[gardeners] Re: sickly tomatoes

penny x stamm (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 17 Jul 2001 13:02:26 -0400 

Ranchmama, I can match your tale of woe...

Last fall, Jim was happily cleaning up in the garden, and I left
him alone -- what I did not know was that, for the first time in 15
years, 
he would remove ALL 9 flower bed drip lines "for the winter", even
tagging each one with an airline label  < G > .....  besides totally
removing a 75 ft line which "did nothing", as far as he could see. 

Good grief, Charley Brown, I said when I found out -- you've gotta be
outta your mind, George!  [BTW, whenever I get really exasperated at
Jim, I revert to World War II nomenclature and call him George...]
There's NEVER been a 75 ft line which did nothing -- are you insane?
And we've NEVER removed the flower bed lines -- what's got into
you...? 

Well, anyway, when spring came and once again I thought Jim was just 
cleaning up beds, I found out that he had changed all four dripper lines 
on a 75 ft run...  I had laid it out, years before, to run two lines the
full
length of the border as Zone 8, and then another two lines running
alongside in back, as Zone 9.  Jim ripped it all out, and made the first
38 ft Zone 8, and the second 38 ft Zone 9....  It doesn't mean a hill of
beans, in reality, so I simply swallowed hard and dropped the subject.
What did he gain, you ask..? Okay, now he can tell if the upper half
is running or broken, and if the lower half is running or broken. Of
course, he could have seen the same thing the other way...  It must
be a man thing, to have to dominate when it comes to engineering...
And in this case, he had to use up more of the propane to undo and
redo the connections, plus add more connectors and pass-throughs. 

It's all running now, except that -- surprise!  We had to add back the
75 ft of missing hose .............  and what a gigantic career it was to
locate the right "grid" of drip line to reconnect to the various flower
beds.. 

When all that was finished, Jim decided to re-plumb the water line
for the veggie garden, who knows why. And after it was installed
in a new location, he hooked up a short garden hose, and then our
biggest sprinkler, to water 3 little flats of flower seedlings and one
lonesome sugar snap pea vine.  When I passed by the next day, I
could see trouble -- he had never opened the water valve. Shucks....
The next day I saw something moving thru my kitchen window
and went out on the back porch to investigate. Jim had opened up 
the water valve to maximum, and the sprinkler was now watering
the roof of the house, and the entire picture window wall of the
dining room!  Oh, dear ....  

Once I blow my stack, I bite my tongue, for Jim really doesn't
mean any harm, and he's not thinking straight anymore. Can't
hold back the wheels of the clock, can we...? 

Penny, NY


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