to use conditioner on her fur. She's definitely going to be medium to long-haired like her mama.

Got home to (1) discover Sushi playing with what looked like a cockroach as well as (2) the fact that the ants have finally twigged onto where the indoor kitties' food bowl is. Goddamn it all to hell on both of these counts! I may have to call Terminex and get us signed up for quarterly service. :(

After Wonderful Husband arrived home bearing ant spray and those got taken care of, I repotted about nine tomato plants and three jalepenos. Green stuff soothes me. I need to start haunting garden centers for stevia, as apparently the seeds' reputation for being difficult to sprout is well deserved. I'll have to propagate it the old-fashioned way, by taking cuttings.

Got the cat trap set up on the patio and baited, as well as spay/neuter vouchers at the ready. We'll see how long it takes for any of the ferals to take the bait....

Today was one of those workdays that somehow seemed like it was a lot longer and a lot more painful than the eight hours it actually was. But I persisted and Got Stuff Done so that I'm now only a little behind, and was responsible and did shoppings and stuff (it wouldn't be so fun if Wonderful Husband and I didn't have cereal to eat in the morning) and then came home and gardened.

It's amazing how destressing it can be to sort through the plants you've started from seed and see which are big enough to go where they need to go. In this case they're going to my mother... fourteen Ruby Queen corn plants, two Vanilla Ice melons, a Green Zebra tomato, a Black Krim tomato, four dill starts, and two each of borage, jalepenos, and chard. Plus putting a few more seeds in to sprout and separating out the itty bitty tomatoes that are sprouting two or three in one pot instead of, you know, one each... hopefully the separated seedlings will all take and there will be lotsa tomatoes because that's all good. But at least now I've got at least one of each type I started! The squash, summer and winter alike, are big enough now to go in the ground whenever it's ready; I'm contemplating putting the winter squash under the lemon tree where it will have room to grow undisturbed, particularly since I noted today that the ferals had dug through the mulch in one spot and I'm guessing used that area as a litter box. :/ Maybe putting squash there would deter them. At least they're not interested in the pots of cat grass I start outdoors and give to the indoor kitties once it's tall enough.

Two days of scorching heat have tested my seedlings. Most have survived. One tomato has not, and I have no idea on the Swiss chard. I'll have to check it again in the morning, see if the night's relative cool on top of water has helped to revive any of them.

EDIT: Heat wave casualty toll: three of six Swiss chard, one tomato, one jalepeno, and possibly a second tomato, we'll see if it recovers.

EDIT EDIT: Dammit, that other tomato seedling keeled over as well. Ah well. Planting more seeds in the morning, I guess.

It has stopped raining. It is, in fact, sunny and blue-skied, even if it's chilly. And this lovely weather system that has struck the west coast of the USA has not only dropped snow on hoshikage and on the mountains near racerxmachina but has also turned the mountains ringing the LA basin pure white. They look quite lovely at the moment.

The Costa Mesa Community Gardens have gotten a new coordinator this month and frankly, I don't like her tone as well as I liked Ruth's. Ruth was always gracious in her writing, no matter what the circumstances. The new coordinator's e-mail last night telling me to pull up my stakes and clear my plot by the 31st or else was rather... snippy, shall we say. I'd decided not to renew my lease on the community garden plot, and currently I think I'm glad. I'm hoping by April to have access to a bigger space elsewhere; we'll see how that pans out.

...you discover you not only have dirt under your fingers, but under your wedding and engagement rings.

So, the 7'+ zucchini vine has been coiled onto a bare patch of dirt (thus foiling the kitties from lazing about there, getting dirty); two baby spider plants I rooted off of their mamas have been placed in house-worthy pots and brought into the living room; three other baby spider plants are now getting rooted; all the spider plants plus the strawberry planter plus the zucchini plus the five geraniums have had their dead leaves cleared out; the dead basil has been tossed and one of the geraniums upgraded to its pot; the seven eggplant plants have been upgraded to larger pots; the chives have gotten a larger pot; the smallest geranium has gotten a larger pot; the hummingbird feeder has been brought in to undergo washing; the melon vines have been pulled and trashed; two of the three trellises have been stacked; the patio has been swept clean of dirt.

The sad thing about all this? The end result of cleaning still remains "nothing," as it's a subtractive process rather than an additive one.