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i finally got around to sowing my packet of foxglove seeds. i'm not sure if it's already too late in the season, but foxgloves don't germinate the first year anyway, so i'll be happy just to get some seedlings. in all the literature i've read foxgloves don't seem to be difficult to germinate from seeds, and they can even get a bit weedy sometimes. they are by far the tiniest seeds i've yet to work with, almost like dust. i ended up using only half the packet, enough to spinkle on top of 2 plastic trays filled with dirt and sprayed with water until the surface was moist. i lightly packed down the seeds, as directed. now i'll have to wait, anywhere from a week to a month, for the seeds to germinate.

i also moved out most of the lupines and delphiniums. they don't seem to suffer when the night time temperature gets a little cold (40-50's) and the daytime sunshine would be better for them than artificial light. also being outside with the breeze makes me think it toughens them up for their eventual life outdoors.

i picked 6 delphiniums and 6 lupines to be transplanted to my community garden plot. in my own backyard, i planted 3 lupines and 3 delphiniums.

the tomatoes are getting too big for the grow closet. within the next few days i'll have to take them out and start hardening them outdoors. it may have something to do with the new T8 shop lights i'm using. a pair of tomato seedlings on a lower rack using old T12 lights are only half the size. cucumelons have also developed their first true leaves.

i walked down to the community garden with my box of transplant seedlings and a rosemary. i planted everything in the northeastern corner. now with the mulberry tree recently pruned, maybe i can get more light in the area this season. i picked up a bundle of wooden rods somebody tossed in our trash bin and used them as plot demarcation lines.

i saw a guy painting at the other end of the garden. he came to chat, said he never noticed me before, but only because he got a garden plot last year, also underneath the mulberry tree. i told david i took a sabbatical in china last year, and he revealed that he actually spent 3 months in 2010 traveling in china (shanghai, guangzhou, guilin, kunming, chengdu, a month in dali, gansu, qinghai, inner mongolia), and could also speak some chinese. he'd then chat with me half in english and half in a thickly-accented mandarin that i find kind of hard to understand but i kept myself from involuntarily translating outloud his chinese into english. we discussed which was the best plot and both agreed that the plots on the southeastern corner of the community garden was the best. he also gave me a card (i should get some business cards made myself), which had his painting website address.

while we were there, two teenagers sauntered into the garden and were making out by one of the sunny back plots, hiding behind some tall grasses and bulbs. it prevented me from going through the community garden to take photos of the flowers, i'll do that next time.

i went through the house and took down the mirror hanging in the living room and some hanging photos in the guest bedroom. this is because the vibration from the insulation pumping could potentially cause anything hanging from the exterior walls to suddenly fall off.

for dinner i had the other salad kit, bacon caesar salad. pretty good as well, i could go the whole month of may just doing salad kits.