Went out to peruse the gardens again this morning and it appears I have
98% of the black crowder seeds have come up. That's the best I've ever
had on store bought seed. These are from Victory Seeds so I will
probably order more seed from them as time goes on.

The cucumber seeds, so far, are about 50% above ground. All of the
plants from the nursery are doing fine. We have tiny tomatoes on some
"free" tomato plants, ie. the seeds grew from the compost pit and are
doing well. Sometimes we just take the compost bucket out to the garden
and pot hole it as a faster way to make real compost. Poking around the
area of the free tomatoes turned up several earthworms so we're happy
that we do, indeed have some earthworms on the property. Possibly from
some we ordered last spring and put into the raised beds and in the
fence rows. At any rate, some worms are better than no worms.

Looks like there may be some rain today, we can only hope. Yesterday I
strung out one of those flat, green, three tube soaker hoses. It was
thirty feet long and was a gift from one of our neighbors who moved last
year, still in the package and much stronger than soaker hoses made from
recycled auto tires. I had forgotten about it until I ran up on it in
the garage. I had already bought another one twenty-five feet long at a
close out sale at a local store. We shall see how long they last but
they do appear to do a good job of soaking.

George