Go Dig in the Dirt

Back when I was a young boy, we would go over to my grandma's house and she would do something that I remember to this day.  She would hand us some silverware (not real silver, mind you, but still good eating utensils) and tell us to go dig in the dirt.  We would grab the spoons she gave us and we would go to a spot between her house and a few camellia bushes that grew beautiful pink and red blooms.  It was there that we would dig.

I can still remember the smell of the cool moist dirt that was in that shaded area.  It was almost black and was made up of years of decomposed leaves of live oak trees. Since there was tons of organic matter there, the soil was loose and easy to dig in and teeming with earthworms.  We would look for treasure in that soil and when we were done, we would go turn our spoons in to Grandma and go seek out another adventure.

Well 40-something years later and I still have a spoon that I like to dig with!  I don't think Tricia would appreciate me digging with one of the spoons we eat with, so I have an old spoon that I picked up somewhere.  I use it to dig holes for planting seedlings.  I also use a plastic fork for digging the seedlings out of the seed pots.

Armed with my spoon and fork, I pulled all of the tomato seedlings from the cold frame on the back porch and got them all planted in the ground.  It was nice to have that done.  Last week I had moved the peppers from the cold frame and transplanted them in the garden.  I did this at a time that coincided with about 3 cool nights.  This seemed to stress that peppers even though I had them hardening off on the back patio for a while.  They were looking a little rough and I may have even lost one of them.  Fortunately, the warmer temps lately revived the drooping peppers.

Once I had each hole dug with my spoon, I filled the hole with some organic soil, put a Tablespoon of organic vegetable fertilizer in the hole and then placed the seedling in the hole and covered it up.  I placed some compost around the little plant.  I'll keep my eye on all of our transplanted tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.  

Since this is my spoon, I don't have to turn it in to anyone at the end of my digging adventure.