I’ve still got gardening on my mind, and just had to share this video, from MI Gardener.

I’m glad I found it, since I was looking to start drum gourds and Crespo squash fairly soon. These are much bigger seeds and need bigger pots than the ones he shows in the video. Based on this video, it looks like they would do better in the smaller peat pots I still have from last year, not the bigger ones.

I didn’t mass sow my peppers as he did with his, and I did use larger celled trays and Red Solo cups for them and the San Marzano tomatoes, but I think the main thing would be not to thin them too early. I did thin the earliest peppers and the eggplant I started already, but they were quite a bit larger than his examples, too.

That reminds me. I forgot to turn the fan on in the living room today. Those seedlings need a breeze over them, to help develop strong stems.

On a completely different note, I just spoke to my brother on the phone about what’s going on with the septic pump. He knows the system better than anyone, having fought with it so often over the years. The switch the septic guy mentioned is actually part of the float, and it got replaced not long before we moved in here. It’s possible it’s malfunctioning, but those things tend to last for many, many years. In fact, the old one got replaced as part of troubleshooting while trying to find the cause of the problem at the time, and probably was working just fine. My brother even hired a plumber to excavate the tank and under the pipes leading to and from it. They never did find the problem, which was a lack of vacuum, and the plumber ended up leaving without a solution. They assumed there was a leak somewhere, but they couldn’t find one. My brother stayed late and kept working on the system in the basement and finally tried one last thing. Our BIL had installed a filter, with the same idea as the one we have now. My brother took that off and put in a new section of pipe – and suddenly it was working fine. The filter hadn’t been installed properly, and air was getting in. The current filter my brother later installed is a much higher end one, and he made super sure it was well sealed! When we switch out the filter basket, we make sure to prime the reservoir before closing it up again. It’s been working just fine since then.

So… it shouldn’t be the switch, since it’s so new. The septic guy knew I thought the problem might be the float was stuck, and I know if he’d seen anything wrong or unusual, he would have knocked on the door to tell someone. Still, I will be swinging by his place tomorrow to pay him, and hope he will be home to talk to.

Until then, we have a workaround until we can get a plumber in to check it out and determine why the pump won’t shut itself off like it should. Getting the tank emptied will help a lot, too.

We’ll get it figured out.

Until then, I’m going to think gardening thoughts. 😄😄

The Re-Farmer