An Engineer's Garden

Last weekend we whipped the garden into shape enough to get the soaker hose out and plant the poor seedlings that have been languishing in their starter pots. Of course, I did have to pick the hottest weekend that we've had since last August to insist on all this hard work!
The previous beds just needed weeding and the soil turned but we (Jonathan) also needed to dig up a new potato bed since they are supposed to be rotated in order to keep down disease and pests. A new sunflower area was also required since we are trying out the truly mammoth sunflowers this year and had to figure out a place to grow them where they wouldn't shade another sun-loving plant.
We had also neglected to bring in the soaker hose at the end of last year so we had to extract it from its cozy little nest of grass that had grown up around it. Some grumbling on both sides cemented the conviction that this travesty of yard keeping shall not recur. In the end, however, it was laid out with careful attention to the mathematical relations of the hose wetting area to the bed space and the strain rate of the hose bends.



I had intended to plant the seedlings on Saturday but we needed to take our red faces inside to cool off. They were finally planted in the cool of the evening on Sunday. And then it rained--hooray!