Yep Sandy, Gary made it home. The train was on time which it is more than not, but occasionally it can be late and sometimes REALLY late. Once when I was coming home, the train I was to get in Ft. Worth was going to be 8 hours late.
I called my daughter who lived in Austin and said, "COME GET ME"
It's only a 3 hour drive to Ft. Worth from Austin, so we were home before my train even left Ft. Worth.
I just got out of the shower, but I got everything accomplished I wanted to do today. It took stops at 3 nurseries to find all the plants I wanted, and I stuck to my guns for once and only got 4 tomato plants. I also got one eggplant, one pepper (I still need to get a jalapeno plant) and one pretty cuban oregano plant. I got some squash seeds and will plant them tomorrow.
I only planted the tomatoes this evening. I had to put shade cloth around the cages to keep them a little cooler since they are young and tender. It took some time to cut the shade cloth the right size and get it attached to the cages.
Then I had to put another soaker hose out in the garden. I had been using an overhead sprinkler and with the shade cloth around the cages, I was afraid the tomatoes wouldn't get enough water. Plus, you are not supposed to sprinkle tomatoes because there are soil born diseases that can splash up on the tomatoes from a sprinkler. So I had to put another soaker hose out there. And it was my homemade soaker hose. I wasn't happy with my regular soaker hoses, so I had taken a regular hose and drilled holes in it so it would leak more water in less time. Then when I got the tomatoes planted, I had to drill some more holes so the water would come out right on the tomatoes.
Next, I had to put pine straw around the plants - that also keeps the roots cooler and keeps the water from evaporating so quickly. All in all that was a big job. Last I had to rig up a sprinkler where I had robbed the soaker hose (in my okra) and then put back the bunny fence.
WHEW! I'm tired. But it was a good day and Gary is home safe and sound. My summer class starts tomorrow - I'm ready, but it's always a big day!