PROPERTY UPDATES
August 8 , 2010
The weather has remained useasonably cool all through July and into the first week of August. The plants were a bit late in coming out because of the cool weather, but they're all into summer foliage by now. Petra has been blessed with surprisingly few losses among her flock this season. We attribute much of our good fortune to the salubrious conditions of Rainbow and consider ourselves lucky to have been able to acquire this little plot!
The specimens in the greenhouse are all flourishing. The conditions we've created so far seem to be as near perfect as we could ask for the type of plants that Petra grows.
Progress on the new "kindergarten" has been steady, if a bit slower than we would have liked (as usual). The framing and bracing are finished, the "wiggle" strip perimeter is in, the water line and electric service are also in and we're dealing with the fans and outlets now. Petra has the Inter-City Show this coming weekend, so we won't be slinging plastic and shade cloth until the following weekend. She should be able to start the big move-in by the end of this month.
That's a good thing, because the temporary kindergarten is already filled to overflowing and there are a host of other babies that Petra has had to find space for wherever she could.
And they keep on coming! Petra must be counting on the kindergarten being finished soon, because she keeps on putting down more seed. She's even resorted to trying some really old stock, including one batch of seed harvested in 2005 that surprised us by producing a pretty good germination rate! At this rate, the new kindergarten will already be half-full on day one!
The ground beds have proven to be all that was claimed. Everything put in here last fall has shown a remarkable growth rate. We're planning on building more of these when time permits. Hah!
Some order has finally been established on the shade structure level. Planter boxes (aka, quasi-ground beds) are set up at the north end and only three more benches have yet to get their table tops.