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the snap peas have outgrown the trellis and are getting tall enough that they're dangerously close to snapping in half before the pea pods have a chance to mature. next season, a higher trellis, since these peas prefer growing vertically rather than horizontally.
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now all the peonies have leaf spots. i know it's fungal, but now sure what i can do about it. snipping off the leaves is out of the question since there aren't many leaves to begin with. i'll just have to wait until the fall to destroy all the affected leaves. i'll also try not to water the leaves as much (same advice should apply to the cucumbers/gourds, to prevent powdery mildew later in the season).
once again i've relocated all the aloe plants to a shadier part of the garden. the full glare of the sun was definitely causing color lose. aloes are mostly water anyway, so they burn easily when exposed to full sun. true, aloes in their natural habit don't live in the shade, but these aloes just aren't hardy enough.
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some of the cypress vine seeds i planted have sprouted. morning glories and their ilk always produce a pair of v-shaped leaves when they first emerge from the ground. from the shape and size of these baby leaves, i can figure out what kind of morning glory it'll be.
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i mixed up a few gallons of miracle-gro plant food and fed it to malnourished vegetables growing in the long plot. for some reason i expected the solution to be green, not a tidy-bowl blue. will it work? what do i have to lose? i guess i'll know in a week or two.
back inside the house, i worked on setting up the new used PC i got yesterday. my father had already opened up the case last night and saw there were two hard drives, an 80gb and a 250gb. since my 2nd aunt wouldn't need all that storage space, i decided to take out the 250gb drive. i then let the XP system disc do its thing installing a fresh OS on the machine. i also checked my aunt's old machine, the one she said was broken which led us to buying this new one for her. turns out there was nothing wrong with that PC.
my father came home for an hour so we could assemble the picnic table we bought a few nights ago. the wood itself isn't of the greatest quality, 
with sides that still have the bark or ugly knots or stamping marks, but for $88, it's still a sturdy bargain, and with the proper sanding and finishing, it'll look more expensive than its actual worth. it was actually pretty easy to assemble, and gave us all the satisfaction of woodworking with none of the cutting. we ran into a snag when the 2 planks for the final bench sat unevenly, but fixed it by resetting the wood screws with a power drill.
after my father left to return to work (taking with him my aunt's old computer; the new computer still needs some work before i can give it to her), i came back home to cambridge. i was disappointed once again to see there were no checks in the mail. for dinner i had some more grilled chicken caesar salad.
going down to new york city tomorrow for a day trip; it's going to be a long day. i'm trying to catch the first fung wah bus leaving south station (6:15), so i'll need to leave my house no later than 5:30, because i'll be biking into the city. 4 hour bus ride down to NYC, then later in the evening another 4 hour bus ride back to boston, where i'll get back between 1:00-2:00, hence the bicycle for me to get back home as the MBTA will be closed by then. a 21-hour day trip.