Getting Gardens Going

Had a good day today ... Our whole family drove over to Paulette's health center to help with transplanting little plants. I like that type of work; there is something exciting about carefully planting the tender little seedlings into a larger pot. The health center was overflowing with the little seedlings, as well as the little greenhouse attached to Steve's (Mountain Fire Keeper) cabin. So, we brought some of the more hardy plants outside and into the hoop house. Jim and a couple of the boys had been over last week to help set up the hoop house, so the ground was all warmed up and ready. We pulled weeds in there and Steve tilled up the soil; then the boys planted corn, cucumbers and tomato plants directly into the ground. Last year we must have forgotten to harvest some of the garlic plants, and they came up on their own and are doing well.

It was interesting to check out the garden area, as there were quite a few spinach plants that had come up on their own. We had such a mild winter that quite a few things survived and had a good start on growing again this year. I'm trying not to think about the forecast for possible snow for this week, as I was too excited to see green plants growing and thriving!

Last week Jim had gone over to Minot (about 1-1/2 hours away) to pick up what was needed to construct a hoop house of our own. It will be very interesting to see how it functions over here, because we have a lot of wind flowing through our field. I hope the plastic survives and the thing never is blown over. I have always wanted to have a greenhouse, and this is a good start.

After we got home from planting, Jim and the boys started to take the tarp off from our roof. The first year we lived here we used tarpaper and rolled roofing on our capped off basement, and then insulated between the floor joists inside. That was a disaster, as too much humidity made the insulated area mold. So, for last winter we piled a lot of square hay bales on the roof and tarped them. On some of the nice winter days we had a brown solution ooze down from the roof and onto our windows and outside walls, so we knew there was either condensation up there or the tarp was allowing moisture in. When the tarp was removed they found a lot of very soggy hay bales.

The problem I was having inside the house was trying to find the source of thousands of tiny red bugs that had found their way into the house; they were all over! I am not overly fond of bugs, and it was very frustrating as I had no idea where they were coming from. Well, when the roof tarp was removed they found these little bugs all over the wet hay. I suppose they climbed out of the hay, down the wall and through the screens of the open windows. Hopefully when all of the hay is taken down from the roof it will eliminate the problem of these bugs crawling into the house!