like yesterday, i was riding and pokemon going. i noticed the game has extended the radar range for triggering pokestops, as far as 2 blocks away. this combined with the handlebar phone mount makes it even easier to quickly fill up the inventory. kwanzan cherries are not only blooming but peaking fast; i noticed it yesterday so i had my dSLR ready to get some photos.
i had a bowl of chicken noodles for lunch before going out into the backyard for an inspection. while kwanzan cherries elsewhere are covered in flowers, the one in our backyard seems anemic. although not all the blossoms have bloomed, even if they did, there's still not enough flower buds compared to some of the other trees i saw. not sure the reason: maybe the tree isn't mature enough, maybe it's not getting enough sun, maybe the slight strangulation on its trunk affected flower production, maybe it didn't get the right fertilizer.
i finally brought out the dahlias. they were in a box stuffed with shredded paper pulp left over from a bag of grass seed mix. there was just one plump tuber, all the rest seemed shriveled. that fat tuber didn't have any eyes though, so chances are it won't germinate. besides being shriveled, a lot of them were moldy too. not sure what happened, but paper pulp apparently is not a good storage medium for wintering dahlia tubers. i decided to soak them overnight, hoping they might expand a bit before planting. it was hard getting the paper pulp off, it seemed to want to stick onto everything.
i mixed up some more clay potting medium for the leftover lotus rhizomes i didn't plant yet. these went into small wash basins (14.5" and 12" respectively), which in turn went into rubber tubs (18" diameter). they don't seem as sturdy compared to the hard plastic barrels, but cheaper to maintain. i put some soft chicken wire over the tubs to keep animals away.
since i wasn't certain that the lotuses from last year would survive, i decided to germinate 10 more seeds from a pack of 30 i got from china last year. these seeds seem smaller than the american-sourced ones i bought last season (but definitely cheaper). with the dremel sander i removed enough from the dimple end of the seeds to break through the hard outer shell and see a little bit of white. this being my 3rd time preparing lotus seeds, i've gotten the hang of it by now.
while most of our houseplants have been moved outside, the seedlings are still in the grow room, as well as the orchids and prayer plants. we're only running 2 led grow lights, an led shop light, a flat 20W passive led light (for the water reeds), and the fan.
i went home a bit after 7pm. temperature was still in the upper 70's, all i needed was a t-shirt to bike back to cambridge. i was tagging every single pokestop i passed with my new handlebar phone holder but stopped once i maxxed out my items bag. at observatory hill i saw a turkey walking around the empty parking lot. kevin was doing a load of laundry when i got back home.
even though it was a cloudy day, there was enough breaks of sun to nearly push us into the 50kWh range (46.66kWh was today's official production).
i found my spare aquarium heater, filled up a large glass jar with warm tap water that i treated with seachem prime dechlorinator, then added the 10 lotus seeds i sanded earlier today. i also added an aquarium thermometer so i can easily read the water temperature without having to use the infrared gun. two of the seeds floated so they're probably dudes, the rest sunk to the bottom of the jar. the thermometer read 75-80°F which is slightly north of ideal but i don't think the seeds will mind.