my father and i then went to home depot while my mother went to old navy. at home depot i was looking for 2x50ft rolls of chicken wire. website said the everett store had them in stock, but when we looked they were all sold out. we ended up getting two rolls of 2x25ft chicken wire even though they were more expensive. when we left the store my mother happened to be leaving old navy as well.
finally we went to costco. i was in search of potting soil but couldn't find them, until i went to the back of the warehouse, where there was a pile of them near the paper towels and toilet paper. we bought two bags, which we'll use to repot some of the jasmines.
after costco we started heading back to cambridge. but we still had two stops in medford. first was bianco & sons to pick up some chinese sausages, followed by aldi's in wellington circle plaza. i still can't get over how aldi runs its stores. the same person who does checkouts is also the same person stocking shelves and cleaning the aisles. there also doesn't seem to be a manager, the employees seem to run themselves and the store.
we left aldi's around 11:45am. our final stop was the somerville market basket, to get ground pork. they were cleaning the floors in the butcher department so my father had to wait 15-20 minutes for them to finish before they could grind the pork. we bought so much stuff, it barely fit inside the car. we left by 12:45pm, making it to the cafe by 1pm to drop off the supplies.
one question i had for today: was it going to rain? it was foggy throughout the day, a lot of moisture in the air, but no steady rain. there were intermittent brief showers, mostly drizzles, but at one point a quick downpour. none of it would add up to anything substantial. when i got to belmont, the first thing i did was to run into the backyard and check the rain barrels. from a photo i took earlier yesterday, i noticed one of the hose splitter wasn't closed, so if the rain barrels started filling up, it would all leak out. that wouldn't be the case however, because there was hardly any rain in the catch barrels, just enough to the spigot, but not enough to start filling up the connected storage barrels.
but before i could get to any yard work, first we had a late lunch. my parents had some toasted croissants while we split a ham and cheese sub three ways. after that i was outside watering the front lawn. it may seem kind of crazy, with the weather so wet, to be watering, but the fog barely penetrated the soil. i needed to water manually in order to dissolve the crabgrass preventer and fertilizer i applied friday afternoon. it was a dirty affair, wet and muddy, and i got dirt all over my shirt and pants. i finally finished around 3pm.
no time to relax, as my father and i made a trip to watertown home depot to get some more furring strips. i first went to return the tube of unused silicone caulk. my mother asked us to get a replacement bathroom sink plug, we didn't know the size, so we ended up getting two different ones. we had to wait before we could get the furring strips as they were moving crates of lumber and had two aisles blocked off. we ended up getting two 15-bundles of furring strips, which qualified for a bulk discount of $7 making the cost of the strips to just $40. we also found the 2x50ft roll of chicken wire we looked for earlier at the everett home depot but couldn't find. that meant we could return the 2x25ft rolls (they were already in the car), but decided to do it another time.
we didn't get back home until 3:50pm. even though the weather was a bit raw, i was ready to make more raised bed fencing. however my father said we'd do it next weekend. it's not the kind of project that can be done by one person, so i'll hold off.
instead i was in the backyard watering the herbicide/fertilizer into the lawn. i also did some weeding, pulling up any creeping bellflowers or celandines, occasionally a dandelion. i raked the dead leaves from the western edge of the yard (accidentally breaking some solomon's seals sprouts). i also weeded the southern bed along the spiderworts and ornamental grass, where we used to grow our beans. finally i refilled the birdfeeders (seeds and suet cakes).
i wasn't done outside until 5:30pm. yet there was more to do inside. i went down to the basement to water our grow room plants. a few of the jasmines had mealybugs, which meant the pyrethrin had little effect on them. or maybe i didn't use enough. either way, next weekend i think i'll try spraying the plants with diluted alcohol. the problem is i can only treat the plants once a week, in which time the mealybug population has enough time to rebound. most distressing was finding one of the orchids we a small mealybug infestation. it happened in 6 days, because i was sure they weren't there last tuesday. fortunately orchids are tough, i used a cotton swab dipped in alcohol to kill all the mealybugs i found. as for the infected jasmines, i took them outside and sprayed with neem oil.
i was finally finished around 6pm, just in time for dinner. i had some leftover chicken feet from yesterday, and my parents harvested some aeroponic mustard greens and chinese celery for some stirfry. both of them remarked how tender they were, but i didn't really notice any difference.
we tried the sink plugs. the 1-1/4" fit perfectly, but a little too perfect, with the possibility it might actually fall through the drain. plus it couldn't hold any water in the sink so it wasn't watertight. the 1-3/8" rubber stopper wouldn't fit the drain at all. so looks like we'll be returning the both of them, try to find alternative stopper options online.
since i got a ride to belmont this morning, my father gave me a ride back to cambridge around 7:15pm. first thing i did when i got back was to check my grow closet. only half of the blue beans i planted germinated. i dug into the soil to check on the seeds, the ones that didn't sprouted had all rotted. so i planted 6 new seeds. either these blue beans rot easily, or they have poor viability. the ones that did sprout are growing too late, and soon i won't have any room in the closet for them.
after a shower i watched the end of the nets-76ers game. it was boring, philly easily beat brooklyn for the second time in the series. the game after that - warriors-kings - was much more exciting. kings (3) beat the warriors (5) last time, and managed to do it again, so it wasn't a fluke. i like this kings team, i'm rooting for them in the western conference.
in the ongoing war against mealybugs, i'm not above using more toxic man-made pesticides to get rid of them once and for all. besides, it will only be applied to houseplants during the winter, and not anything we'd eat. so tonight i was online searching for a different lethal chemical to use. i came across bioadvanced 3-in-1 concentrate (32oz. $18), which is a spray mixture that contains 0.47% imidacloprid (the same chemical in my systemic granules), 0.61% tau-fluvalinate (used in treating mites), and 0.65% tebuconazole (fungicide). imidacloprid is currently banned for sale in MA, so i was surprised it was still available. i'm still not sure if it works though; i've used it for two winters, and in the early months we had zero pests, but beginning in late winter they started showing up. spider mites on the gardenia and mealybugs on the jasmines and occasionally a few other plants. i've only used it as a systemic, how well does it work as a spray?
i also read synthetic pyrethroids work to control mealybugs. the name bifenthrin keeps popping up (8oz. concentrate sells online for $21). the fact that i used natural pyrethrin and it didn't seem to do anything makes me leery. but i only used it once, and possibly at a lower concentration, so i'm still not sure if pyrethrin works or not. the one knock against bifenthrin is it seems to stay in the soil for a long time, up to 8 months from what i've read. natural pyrethrin only lasts for 12 hours in water and soil, and any residue on the plant is virtually gone by a week.
while i was searching online, i discovered that home depot still sells 4lbs. jugs of bonide systemic granules for $20 (same price on amazon, but they won't ship to MA). so i ended up ordering a new container. like i said, not sure how well imidacloprid works, but it may be a case that i failed to reapply in mid-winter once the original application wore off. at the same time, if i killed all the mealybugs in the first round, how did i end up getting more?