New Beds

No doubt you've seen those videos of all the Europeans here for the World Cup and discovering the US isn't anything like they've been led to believe.   I've been really enjoying watching them discover what we take for granted.  There is this one French man who absolutely cracks me up.  Have you seen him -- the one who said he'd give his left croissant for a Texas brisket?  

Yeah, a bit later on, he's talking about air conditioning.  He says "It's hotter than satan's butt crack" and I totally lost it, because that's exactly what it feels like outside.  Throw in those little spawns of satan called fire ants, and I'm done for the day. 

But I supposed I'd better back up a bit and tell you where it all started.  

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.  Then he created grass.  And that grass would need to be mowed, so he created people and now you know the rest of the story.  Yesterday evening, I decided I needed to mow, and yes, I mowed the whole yard, even the part behind the fence.  There was only a little bit I didn't get finished, and I took care of that this morning.  

I'd stopped to close the back door that the cat pushed open, then couldn't get the lawnmower to start, so I took it as a sign.  Anyway, even though I waited until 7:00 PM to start, by the time I was done, I was drenched with sweat.  

As if that weren't enough, I got up this morning and started putting my new raised beds into place.  The first step was to take all of this compost out of these two beds and move it out of the way. 

Everything was going swimmingly until I disturbed the fire ants.  I got eat up, so much so I came inside and took a Claritin.  After cooling off a bit, I got back at it and got the beds emptied out.  Then I moved the empty beds over beside the zinnia bed.  

I'm going to dig the red clay out from under them before I start filling them up, but that will have to wait until it cools off a bit.  Like October.  Or November.  

That being done, I came back into the air conditioning to put my new raised beds together.  I thought it was a nice touch that they included gloves so you don't cut your hands all up. 

It was a thoughtful gesture, but alas, they were thin, and tore up before I finished the first bed.  And here it is, the first bed:  

It was pretty easy to put together, if a bit tedious because of all of those bolts.  The hardest part was pulling the protective film off.  Once I got that off, the rest was a piece of cake, but I was a bit disappointed at how easily the finish scratched, so when I put the second bed together, I made the executive decision to leave the protective film on. 

You can't really even tell the difference, other than it is slightly less shiny.  Oh, and I know the beds aren't lined up.  That's because of the other bed, the one with the bachelor's buttons and zinnias in it.  The plan is to empty that bed out after the first frost kills off all of the zinnias and slide it down just a bit so I can get the two metal beds lined up.  

It was kind of the plan anyway, to empty that bed, remove the liner, and dig the red clay out from under it so the roots of whatever I have planted there will have more room to grow, so it's no problem to move it just a few inches. 

The last step was to put all the stuff I'd dug out of the old bed back into one of the new beds -- the one I don't intend to move later, that is.  The other one will stay empty until I can get it into its permanent location. 

 As you can see, all of that compost barely made a dent in the space.  Now I understand why they say filling a raised bed can get expensive.  This one is deep enough that I can start planting annuals in it even with it not being completely full, plus it's sitting on natural soil, so the plant's roots can go down into that if necessary.  

I'm going to give it a few days to settle -- or maybe a few weeks, since we're not supposed to get any rain for several days.  We may get a pop up shower here and there, but nothing major.  Then, I'll move my new pile of compost into it.  

By the time I had finished that, I was drenched in sweat and starting to feel the effects of heat exhaustion, so I came inside and took a shower.  I'm going to spend the rest of the day in the air conditioning drinking copious amounts of water. 

I came thisclose to buying a pint of ice cream yesterday, but didn't.  Now I kind of wish I had.  It sure would have hit the spot on a hot day like this.  Hotter than satan's butt crack, as our French friend would say. 

Now for a bit of sad news.  I noticed that the peppers on one of my banana pepper plants didn't look quite right. 

They weren't nice and straight and big like the ones on my other plants.  Then I noticed that the leaves had a bit of a mottled appearance, which also didn't seem quite right. 

The last issue I saw was black spots on my peppers.  

I did a bit of research and came up with a result I didn't really like.  I had a chat with ChatGPT and she -- funny how I think of ChatGPT as a she -- basically verified what I had already figured out.  My plant has what is called mosaic virus.  There is no cure for it, so to prevent it from spreading to my other plants, I made the difficult decision to pull this one up and discard it.  I can't even put it into the compost, because the virus can spread that way, too.  I'll give it a minute or two to dry out well, then I'll burn it in my fire pit. 

Hopefully, I got it removed in time.  My other plants still seem healthy with large healthy looking fruits on them, so I'm hopeful.  

Finally, while I was out doing all of that piddling in the garden, I saw what appears to be a solid black bumblebee on one of my zinnias. 

It was smaller than a normal bumble bee, so I don't know what it was.  It was pollenating, though, so I left him to it.  

I guess that's it for today.  I'm going to go bring my laundry in, then spend the rest of the evening recovering from heat stress, dehydration, and a butt load of fire ant bites. 

Laters...