Author: Jenny Smith

I'm Jenny Smith. I keep up with three cars, two kids, one husband, and I live on 300+ acres of rolling farmland in Northern Virginia where we look after an elderly relative. I like tomatoes, all things Star Trek, watercolor, and reading. I spend most days in the garden fighting deer and groundhogs as I pursue a graduate degree. I'm trying to be like Jesus -- emphasis on the trying.

Miscalculation

Jenny Smith / April 5, 2020

Yesterday, I started transplanting the little baby tomatoes from their clumps into larger containers where they can grow alone. Even though Sydney laughed at me, I saved a bunch of yogurt and jello and Italian ice containers to use for tomatoes. I thought I might end up with fifty or so plants. As you can see, I may have miscalculated. I transplanted only the six varieties from the first flat, and I ended up with 40 tomato plants. I still have six varieties to go, and I’m nearly out of containers! Gah!!! I put them very deep in the soil as you can see, hoping they will form nice deep roots. I’ve been telling friends they can have plants if…

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Social Distancing day 16

Jenny Smith / March 29, 2020

Today it’s Sunday, and our family was able to partake of the sacrament again at home. Angel brought over some shot glasses earlier during the week, which were greatly appreciated. We had used mugs last week for the sacrament, which was not ideal. Jared made up a little loaf of bread Saturday, so we used that as our bread. Caleb performed the ordinance again. This time he was a little better prepared and the kids seemed to take it more seriously. They all got up and cleaned up to participate even though I didn’t say anything about it to them. The only thing I miss from Sunday services relative to the sacrament is that we don’t really have time to…

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Social Distancing Day 11

Jenny Smith / March 24, 2020

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been “distanced” for 11 days already. There’s no end in sight, of course, as deaths from corona passed into the triple digits yesterday. There are six people confirmed to have the virus here in Stafford county now. Yesterday the governor closed all schools for the remainder of the year and offered schools four options for completing the year. Each local school district will determine what to do based on local needs. We are luck here in that we don’t have a lot of meal needs as the area is quite affluent. Our biggest problem is the lack of reliable internet for teachers and students, especially those west of us in the county. The superintendent…

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Social distancing Day 6

Jenny Smith / March 19, 2020

Well, today was another day I had to work hard to fill time. To fill in where I left off yesterday, I got in touch with my course instructor, Matt Morgan, who told me that his options extended only to the course. He offered — twice — to just make up data so that I could finish my capstone. I was appalled. I am literally doing this thing for the capstone. If I were just doing this to get a Masters fast to get a pay raise, okay, but I’m not going into education. I’m literally doing this to have help contributing to the body of evidence in the world. Sickening. Anyway, he told me to email my mentor to…

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Social Distancing Day 5

Jenny Smith / March 18, 2020

It’s only 2pm, but I’ve done just about as many useful things as a person can do in a single day. I handled a staffing issue this morning, had breakfast, chatted with my dad and a few friends, taught Caleb how to burn weeds with the weed torch, set up an appointment with my instructor to see what my options are for the capstone, turned yesterday’s leftover dashida into egg drop soup with rice to feed everyone, checked on the sick kid, had some others do some laundry, read more on coronavirus, did some pushups, helped Sydney register for two semesters worth of classes at USU (just in case), swept the floor, did the dishes, spread some mulch around that…

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Relief

Jenny Smith / March 18, 2020

I’m sleeping much better now that the kids are home. I was so worried that they’d put travel restrictions in place before they’d get here that I wasn’t sleeping. One of them is having an allergic reaction to a medication, so I’m dealing with that, but overall, I’m Just plain relieved to have them here. My seeds finally arrived yesterday! It took them almost two weeks. I planted them immediately in the second flat. Now I have Pineapple, Juliet hybrid, Sun Gold hybrid, Kellogg’s Breakfast, and an unnamed “experimental hybrid” they sent as a freebie on the seed mat. I had gotten so antsy waiting on the tomato seeds that I planted out the rest of the old flat with…

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Not a miracle

Jenny Smith / March 15, 2020

There are a ton of LDS people posting the same thing on Facebook, and it’s making me a little nuts. They keep saying that it’s a miracle that we have home-led church-supported Come Follow Me, just in time for us to be engaging in social distancing to try and alleviate the results of this epidemic. They’re also claiming it’s inspired that we have *gasp* a DOCTOR leading the church at this moment with connections to *whispers* CHINA. I’m irritated, because this isn’t the first epidemic that has happened during the modern church era. In 1918, the Spanish flu killed millions of individuals just as WWI was wrapping up. During that time, Church President Joseph F Smith died (he was a…

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Social Distancing Day 2

Jenny Smith / March 14, 2020

Today I woke up early (slept fantastically well compared to the past few nights — coronavirus got me worried), and checked on my seedlings. They look great! I’ve been watching them grow all day. It’s incredible how fast they grow. I bet they’ve grown a half inch or more in 8 hours. My dad called to give me a bad time about bringing the kids home, and he gave me something else to worry about: how to take care of Emma’s mouth while she’s here. As if I need anything else to fret about. :) Caleb told me he isn’t going to get to work his shift at the temple after all. He is disappointed. They will keep temples open…

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How fast do tomato seedlings grow?

Jenny Smith / March 14, 2020

I’ve always marveled at how quickly seedlings can grow. Here is a picture of Cherokee Purple seedlings just sprouting that I took at 7:30 this morning: Here is the same set of seedlings 8 hours and 15 minutes later: Yeah—that fast!

Seedlings Day 5

Jenny Smith / March 14, 2020

This morning three other cells popped up with some little seedlings! The only cells that haven’t produced anything are the smuggled Italian seeds. They were never very good in the first place — I didn’t know to ferment seed back then — and they’ve been stored in tiny ziplock bags — my dad’s doing — for several years, so it’s unlikely they’ll sprout anyway. (Stupice was also stored in plastic for a few years and came up, but those seeds were fermented.) Cherokee Purple is barely breaking the soil-less mix. I see six up at the moment. I planted twenty, so hopefully I’ll get more. So this is good news! I have five varieties growing, two more coming by mail…

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Social Distancing

Jenny Smith / March 13, 2020

I’m trying to pretend that I’m not fReaKinG out about coronavirus, so today I put in some peas. I let them soak almost two days and planted about 6 feet on my bean trellis. There were so many left and I’m planting a little late, so I decided to plant some in the shady spots on the back side of the house to see if they’d put on. I’m not confident they will do anything, but it’s no big deal for them to go there as they aren’t in the way of the mower. Yesterday I got my first tomato seedlings: And today I got several more: I cut the Press and Seal away from the cells to let the…

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First 2020 seeds started!

Jenny Smith / March 9, 2020

And so it begins… Jared and I stopped by Lowe’s after the gym to pick up some seed starting mix. My friend Dawna runs the garden center at Lowe’s, and she happened to see us when we came in. I asked her if they had any seed starting flats that were better than the junky, disposable hex ones out by the Ferry Morse seed stand. She said that the Burpee seed starters were 2 inch squares and were super sturdy and that they would never wear out. She took us outside to the Burpee seed area to find the seed starter flats. Wow! She was right. These Burpee see planters look amazing! Dawna also recommended the Burpee seed starting mix…

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