So, the weekend previous to this one, I potted up about 1500 tomatoes, peppers, and basil
Well, you cannot see it really well in this pic, but above Phoebe’s head, and a bit to the left side (our left, not her’s) there is a big tear in the plastic of the greenhouse. What you cannot see at all is that the doors are blown in and lots of the side panels are blown off. There was two days of sustained 40 mph winds with gusts well beyond that.
Beat the hell out of the plants I potted up last weekend.
Not a total loss. Maybe a thousand plants total shredded by the wind.
And there is an odd upside to it as well. I am always selecting for heartier and more stress resistant plants. Nothing was a total loss, but anything that could not handle the stress got whipped to death by the wind. So, without me planning to, I just went through a really tough trial of stem strength and resilience testing of my tomatoes and peppers, combined with 40 degree temps. Even some basil made it, though for them the mortality rate was about 95%.
So, downside is that I have no where near the numbers of plants to give away this year. Bugs me a bit, but on the breeding side of things, since there were no total losses, it did take out a lot of the weaker genetics in seedlings.
The cats did their usual thing with me, and yes, that is what I look like pretty fully depiliated.
Phoebe just hung out, played with Bella, the cats, and baby chicks, and I re-potted plants, again, assessing losses. Some things really impressed me, others I was a bit saddened by, but overall, it is still more, for the most part, than I was capable of putting into the ground myself, so I am not out more than the ability to give as much as I had hoped to in the short term. Still yet to be seen how the rest of the year goes.
Weather has turned colder today. High winds out of the north west, and a 30 degree drop in daytime temps. I keep reminding myself that it is early spring yet. Have held off on planting anything other than some kale, and onion plants will start going in this next weekend. There is a speaking engagement I am involved in this weekend on Saturday which crimps things a bit, but still feeling good about things. Since none of this impacts us personally, and only means that there was some efforts that did not yield as much extra as I had hoped, all is still on schedule for us.
Now just hoping no freezes so that all of these blooms turn into cherries.
