Rainy Season

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The rains came and here I am without a working rain gauge. I'm keeping a record of what days I water and also, when nature waters. When it's me, I try for about one inch in the garden. It would be handy to know what nature is going for.

I started back last Fall keeping a written log of what I was doing, plus, I printed homesteading journal forms and began filling them out. Unfortunately, the forms asked for information I have no use for and didn't ask for some things I have since wished I had recorded. Like rainfall.

Last year's notebook helped a lot with this year's planning, but lacked some information that could have been useful. Once I started sprouting and planting seeds, I realized that certain specific information might really help me next year, but I had waited too long to recover lost data.

I started my pepper seeds with damp paper towels in plastic bags. It would have been good to have specific information on what germinated when, and when I moved those sprouted seeds into potting soil in small pots. This might seem trivial, but it could help me decide what to plant next year. Some peppers are fairly interchangeable. For instance, Jalapeno and Santa Fe are very similar in most ways. I have a slight preference for Santa Fe, because they are a little hotter and a little sweeter. If Santa Fe is difficult to germinate, I may stick to Jalapeno next year.

Many seeds are irregular in how long they take to germinate, but it would be good to know if certain seeds take two to six weeks to sprout, while others take six to eight. Out of sixteen Beefsteak tomato seeds I planted in pots, eight came up in the first two weeks. Since then, only one or two a week have appeared. The late arrivals may or may not be as robust and I probably could have replanted right away if I had known I needed to.

I've never been fond of paperwork, but that could be because I never personally benefited from the information. It does help that other people have kept records on things like first and last frost, and how long from planting until harvest. Maybe it's time I join the information revolution.

Stephen P.

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