COVID-19 Quarantine Day 36

Hey guys!  I hope you all had a nice Friday.  We did here at our house!  I make sure the kids do the more intensive work early in the week, so by the time Friday gets here they have the more fun and easy stuff to do.  I had a Webinar today, but otherwise, didn't have much work either.  Tuesday-Thursday are really my busy days.  We got some rain last night, first time since we got the boxes put in.  The dirt settled a little, but not too much.  Maybe tomorrow the dirt pile will be a little more dry and I can add some more soil to each box.  I was slightly worried about my asparagus trenches because I had just dug them and was worried the rain would wash all the soil into the trenches.  They aren't supposed to be filled all the way up until the end of the season.  But, when Michael and I went out to check on the garden this afternoon they looked just fine.  Avery carrots are doing well, although I'm not sure how much I expect from the 3rd row we planted.  They might have got buried a little too deep.  We shall see.  A few days ago I planted some more seeds inside.  My herbs weren't growing, neither were my old yellow squash seeds (surprise surprise).  The romaine and dill had come up, but one day outside had all but killed them, so I pulled them and will try again right in the ground or in a planter.  In the open containers I planted broccoli, yellow squash from a new pack of seeds, and some new lettuces.  Today I noticed that all 4 of my broccoli pots were sprouting!  To make sure they actually grew and I didn't end up with pots containing only dirt and dead seeds after waiting a week or two, I planted a couple seeds in each pot.  In almost every pot both seeds are coming up!  I'm so excited!  Who knows if they'll survive outside, but at least they're coming up out of the dirt!  Whatever gets me by until I can get plants in the ground.  Speaking of which, tomorrow is the day!!  It's going to finally start warming up the next several days and I'd like to get my plants in the ground as early as possible so they can benefit and get established while we have some good sunshine.  The last chance of frost date is April 26th, so I know I'm still a little early, but the forecast isn't showing anymore lows anywhere in the 30's from now tomorrow until then, so I'm taking my chances!  There will be lots of pictures tomorrow, I'm sure.  I'll be super excited to get everything in the ground and show off how awesome things look with the plants in!  I desperately want to start today, but I won't.  What I did do today was plant a few more seeds, though!  Yesterday I didn't do any plant work, save watering, but every other day since the boxes were built I've done at least a little something.  My peppers have done a good job starting from seeds inside.  I have another pack of sweet, long peppers that I hadn't opened yet, and an empty pot, so I tossed a few in there.  We'll see what happens, but I'm optimistic!  The seed pack is a mixture of banana pepper and red horn pepper seeds.  Michael loves banana peppers, and if the red ones are as sweet, just red, I'm sure he'll like those too.  I've upped my number of tomato plants this year from 4 to 6.  I just didn't have quite as many tomatoes last year as I wanted.  I only bought 4 pepper plants, but counting the seeds I planted today, I have 5 pepper seedlings.  Oh well!  More salsa supplies!  Plus, last year I cut up and froze peppers I had left over and that worked great!  So I'm more than happy to do that again!  I hope my bell peppers get a little bigger this year.  I think all of my peppers will do better this year because they won't be as overshadowed by the tomatoes.  Last year I made the mistake of putting the tomatoes at the end of the box and they got between the peppers and the sun.  I'm learning a little more each year.  I'll probably never have it all figured out, but I'll at least get a little better as I go!  I'm SUPER stoked to get my flowers outside and hanging from the arbor!  They were so pretty the other day when I took them out!  We still haven't figured out an irrigation plan yet.  We're almost halfway through our current 2 week quarantine this round.  I want to be able to go see Mama and Daddy again in another week or so.  Between now and then Michael and I can hatch a plan about how to water my plants.  After we see them, we'll make our bi-weekly errands run to get supplies, equipment for watering the plants, groceries, stopping by Sis and Adam's house to give them and their kids some human contact outside their family group, any other running around we may need to do, and then we'll do another firm 2 weeks in so we can see Mama and Daddy again after that.  That's the pattern I see probably happening for the foreseeable future.  I would like to be able to go out and see other people too, but I don't want to have too many contact points.  I want to be able to trace back where I've been and where the people I've seen have been.  All in all, even though I don't get to go out or see people as much as I'd like, the quarantine hasn't been too rough on our family.  I'm thankful for that.  I know it's been very difficult on many people.  We are definitely fortunate.  Alright, I think that's enough rambling for a while.  I'm going to grab some food.  Thanks for tuning in to this stream on consciousness and glance inside my head (scary isn't it).  ;-)  If the sun is still out when you read this, go outside and soak a little in.  I can speak from experience, it's good for you and for your soul.  Does wonders for me just to get out to our garden or onto the deck for a while.  It's actually where I'm writing this from, which is probably why it's so long, because I just want to stay out and enjoy the evening sun on my face.  I'm tired of this cold weather.  Bring on the Spring!!  Have a wonderful evening!  Love you all so very much!  Be good to one another!  💕