5-16-2022 -- Mid May May Be Fall

Howdy,

So the temps are already dropping again. Headed to 40s overnight for next few days, and maybe getting into 60s during day. WTFreak?

But those few days of spring did help the garden get started. All the greenhouse tent plants are looking healthier. And the cold frames are doing great. I even picked out a few radishes yesterday. I needed to thin out the number of plants, and some had marble sized (even shooter sized) radishes.

A nice mild taste. No garlic flavor even though growing amongst the garlic bulbs.

The garlic is getting taller than I expected. Barely staying within the confines of the cold frame cover. I am closing the covers on all of the cold frames until temps get back up to 70.

I also ripped off a nice helping of spinach from one of the frames today. Will go into tomorrow’s omelet. Along with white button mushrooms from the ones I grow in the upstairs 2nd bathroom (nice and easy to keep cool and humid!!).

The strawberry plants, in the bed around the tomatoes, are blossoming now. And those tomato plants are doing good. I was pinching off suckers today.

The bed to the right of the tomato plants are more radishes. I can even see some of them are producing.
Behind them are carrots. They are popping up now. Will need to thin soon.

The cucumber and squash seeded plants are popping out now too. And the seedlings I added are still alive. Not great looking yet, but I am hopeful.

Oh, peppers in bed to the front, squash to the one behind it and squash / cucumbers in the 2 beds to the left.

The berry bushes (raspberry and blueberry) are greening up and even some blossoms.

I was worried about the berry bushes. Really thought the winter had done them in. But they may get a chance to feed the birds yet…

Writing of birds, I have plenty visiting the feeders out front. Makes Kitty happy.

Stills taken from security camera video aren’t great.

I think he is actually eating a bug or a worm he picked up somewhere.

Kitty is tired from all the birds and squirrels and bunnies.

She is not too happy I interrupted her much needed nap.

Oh, on the home front, I finally have consistently working portable A/C in the master bedroom. I have tried for 2 years to get the AFCI breaker circuit to that room to not trip for zippo reasons. I’ve replaced outlets, and had electricians rewire things, and replace the AFCI breaker in the panel multiple times. I’ve even replaced the electronics that were plugged in at failures.

No, the plugged in devices weren’t using anywhere near the 80% of the 20 amp circuit.

But, the electricians aren’t allowed to replace that breaker with a non-AFCI one because of the way code is written. Silly enough though, they could add another line from the breaker box, to the bedroom, as a “remodel”, and I now have a 20 amp circuit to a single outlet, which doesn’t have any issues handling the A/C (it is about 11.5 amps).

The master bedroom seems to collect all of the heat from this house. It can be 50 degrees outside, and if it was sunny during the day, it will be 75 up there when I want to go to bed.

I can now just A/C the bedroom, even in the winter. My dual hose portable A/C (heat pump) can work with outside temps down into the 20 range, and still cool that room down to a nice comfortable (for sleeping) 63-65 degrees.

Has it helped me sleep more? Maybe a little. But I'm much more comfortable tossing and turning trying to fall asleep.

So, that’s it for now. Even with this constant cold/wet weather, try to

Enjoy Life.