Enjoying the heat? I am!
Looks like most of you have planted or are getting underway. Your gardens will need to be kept wet so your seeds germinate and plants don't wither. When it's hot like this, you should be watering everyday.
A Few Things
I think I have the tasks all sorted out and because there are so many of you, I will just post everyone's tasks on the back of the shed door along with the clipboard for recording your hours. Sorry I haven't updated the sheets - I forgot about the month change!
I have a couple of tasks that I haven't included on the list. Those being weed-eating, shed clean up and painting. If anyone has any interest in these tasks please let me know. The shed is a disaster area right now and desperately needs sorting and tidying. I will likely tackle that at tonight's work bee.
Weeding...everyone is to maintain a 2-3 foot perimeter around their beds reasonably free of weeds. I'm not too concerned about grass as we do weed eat but I do want to see those dandelions gone. Use one of the dandelion tools in the shed. Please remember to put all your weeds in one of the buckets by the shed. And please, no rocks or dirt in the buckets. It makes them way too heavy to handle. If the bucket is heavy to lift you likely have something in there that shouldn't be. Dirt should be shaken from the roots and rocks can be tossed over the fence(cliffside) or kept around the base of your garden plot.
Rita, our main weed eater, has requested that everyone please pluck the tall grass from around the base of their bed as it is hard on the wire for the weed eater when she has to go in so close and ends up whacking the wood of the bed.
The South Garden.
The beds are now all finished in the south garden. The ones that are void of dirt will be filled by the end of the summer and ready to go for the next growing season. I am still trying to get the barrels there so everyone is just going to have to share the single one that is there now.
We have the hose set up there and I would like it to remain where it is. It's too much of a task to put it away and haul it out everytime we need it. So here's a few rules with the hose being out:
This is the water main in the north garden that controls the water line(runs under the road) in the south garden. In order for the water to come on in the south garden, the water has to be turned on at the bottom (main) and at the top (south garden). Don't mess with the other two things. I would like these two taps to stay on and to be able to control the water for the south garden from the south garden (I'll get to that in a minute) so leave them on please. Using the hose in the north garden (the one with the key) may be tricky to hook up which means you're probably going to get wet. So if you need to hook it up just turn it off. Also, please check to see if anyone is using the water in the south garden before hooking up to this main as the pressure is shared and you can really only use one hose, effectively, at a time.
Okay, back to water control...
The box in the ground which, by the way, should always be left with the lid on like below:
and not like this:
In this box the hose connects to the underground hose coming from the north garden. There is a coupler on there now that we can control the on/off with. What's shown below is the on position. Off is 90 degrees to this. You should be able to tell by the pressure in the hose. This must be turned on to use and you must turn it off when you are done.
Next. Attached to the side of one of the boxes is another coupler. See below. There are two choices here that both involve the little red switches. Choice one is the correct one and is going to allow icy cold water to flow beautifully from the hose. Choice two is the wrong one and it's going to shoot icy cold water into your face as you lean over it . Trust me, I know this. From experience. Twice.
So, because I'm the type of person that believes in learning from experience (and also because I have a cruel sense of humour), I'm not going to tell you which is which. Have fun with it though.
I want to see the hose wound up nice and kept on the hose holder on the fence. Nobody likes to untangle hoses and we don't want to get any holes in it from vehicles running over it.
Thank you to Heidi for getting things set up with the hoses and couplers. Even though I did get a thorough face washing as a result. Twice.
I think that's all for now. Be patient with me. There are almost 55 of you and only one of me. :)
Hope to see you tonight!
Happy Gardening!
