stillsostrange

So on Monday I went to buy the last bags of dirt to plant my cucumbers and in the process I was waylaid by blackberries. Easy, I thought. I'll just dig up a bed and put in some trellising. But today, as my mother and I were doing what we thought was the last bit of digging, we hit rock. Not the concrete debris and various crap that we've dug up everywhere else in my yard, but a real layer of rock. (Complete with fossil shells!)

So now there's plan B, which involves a hole in my back yard (possibly full of dinosaurs, but I'm too lazy to excavate further), a ton of bricks to build a raised bed, and four hundred pounds of top soil to fill it in.

But not today, because my left shoulder has gone on strike. I've also been waylaid by yet another novel idea that I should take notes for before I kick it to the back of the queue. Right after I fall over ded.

After two days off for sunburn hell, the tomatoes and peppers are finally planted. Now to see if they survive.

My recently-planted roses, Riff-Raff and Magenta, have come down with mildew. I've been spraying them with a baking soda/detergent solution, and it might be slowing the spread, but it definitely isn't stopping it. Are there any gardeners out there with advice?