More tiller tales, new dahlias, the weather station is up

Rob brought the small tiller back on Monday, but he and Juan discovered that it still didn’t work. The shop had replaced the slip clutch to the pto, but hadn’t tested it out. Rob loaded it back on his truck to return it to the shop. Meanwhile, I was determined to get the tilling done in the hoophouses. Enrique managed to squeeze the John Deere through the sliding doors and get the job done. The guys put down landscape fabric in several hoophouses in preparation for planting tomatoes. This allowed us to move the tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet and hot peppers, and eggplant into one of the hoophouses, thus freeing up precious space in the starts greenhouse.

We did get the small tiller back Wednesday in working order. The shop was a bit embarrassed about retuning non-functioning equipment.

The crew now has the herb and flower gardens in pretty good shape for planting. The corn maze fertilizer has been spread.

On Wednesday we planted the dahlias for our cut flower garden. We purchased 485 tubers with a wide selection of shapes and sizes in white, pink/red, lavender/purple, and yellow. I changed the layout from double rows to single rows. This time we added drip line for irrigation.

The dahlia beds in our cut flower garden. The tubers are planted in single rows in raised beds. The dark circles are formed by the water dripping from the dripline. Watch for more photos as the garden develops.

The herb garden is looking tidier now. We'll be planting the annual herbs soon. In the front left to right you can see lavender, anise hyssop,and thyme. Futher back are French tarragon. The taller bushes in the back are rosemary. The herb garden is set up so you can walk it as a labyrinth, but I also added lots of cross paths for gardening convience.  Watch for more photos as the herb garden develops.

I also mounted the weather station today.

Our new weather station, a Vantage Pro2 Plus from Davis Instruments. Our data collection started today May 10. I still need to do some calibration and to get the radio relay set up so I can receive the signal at the office and log the data into the computer. You can see the Marionberries in the background.

What’s playing today in the Jeep CD player?  Stunz & Farah – Americas