Good evening!

Sounds like many have enough or more than enough rain at this point.  We are still on the short side but not as bad as we were.  I look forward to a sunny weekend.  I have tried impatiens the last few years with little luck.  Perhaps I should try another location this year.   Or perhaps I need to water them a bit more.  Do they need lots of water?  Basically the plants stayed the same size as when I planted them instead of bursting into larger plants. 

I had a message from one of the companies I am expecting on-line ordered plants from.  It appears they are out of some of the aconitums I ordered.  Would I please call them to say if they should ship the order as is minus the plants or perhaps I would like to order some others?  I would bet money I know which ones they don't have.... the ones I really wanted.  If that is the case, I will just cancel the order as I can buy the other stuff in the order locally, for less money if you figure in shipping.  The ones I wanted are very hard to find. In colors other than blue and purple.  Oh well.  You don't suppose they offer plants they don't have to lure you in? No one would do some dastardly like that! smiley: laugh 

I am having great fun with the garden plot stuff.  Putting together a garden plot proposal was just the ticket to get my team members more engaged.  It was rejected but I don't mind at all.  Ask them what they want to grow?  They don't know or make a few limited suggestions.  Now I have a much better idea what they like, don't like, etc.  I maximized tomato plants.  One guy, nicest guy in the world, also my partner on my plot, although I think we are all working together on this, commented quietly it sure was an awful lot of tomato plants.  That was at lunch, so I followed up with just him afterwards.  Turns out he is prone to kidney stones and has been told he shouldn't eat tomatoes and vine ripened in particular.  I had an opinion but did a little research and very interesting.  I thought he would be fine with yellow tomatoes and think I am correct on that.  But very interesting is that "vine ripened" bad for people with the condition means "vine ripened" for sale off season, picked less than ripe, etc.  That is the worst.  The best is fully ripened on the vine in a garden.  I found that amusing.  So we will be growing some yellow tomatoes for him.  I will share my findings and suggest he do his own research.  Meanwhile another guy got all worried I/we would only grow yellow tomatoes.  Would we grow some red ones?  He thinks tomatoes should be red.  Sure, yellow ones, red ones, purple ones, green and white striped ones..... fortunately he knew I was teasing him about the purple ones and green and white striped ones... I would and might but will make sure there are plenty of red ones for him.  Who knows? I might even get him to try a yellow one!  In the middle of all that discussion, my fellow team captain and I attended the garden team captains meeting.  There was an element of annoyance, an element of entertainment, and the take away was... this is going to be an adventure!  Some people clearly know what they are doing.  Others clearly had no clue.  I do think the co-ordinator does have his head on straight but turns out all the rules and planning was the result of lots of internet research.  He confessed to not knowing much about gardening.  Just an employee assigned the job.  I appreciated his honesty.  I was embarrassed for one woman.  Did she just hear it correctly that temp employees can't participate?  Yes.  She is a manager, she should know that!  Perhaps she was having problem hearing as she was sitting in the back of the room.  She said so and asked why he didn't have a microphone or something?  He pointed out he had tables arranged with seats all around so everyone could sit together and invited her to come join the group.  She preferred where she was.  Could he please speak up!  smiley: eyes  I felt for him.  On the topic of "no power tools allowed".... her question was about what hardship that might be?  They are tilling it for us... I can't imagine what power tool one would require?????  No clue!  Lots of discussion about no chemicals allowed.  How are we going to grow crops without fertilizer? 

Ever hear of manure, compost?  He fielded that one saying the garden committee could make judgement on that but the idea was organic gardening and no imposing your chemical use on the potential plot owner next year.  He could have been a bit more honest and just said... the company has a very strict chemical use policy and that applies to the entire property so authorizing using chemicals would require a whole bunch of paperwork and approvals and posting MSDS (material safety data sheets.)  Or if he was a gardener, he could have nipped the entire discussion in the bud by explaining what was meant by "farm soil."  They stripped the sod and were back filling with "farm soil."  The facilities guy corrected him.... the stuff is called compost.  They back filled with compost... I haven't seen it so not sure... but sounds like they did it right... black gold.... we shouldn't need fertilizer!  Another good question was about the water... they went with "town water" as opposed to the "reclaimed water" they irrigate the landscaping with.  Excellent.  I thought it was funny the first time I saw the sign proudly announcing the landscaping irrigation was done with reclaimed water.  Isn't it all?  Oh, that would be about the waste treatment facility in the Hardware test center.  I am good with town water.  As for the fence.  I have only gotten a glimpse of it so far.  We are talking serious fence around the whole project.  We were assured they dug down 1 ft into the ground before installing.  It appears to be tall enough to thwart a deer jumping in.  Laughing.  And security will lock it down 7 pm and open it up again 6 am.  One guy asked if security would check to be sure no gardeners were still inside?  Did I mention I found some of this meeting to be quite silly?  My favorite discovery in the meeting was.... okay not exactly organic/green... but we can use weed mat if we pull it out end of the season.  Although compostable, newspaper is not allowed as it might fly about....????  I am pretty good at following rules.... especially at work.  I think it is going to be fun... and surely an adventure! 

I guess I should get back to making our garden plot plans!  Have a good one!