Down, But Not Out

In case you haven't heard, it's been a little challenging of late for Team Mater-Matic. A week ago everyone on the team was gung-ho for moving outside into the bright sunshine. And that's what we did. The maters had been in their final homes for three days; the weather was sunny and beautiful - it just seemed to make sense that this show get on the road.

So out they went last Tuesday, and given last Wednesday was also beautiful, they went out again. But in checking the maters by the middle of that day, it became apparent something was wrong - all of them had leaves turning white. Yours truly was very sad and worried. What was the cause? Was it the potting soil? Was it the buckets themselves? Was there too much fertilizer in there?

Unfortunately Maters can't talk (although apparently they can sing for some folks). If they could talk they would have told me exactly what the problem was. So I checked the internet and my best guess was a combination of windburn and sunburn. Turns out greenhouse maters need to be gradually exposed to the outdoors. Should have been obvious I guess, but given how they had been growing like gangbusters, I misread growth for strength.

So as a different approach, I let them hang out on the front porch. It's eastern facing, and gets only a couple hours of direct sunlight in the morning, then indirect for the rest of the day. Then every night I'd take Nate's little red wagon and shuttle them back to the protective confines of the garage. And every morning the maters got another wagon ride back out to the front porch. Given each bucket with soil and water is over 50 pounds, I got quite a workout too.

Even Gimpy's lookin' good!

'Slim' (hopefully not Slim Pickings)

Little by little, the maters are turning around. The whiteness on the leaves didn't advance, and all show new growth. Granted as of today I haven't seen any buds, but I hope they're not far behind.  And now that the weather has been above 50 degrees at night, and topping in the lower to mid 80s during the day, the maters get to sleep outside (and my back gets a break - whew!).

MM