For those of our readers who have read my piece about my seed starting kit, you know my sweety tricked out my cheapy mini-greenhouse with a temperature-controlled fan to control humidity and heat inside. (You can read about it here.)

Well, for several years now, he’s been grumbling about my gardening spread. Some of my kit is down in the workshop, some of it is relegated to a corner in the garage, and depending on the time of year, some of it hangs out in the house for seedlings.

It’s one of those things on his ‘Honey-Do’ list that never seems to make it to the top, so I gave up hope.

Out of nowhere, the talk of this fabled potting bench surfaced again. Then, on Monday, he showed up with lumber and plywood in the back of his truck. Later that same evening, I popped over to his place (where the garden is) to find it was done. 

Bam! Voila! Presto!

After several years of chatter, there it was, a mere three hours after he brought home the lumber.

I guess the way to get things moving on the Honey-Do list is to leave a 5-gallon bucket of seed-starting mix in the utility sink for a month and let my gardening paraphernalia creep further into his workshop space.

Anywho, as usual, my request for something simple was completely ignored, and The Engineer engineered.

This man spoils me rotten.

I have a tub set in the bench to mix up different potting mixes and to pot up plants. There’s a nice, bright LED shop light above it. And it’s huge! He was against cutting the plywood down to make it smaller.

“Do you have any idea how much OSB is these days? I’m not wasting it by cutting it smaller. Also, I know you. You’ll have it covered within a week.”

There’s so much storage space for all of my pots, various bags of dirt and custom potting mix blends. Heck, I could even curl up on the shelf beneath the bench and take a nap if all that potting up leaves me winded.

He’s talking about installing an extra tub in the bench so I can have two potting-mix blends at the ready. 

I told him I wanted a mirror along the back of it, so I could line up all my bottles of fertilizer fitted with pouring spouts like a fancy fertilizer bar for my plants. I was kidding, of course. 

Oh gosh, he’s an engineer. I suppose I should have said I was kidding.

That’s the gardening news in my neck of the woods.

What are my favorite gardeners on the Internet up to? You know I love receiving photos of your gardens, seedlings and tasty produce. How is your 2024 growing season shaping up? Southern gardeners, send photos of your veggies. Northern gardeners, let me see your seedlings. 

Are you growing anything new or interesting this year? I’d love to hear about it. I’ve got several new varieties of tomato and squash going. I’m most excited about these little Peruvian sugar bowl gourds. I’m hoping to grow lots of them for some gourd crafts this winter.

Alright, my dears, that’s all for this Sunday. 

I’ll catch you again later this week. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call The Engineer and make sure I don’t have a custom bar mirror being fitted to the new potting bench.