Monday--April 10

We had a busy weekend. The greater part of the gardens makeover is done. The three oldest and most fragile of the containers are gone. The largest of the remaining pots we intended to shift to new places have been shifted. The plans I started in January and February are totally obsolete. Time to rethink.

Huffington Post has this clip from Bill Maher that is, indeed, a brutal assessment of what Republicanism has become. Clue: it isn't conservative.

It looks like ships sailing the north Atlantic around Newfoundland and Labrador are encountering swarms of icebergs. Far more than "normal" and much earlier than "normal." Question: what is "normal" anymore?

Tuesday--April 11

We got the heavy cleaning and moving done yesterday between the bouts of heavy rain. Really heavy rain with thunder and lightening all night. I moved the tiered pot I had under grow lights upstairs back into the gardens. It looks nice where I have it now. Thankfully I got it covered before those monsoonal rains hit again. I have several basil plants and spinach in it now.

Wednesday--April 12

This Bloomberg article had me asking if grocery chains on this side of the pond are doing the same. We are used to the "shrinkflation" mentioned but we rarely buy anything that isn't a staple item so whether the cost for other items on the grocery list have gone up is a question. The supermarket chains attribute their strategy to Brexit but I have my doubts. That is simply as good an excuse as any.

We had to go out to one of our home improvement/garden stores this morning to replace my backup light bulb for the small grow light set up. I had to change one out today. We walked around just to see what they had out for plants. Some interesting items but not a lot just yet. In another week or two they should be fully up. By then I will have my list of want-to-haves and alternates. I transferred the full-sized tomatoes and eggplants into larger pots as well as all the cucumbers. All of the citrus looks good except for one. I am giving it time to decide whether it wants to live or not. I suddenly discovered what I was missing in all the seed starting. Somehow I failed to start the full-sized peppers for the outside garden. I will do that tomorrow and get some more marigolds going. I lost all but two of the previous batch of marigolds. I have no idea why. I have come to the conclusion that sometimes plants just decide they aren't going to thrive and they don't.