Happy Saturday!

This week, there was rain. Thank goodness! I had ran out of rain water in my rain barrels and spent the earlier part of the week finishing up all the rain barrels projects. I moved one of the rain barrels in the backyard since the gutter above the garage gets a lot of water from a tiny rainstorm. So three barrels would mean 150 gallons of water – plenty. While I had mostly empty barrels, I swapped out the spigots for full-flow ball valves so I will no longer need to stand there for an eternity with the barrel filled my watering can.

At the same time, I kept looking at the weather forecast. It kept predicting torrential downpour with a probability of flooding. I was lucky to had escaped the torrential downpour. There were parts of the state that weren’t so lucky. Some places got 2-inches of rain in an hour, flooding the roads and people’s basement. There were even places that got flooded to the point of mandatory evacuation.

Even though I didn’t get the torrential down pours, I was happy the storm replenished two of the four rain barrels (around 120 gallons)and brought some much-needed humidity. The plants are looking a little bit better in the semi-wet weather.

Let’s update on the seedlings I started on July 30. Since I sowed the seeds during the hottest time of the year, I’m not at all surprised by the spotty germination. In fact, I was surprised the lettuce germinated at all in the back. To get the seeds to germinate, I had to constantly cool down the soil by putting ice cubes on top.

I tried to make ice cubes with rain water and got yelled at by my mom who accused me of trying to kill her. “Are you trying to kill me?” She said, and then started listing out ridiculous symptoms of how she’s been feeling lately even though the ice is on the top shelf of the freezer, she never touched it as she doesn’t use ice, and it never touched any of the food. She claimed the bacteria from the rain water can be spread by air.

Anyway, looking at the tray of seedlings, it looks like the Giant Noble Spinach is the winner for germination. Fortunately, none of the family members know what a spinach seedling looks like nor can they understand my plant tags since I only write the variety and not the kind of vegetables. My mom had told me repeatedly not to plant spinach but then she asked me not to plant a lot of things, yet I still plant them. I plant the things I like to eat while experiment with vegetables I’ve never tried before. Meanwhile, my mom is someone who will never try new things. Her excuse, “I’m too old to try new things.”

I will have to look for a place for these seedlings.

I made a few more of my favorite new salad this week as I always have cucumbers and cherry tomatoes on demand. I ran out of peaches at the end of the week, so my salad looked like Christmas instead of the traffic light. Still, it was delicious.

Anyway, thanks to Natalie for hosting WeekendCoffeeShare and I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.