March #19.1: Foaming Fury
We did it again! Survived the worst four months of the year and only good times are coming now! Right… RIGHT?! While March is comparatively warmer than last year, it's full of temperature swings. We get nice, warm-ish afternoons with freezing temperatures at night. And that's a good thing! Those cold nights keep my cherries from flowering prematurely.
Fingers crossed for a similar harvest as last year. Just recently, I ran out of the cherry jam, and I already miss it. But I will have to wait for that until at least June. In the meantime, let's focus on the stuff we have now.
the real estate evaluation
Previously, I examined the state of the roofing material on my cabin. The moss-killer did its job, and the moss is now dead. Well, almost… it is dead in places I did not forget to spray properly.
To fix the rooftop, I examined it thoroughly. And boy, was I surprised. In a good way, too, but mostly in a bad way. You see, the rooftop was already coated once with bitumen, with acrylic on top. But the fiber-asbestos cement is a porous material that breathes, and when you enclose it in something impervious, like bitumen, all the moisture it captures from the air has nowhere to escape. But the moisture loves to escape, and it escapes together with the bitumen. And that's generally fine because, in most places, the bitumen coating just flakes off and leaves the exposed surface. The material will survive for decades like this because it can breathe.
But then I discovered other places. In my country, it's a culture to use construction foam for everything. And in the same manner, my grandpa tried to fix the leak by foaming every hole right where the cabin roof meets the terrace roof. And then, of course, covered this blob of foam with a blob of bitumen. This foam is not only not UV-stable, but it also holds water like a sponge, and that water has nowhere to go but the roofing. And there, the winter wreaks havoc. I have to remove it all.
Sorry for the language but everyone who ever had to remove foam will relate.
There has been one place in particular that really decayed and will require a solid amount of the proper coat and geotextile.
But then I got surprised in a good way. I inspected the other side of the cement sheet, and not only does it look way better than I thought, but I also found out that my grandpa installed the eternite roofing over the original one, which would act as yet another barrier for the water. But I still have to fix it.
To stay on topic a little bit, I decided to rebuild the tomato trellis I built last year. It's definitely sturdier than the original, but it's still a little wonky, and I don't like that.
I ordered some grounding screws, and let me tell you, this is now my favorite way of putting stuff in the ground. It not only looks good but is solid, and, of course, the installation process is incredibly satisfying.
the cogs of fortune
I have removed the mulch from my garlic bed because the warm weather of late February pierced my garlic right through. All of them sprouted, which is always nice, but I can't remember what kind of garlic each row is. This is going to be fun.
In the bed right next to the garlic one, I've planted red onion sets and some carrots. This time, a proper long one, the bed should be deep enough for regular carrots, not just the Parisian carrots. While I like the radish-like shape of the Parisian carrot, I don't consider it the most effective way of producing carrots, even though I will be growing them again this year.
Hornbach finally sells salad seedlings again, and I have some preem spot for them in the greenhouse. I don't even know why I was always leaving the greenhouse empty up until May.
The soil in there is still a little bit alkaline for my liking, but I am treating it with a mixture of nitric and phosphoric acids for those peppers. Speaking of peppers, they are taking off really well.
But next year, I will most likely not sprout them using the wet towel method. It's really easy to sprout them this way; the wet towel heats up quickly and provides some structure for those roots, but handling them and moving them to pods is stressful. I want to try pre-soaking them in water overnight next year.
the amatriciana
Right at the end of the second week of March, my tomato senses started tingling, and I had to act! In the previous section, I said I won't be sprouting seeds in the wet towel anymore. This realization came AFTER I put my tomatoes in these bags.
This year, I am trying to broaden the varieties I grow. Same with peppers. The last two or three years, I usually picked two or three varieties, and that was it. But since I now have a huge collection of tomato seeds, I might as well use them.
I tried to come up with a number of plants I would like to have this year, and I failed miserably. I picked some varieties I know, Sunviva, for example. I know these plants will do well and resist rot and blight while I experiment with the new ones. Like Costoluto Fiorentino. This one I chose only because of the catchy name, but it catches diseases faster than an ADHD kid catches Pokémons in Pokémon GO.
It turns out it's a very old beefsteak tomato that's great for sauces and canning. It's also a great host for literally every fungus that eats tomato plants. It will for sure be in quarantine the whole time.
This is a very interesting one, an engineered tomato only about ten years old, developed by the Willy Wonka of the tomato world, Brad Gates. I picked this one because of the looks: stripes everywhere, and it's supposed to have great taste and some disease resistance. Being this young, it should handle all the common pathogens we have around.
I plan to split the tomatoes again between soil culture and soilless culture, both inoculated with Pythium oligandrum and Trichoderma for added resistance. I have a simple DWC hydroponic plan in mind for a few plants as an experiment; it may outperform the coco peat mixture, who knows.
I hope you are looking forward to this season as much as I am. We got basically robbed last year when there was a really short summer, and I have high hopes for this one! So high that I will be really disappointed if something or someone tries to ruin it again. For example, with nuclear winter.
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