Sad Seedlings and Cat Hammocks

Well, my last post was only two days ago, but some significant stuff has happened since then.

On Sunday, Anne Marie's son Ben and I went over to Drew's place. I had spoken with Drew on Saturday, and he mentioned that he had a lot of extra seedlings: eggplants, peppers, kale, and some other things. He was just going to throw them out, so he offered them to us, if we would be willing to come get some. Well, who the heck were we to pass up an offer like that?! Ben and I hopped in my SUV on Sunday, in spite of the nasty, cold weather - rain/snow and temperatures in the 30s - and drove over to Drew's with some small containers, soil, and a camera. We carefully transplanted twelve peppers, twelve eggplants, six broccoli, three kale, and three fennel seedlings of many different varieties and drove them back to Westmore to put them in the coldframe.

Well, that's where I went wrong. I should have realized that it was going to get too darn cold in there for those little guys to make it. I should have taken them inside the house or the garage, or my SUV - something! - to protect them from the chilly weather. The thermometer in the coldframe read barely above 40° Fahrenheit, far too cold for any warm season crop like peppers or eggplant. Ben and I just thought it had dropped sharply when we opened the lid, but apparently not. Of course, it could be that even that low a temperature didn't kill the plants; perhaps it dropped even lower in the night and that's what killed them. Or maybe it wasn't temperature at all, but some egregious transplanting error that I committed. I doubt this, though, not due to arrogance, but because of which plants survived. Brassicas, including broccoli and kale, are cool season crops, and much more tolerant of low temperatures than are warm season crops like the ones that perished. We will never know for sure, but I do know that the next time a day gets that cold, I'm bringing the flats inside! Boy, I really hope the crops I seeded last Friday are still all right. In the span of two days, they experienced temperatures from over 100° to below 50° - that's tough to take. Well, I guess we'll find out soon whether they'll be coming up or not.

On to the good news! On Sunday, after Ben and I had transplanted the doomed seedlings, Anne Marie and Ben and I made our way to Home Depot for anti-deer/anti-cat/anti-hail plastic mesh (not very local, I know, but we didn't know where else to get this deer netting stuff). We also bought some short rebar stakes to hold the supports for the netting in place. While we were at it, we impulsively bought some wax bean seeds (yum!) and a mix of wildflower seeds for one of Anne Marie's flower gardens.

Today, I went to ReSource Fort Collins to get some stiff plastic tubing hoops to use as supports for the mesh - it wouldn't do much good to place it directly on the plants, now would it? I was expecting them to be really cheap, but to my delight, our trusty ReSource pal Nick directed me to a dumpster in the back and said I could have all the tubing I wanted for free! I do love ReSource. There were some sturdy wooden stairs next to the dumpster for the comfort and convenience of dumpster divers, so I hopped on up the stairs and - lo and behold - found yards and yards of tubing right in front of me! I borrowed a saw from some ReSource volunteers and sawed myself six lengths of plastic tubing to use for hoops. I stuffed them into my trusty ol' rusty ol' SUV, Monster, and drove them over to Westmore.

Anne Marie and I then sawed them down more exactly, pounded some rebar stakes into the ground, stuck the hoops on the stakes, stretched the mesh over them, and secured the netting with some garden stakes that Anne Marie had lying around. Not too shabby! And the onions and peas are now much better protected from any playful advances by the kitties. However, Katara the cat quickly discovered that she could clamber up onto the mesh and just float there. We may need to add another hoop and thus prevent such ventures... But it works for now! The onion sets still look spiffy, by the way - I'm sure they and the peas will appreciate the nice drink I gave them this evening.

As always, thanks for reading!

WOG out.