Have you ever had a day / week like this?
Soil temp was 60 degrees 4 inches down so I thought I could begin moving the peppers outside.
Two beds, Reapers in one, Bells in the other, 42 plants total. Pictured are the Bells. Roots are weak being they are going from hydro to dirt.
That night...
Well lesson learned… My seeding station game is on point but I obviously still have a few things to learn about the rollout into the garden. First lesson was “Check the damned weather forecast to make sure…. idiot”.
So I double covered the two beds.
One layer of plastic covered by a tarp. That sweet sweet 60 degree soil was going to make everything alright.
Next morning...
the damned cover blew off the reapers sometime during the night 🙁
My sweet 60 degrees was able to bleed off and the Reapers took a hit.
Water and aspirin saves the day!!!
Julia asked, “What’s the aspirin?”
I replied “NOTHING” and just frowned.
I had pulled an all nighter doing something and here's where the sun was in the sky.
I had maybe an hour and a half before the Sun moves past the tree and starts burning my plants through the clear plastic.
Now I’m racing to get to Walmart and back.
Lesson #2: Have your crap ready beforehand. “Yes Dad”. sigh.
Well dummy made it back in time.
And at this point, it’s almost comical.
And then we did the science expo.
What a fantastic day with the family but I was gone all day. I came back to the Bells 3/4 dead from me not being there to make a minor adjustment. Lesson #3, don’t plant ON SPRING BREAK!!!
got it. sigh.
And you guessed it...
More water and (not) Aspirin....
As of this writing, “I’m still working on it”. Everything’s still touch and go so we’ll see.
I was initially upset until I realized that it’s just LEARNING. I’m really close.
Lessons learned:
1. Check the damned forecast even if I think everything’s cool.
2. Have all materials I will need in hand before planting.
3. Keep my schedule open for the next week so I can periodically check plant progress throughout the day.
I'm sure you've had days like this too.
Update 4/9/2024
It’s going to rain for the next few days. I pulled the plastic and….
What do you think? Should I prune them? Remove the necro’d leaves? At least there’s SOME green left on the damaged leaves so I assume they are still partially functional for now, so I’m choosing to leave them. It might be a mistake.
At least it's not a total loss.
I think 25% of the plants might survive. I can clone them and get my count back up.
It’s a setback but not the end of the world.