I did some more repairs to the greenhouse and got the irrigation system back online; a new hose bib to replace the UV-cracked original, and five new 5GPH misters over the tomatoes for backup watering are now in place. But what I’ve been reading is that overhead watering isn’t good for tomato plants–it will promote disease. This isn’t a problem, because I planned for drip irrigation when I put the misting system in years ago, so it’s just a matter of switching my hoses around.

The tomatoes themselves are all doing very well. I restaked and tied all of them because they’ve grown 6″ in a week with no sun, and there are blooms on all but one–there’s even a tomato! I’ve got to go out and manually pollinate them all, and then pinch off the new growth to keep all of the energy in the fruit.

Finn and I snuck out in the Scout during some sunshowers and picked up two more containers, three cherry tomato plants, and more potting soil to start covering the second bench in back. I have to split out the cucumbers into a second container because they’re getting leggy and crowded.

We saw a matinee of Solo: a Star Wars Story on Saturday and the whole family really enjoyed it. Jen made a good observation that in their initial scenes the actors playing Solo and Calrissian did an excellent job of imitation, and then dialed it back for the rest of the movie up until the end. It was subtle but very well done. The story seems to be that it’s a bomb (compared to other Star Wars movies) but I honestly don’t see why.

I got a $7 rebuild kit in the mail for my Plomb ratchet on Friday and couldn’t wait to see if it would work. Disassembly was pretty easy, aided by some PBlaster to loosen up years of crust, and all the guts of the ratchet fell out easily. I found a YouTube link for a rebuild and within about 5 minutes had the old parts cleaned and new parts installed.

The one roadblock was understanding how to attach the selection lever to the cam inside the ratchet, but I read somewhere that you’ve got to use a ball-peen hammer to mushroom the top of the cam nub over the lever. Once I’d done that I used some heavy duty gear oil to lube the whole thing and buttoned it back up. Now it’s ready for another eighty years of service in my toolbox.