Seeing light at the end of the history tunnel

Okay update on the on again, off again history project. I think I might be done with collecting the household info for Truxton residents from the 1880 census. I am so glad there were fewer houses back then. Some big blocks weren’t as populated as I feared, like a handful of people on Bates street, but not the gobs of families I feared. I need to go back and make sure I’ve hit all the houses surveyed and check it against the map to see if a house existed. Thank G-d for deserted blocks of empty lots. If I ever get to 1900, when a lot of your houses were built, I’m gonna be so hatin’ life.
Summary of what I’ve come up with so far:
Lotta Irish
Lotta Germans
Lotta 2nd generation Americans
Lotta African Americans from VA & MD
Small population of native born White Americans with native born parents

Container gardening planning

Part of the plan is trying to figure out where the sun will be most of the time. Sadly, I don’t have a southern view and almost every stinking thing I want to grow wants lots of sun. But my yard is like survivor, you live or you get voted out of the yard. I don’t remember to water until I see droopy leaves. I know, bad gardener, bad!
Last year’s winner was the arugula. I admire a plant I plant from seed and ignore the rest of the season and grows. I think it helped that it was a deep pot, about a foot deep and sat directly on the ground. When I pulled the pot up, the dang thing had sent a root through the plastic pot and into the ground anchoring itself to the spot I left it. It wilted a bit after the removal but sprang back after some watering.
Dill and tomatoes were directly sown into the ground and came up wonderfully. The dill particularly, sowed itself, I expect to see unplanned dill again this year. Cherry tomatoes, the other bite sized tomato, and the Lemon Boy did okay with 4 hours of direct sun leaning on the southern fence. B&I were good sports about it, allowing me to keep the tomatoes growing on our common fence. It would be good to see if I can repeat the same success in a pot in the backyard. B. gave me some hope as his red tomatoes did well last year in his backyard. However, they required daily watering and constant fertilizing. Argh, I don’t have the patience and my goal is to grow organicly, so easy on the fertilizing. I hope with deeper pots being a foot and a half deep at the least, they will hold water better, and I may dig part of a soaker hose in the pot to deal with the water issue. Another idea is just to break down and buy an irrigation system or punch a bunch a holes in a garden hose.
The tomatoes and the squash have first dibs on the deep pots as tomatoes need to be in a 15-30 gallon pot. Squash roots need about 10 inches. Most other plants I’m growing in pots only need 5-8 inches of room.
This morning, I noticed the article in today’s Post about starting plants from seed. Apparently I’m doing everything wrong. No heating mat, growing things in peat pots, no fan, and the growing lamp is now just for the picky citrus sapling. I’ll take my chances and see what develops.