My mother-in-law got me seeds for Christmas, among other things! I got lettuce collection that includes Romaine (Lettuce Green Towers), “Summer Glory Blend”, Green Ice, and a packet of mixed greens.
She also gave me a collection of some slightly zany varieties that I will enjoy trying. Purple Haze carrots, Eight Ball Zucchini Squash, a huge yellow Pineapple Tomato, Spoon Tomato said to be so small that 10 of them will fit on a spoon, a dark black seedless watermelon Everglade Hybrid, a supposedly delicious Mirai Mr. Mini sweet corn, and a crazy cauliflower-like Romanesco Veronica Hybrid.
Thank you R!
P.S. Don’t let these links imply that I endorse one merchant or another. I don’t get any kickbacks, I just use Google search!
The radish seeds I sowed in the greenhouse in a pot on December 5th started to show their heads last week. Yesterday many had come up!
There were several consecutive nights of 0 degree weather outside (in degrees fahrenheit, 32 below freezing), and the greenhouse got as cold as 19 by morning once, but the radishes seem to be doing well!
Shortly I’ll be moving some other seedlings out there…things I started inside under my grow lights. I could keep them inside and just grow them under the lights, but this is an experiment after all! I want to see what works!
I’ll be VERY happy to start some Kale seeds this week! Thanks very much to Robin for sending me those! I owe you!
Upon the advice of one of my commentors (thank you again!) I ran my nearby clothes dryer vent down into the greenhouse. Currently the outside world is 37 degrees but the running clothes dryer is keeping my greenhouse air about 30 degrees warmer. It’s also so humid in there that it’s literally raining. The floor has a drain, so no worries!
What a fun experiment this is turning out to be! The lettuce seeds sown indoors are sprouting nicely. The radish seeds sown in the greenhouse are taking their time germinating in the cold. I saw a chart that said they’d take a month or so with the temps I have been maintaining.
I’ll revisit and update this post from time to time.
Canning:
- Salsa (garden tomatoes with Mrs. Wages spice packets) [10 pints, 20 half-pints]
- Tomato sauce (garden tomatoes)
- Tomato paste (maybe, if I have the patience. I can buy this for like 19 cents though.)
- Whole tomatoes, possibly
- Sweet pickles (garden cucumbers with Mrs. Wages spice packets, crinkle-cut slices and diagonal sandwich slices) [10 pints, 10 half-pints]
- Dill pickles (5 quarts spears and 2 pints of hamburger slices)
- Sweet relish
- Applesauce (apples bought locally, 1 to 1.5 bushels)
- Pepperoncinis (water, vinegar, sweet, salt brine???)
- Jalapenos, if semi-mild (again, what liquid?)
- Sweet & Sour Sauce (thin bell pepper jelly)
Freezing:
- Broccoli
- Green Beans
- Bell Peppers
Would anyone be willing to put a few of last year’s Kale seeds (any variety) in an envelope and mail them to me? I don’t have any (didn’t try it in the summer garden) and stores around here don’t stock seeds in December. I would really appreciate your time and effort.
We had dinner with a couple we are making friends with last evening. Although we don’t know them well, we know they seem to strive to live a simple lifestyle without waste. Perhaps vegan, definitely vegetarian and completely organic, the thing that inspired my wife and I most last night was their simplicity.
For example, there are three in their household, so they have three plates.
The process of making everything one owns useful evades most of us, but I want to try harder now. I started this morning by posting one of our extras on Freecycle. I’m going to post the things I give away to my new Flickr account.
Here is the first thing going:
After this set of four goes, we still have enough to serve about 25 people, if you count the Nikko china. *sigh*
EDIT, late February 2009:
I haven’t been making much progress on this. My encumbrance seems to be my desire for the STUFF I own but no longer use to find a purpose. I could have been done with this whole process on the first day if I’d just ordered a dumpster dropped in my driveway. I could have filled up the dumpster and had a decluttered house free of unneeded things.
I can’t do it! I don’t want the pleasure of a decluttered life at the expense of the huge waste of unused products going straight to the landfill. UGH! I made this bed, so now I have to lie in it. Does anybody want some Schmitt Triggers and 74LS04s? I’m never going to use them.
My workstation
I am an internet developer by day. I used the phone for the picture…sorry for the blurriness.
