They didn’t say how much rain, but we are getting some light rain again.  We’re not even up to a quarter of an inch, but at least its a slow light soaking rain.  The ground will be happy even if we don’t get a lot of water into the tanks.

One interesting lesson – we had a green breathable plant blanket covering a set of plants.  The plants were under  a PVC frame, then the plant blanket on top of the PVC frame.  Well, it may be breathable, but not a lot of water got to the plants.  The center of the plant blanket, where water collected in a pool, was letting a small drip of water thru.  We had a pool of water on top of the blanket.  We just went outside to take the blanket off and realized that we had quite a pool of water on top of the blanket. Interesting thing to remember.  They may be good blankets to keep frost off of the plants, but they don’t necessarily let a lot of moisture thru them.

Yesterday we had to go to Home Depot.  I picked up a new pot for the lemon tree and two blackberry plants.  They are small blackberry plants, the inexpensive $8, in paper cup kind of plant.  They seem to be essentially bare roots stuck in dirt – definitely dormant plants.  I have them soaking in water, but I don’t think they will get potted today.  I did repot the lemon tree, and in the process used most of the potting mix I had.  So hopefully tomorrow or Thursday I can go pick up more potting soil and pot the blackberries.

Yesterday I also ordered a raised bed system.  I ordered it from Gardeners Supply.  I ordered:
3 X 3 foot raised bed
liner for the bed
garden hoops – not sure if I will need them but I figured I could use them to keep critters out
grow bags – I’ve never used them but they might be useful to grow things in.

I also ordered some seeds from Park Seeds.  Actually I ordered a whole mess of seeds from Park Seed. One problem I’m finding here is that Home Depot and Lowes seem to sell on a national date system.  What do I mean by that? Well, here we have a long growing season.  Our average first frost is November 21-30, and our last frost date is March 11-20.  So we can grow frost free at least 8 months out of the year.  But right now, early January, both stores have little to nothing available.  So if you want to start plants in a greenhouse, and I have a greenhouse I can use, you can’t get much out there.  They don’t even have much in the way of pots to purchase.  So I ordered stuff online.  I’ll try to order roses sometime soon.  Those will have to go into pots, otherwise they are deer candy.