Discussion: spray bottle -

mortal enemy of cats everywhere. He's giving it the eye.

spray the cat if it gets too near the seedlings - I'm sure it'll learn its lesson quickly.

Unfortunately there are at least 9 hours of the day when I'm not there to do that, and these creatures aren't called the Devil Cats for nothing!

Dixondale shipped the onion plants a week early (apparently "ship date" means something different in Texas). They're due to arrive tomorrow. Yesterday I set up some plastic tents over the future onion beds. In 25cm of snow. With overnight temps still crazy cold. This is ridonculous. I'll need a hammer and chisel to plant them.

Ha ha! We dug out the space for our squash arch today, but no chance of driving the rebar into the ground for a good while yet!

I put a thermometer under the tent today. It was sunny all day and the temp inside was +6C, with the outside air temp 0C. So I guess it was working. There was liquid condensation on the inside of the plastic. Still, planting seems a long way off. The onion plants arrived today. Nice big bunches.

As an experiment, my boss ordered plants from Johnny's Seeds and I ordered the same from Dixondale farms. By a miracle, we each received our shipments on the same day. Johnny's is in Maine, but of course the onion plants aren't grown there this time of year. He checked where the drop-ship came from and would you believe?! Dixondale!! So much for the experiment. And get this, Johnny's charged $16/bunch, while Dixondale direct only charged $6/bunch delivered. It pays to cut out the middle-man.