The Well-Read Gardener

Basement Project

2010-12-27T19:51:00.003-06:00

My basement has always had major flooding problems due to a design flaw, the lack of a floor drain, and a sump pump that wasn't low enough to automatically pump unless there was a lot water. As a birthday and Christmas present my mother had plumbers come to rework the basement so I could store my canned food there. My grandma and uncle bought me the shelves to complete the project.

This is the sump pump. They had to jackhammer down through rock to get it lower. It's now in a drywall bucket encased in cement. You can kind of see where they took a cement saw and made channels from the other two corners of the basement so the water would flow to the pump. The floor has to incline whatsoever, so any water on the other side of the floor would always just stand there and make the basement moldy. The plumbers also hooked the pump up to the waste water line so the water in the basement will now go out with the water from my washing machine.

The finishing touch will be replacing the window. The glass falls out to the touch and the other side is just a board. The hole in the board is where the hose from the sump pump used to go outside; pumping water right back where it was entering the basement to begin with.

I spent several hours on Christmas Day organizing all of the jars, finally getting them out of the office floor and kitchen cabinets. Yay for cabinet space!

My Latest Scarves

2010-12-06T22:36:00.004-06:00

I just finished this one for a co-worker tonight using the smallest of my newest looms. I really like these new looms. The knit is a lot tighter. I'll still use the purple one, but probably only for chunkier yarns.

Tomorrow I'm going to start a new scarf using my favorite yarn, Lion Brand Homespun. I've never used it, but i already know I'm going to love it. It's squiggly, soft, and the colors are so pretty. This scarf will be corinthian.

New Obsession

2010-12-01T20:24:00.002-06:00

I have a new hobby, ok it's really an obsession. Loom knitting!!! I've always wanted to learn how to knit, but I'm just too impatient and couldn't figure it out. I have to credit a patron who walked into the library a few weeks ago with a beautiful scarf on that she had made, for turning me onto loom knitting. See, I'm already giving my yarn a drawer so it's going to be a long term relationship.

Here are some looms I just received from Amazon today. I also have a purple one that is probably 2 inches longer than the yellow one pictured here. I bought it at Walmart.

I'm currently working on a blue/tan/off white scarf. This will be my 4th in about a week. The pink and green one was my first scarf and the red and white one my second I rushed off so I could wear it to the Arkansas LSU game last Saturday. I gave my third one, a really pretty one with fall colors, to my cousin to donate to a women's shelter she knits for. I'm going to make it a point now to knit some for the shelter and mail them to her.

I'm finding this to be the perfect hobby for the fall and winter when I don't do any gardening and very little canning. If you want to learn to loom knit I suggest mikeyssmail's YouTube page and website. I learned everything from this video. I started it and stopped it several times before it clicked in my head and I was set. After I finish the scarf above and do one for a co-worker I'm going to attempt some of the other stitches I've seen on YouTube. I'm also very interested in doing a scarf with 5 different yarns of the same color, but different shade and an eternity scarf. Back to knitting I go!

Long Time, No Post

2010-10-24T15:33:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's almost been 2 months since I last blogged. Nothing is wrong, I just don't feel like blogging. I ended up not going to the district or state fair due to conflicts in my schedule. I won 2 red and 10 blue ribbons at the county fair. I'm not saying I'm done with conventional canning, but I've been learning more about fermenting lately and am very interested in this method of food preservation. This past spring I made some kraut and I hope to make a different batch of that and some kimchi soon. Obviously, since fermented veggies end up turning the liquid cloudy these won't be entered into the fair. That's all I have to report at the moment.

Ready...Set...Go!

2010-08-30T05:00:00.001-05:00

Today is the day to turn in my fair entries! Here are the class of 2010 on Saturday night. They have been cleaned, polished, and are waiting for their rings and labels for the bottom. I've decided to enter 12 things this year, which has me worried. Now you're going to think I'm crazy, but last year I entered 13 and worried constantly about that being a bad number, but then I won big. So this year the 12 has me worried, but I've decided to just let it go and be done. Tad superstitious?! I have to confess that I will be wearing what I wore last year when I turned my entries in...can't you just let me have a few superstitions?! I honestly think it was the new cowgirl boots!

In the dried classes I'll be entering: peppered beef jerky (I had a taste tester since I'm a vegetarian), dried corn, and cinnamon dried apple rings.

In the general canning/pickling/jam classes I'll be entering: fire roasted red peppers, spiced orange rings, bread and butter pickles, cinnamon peach chutney, tomato salsa, mango salsa, hot rhubarb jelly, chunky spiced apple butter, and my Gigi's hot tomato relish.

Judging will be all day Tuesday and I'll find out that night how everything did. I'll keep you updated.

And welcome to those who heard about this blog through my interview on the Ozark Harvest Radio Hour!

Put 'em Up!

2010-08-22T18:29:00.001-05:00

Check it out from your library, like I did, but let me tell you, you're going to want to own this new canning book! A sister library owns this book so I borrowed it from there, but I'm going to order one for my library and myself asap.

The first 99 pages is all "how to can" type stuff. Great to brush up on for current canners and perfect for newbies.

I love how this book is broken down into food such as 7 pages with just apple recipes. There are canning, pickling, and drying recipes. There's also several things that I don't see in any of my other canning books such as apple brandy, drunken cherries, and spiced pear vodka. Yes, it has alcohol recipes! Don't pretend you aren't ecstatic about that! I can totally see this book being right along side my trusty favorite next year as I prepare for the 2011 fair. Cantaloupe pickles?! Heck yes! I hate cantaloupe, but this book has so many fairly odd recipes that I know I'm going to have to make for the fair sooner or later. If all of that doesn't make you want to buy this book let me leave you with 2 words...lemon curd.

It's the Final Countdown

2010-08-20T17:58:00.003-05:00

It's almost county fair time! I have to hand in my entries on the 30th. Normally these last few weeks before the fair I'm scurrying around trying to can some last minute items so I can enter some extras or have an alternative to something else I did earlier in the summer that didn't turn out too well. This year I'm feeling pretty good. I did change dried vegetables though. I'm now doing corn. I was doing black krim tomatoes with basil leaves on top, but nature had other plans.

Today I also did roasted red peppers and I'll never do them again. Three hours and this is what I got...

For what red peppers cost around here this is an expensive 1 1/2 pints! They do look really pretty though, so I'm happy.

In this upcoming week I'll be cleaning jar rings and jars, picking out which 12-15 items get to be entered into the fair and making labels for those jars. Picking out what goes is a ridiculously long process...for me anyway. I'll have to set aside 3-4 hours for that, which I realize is stupid, but it's actually really fun for me. What's nerve wrecking is when I'm down to two jars of something and can't decide which one is better. If it takes more than 10 minutes to decide I usually pick one with my eyes closed. Inevitably I go back the day before hand in and will make sure I'm happy with my selections.

In case you are wondering what they are looking for (at least at our fair) in the food preservation class its all about looks. Your headspace has to be correct on everything (for non-canners there's a different amount of headspace depending on what it is and headspace is the empty space at the top of the jar before it hits the lid), liquid not cloudy, not too many other floaty things in the jar, no rust, no dents, no mold, a good seal, no food touching the lid, no labels other than on the bottom, and it has to be a Ball and Kerr jar as they sponsor this class. But dehydrated stuff they will taste. I didn't know this last year and I didn't taste any of the dehydrated stuff I entered, I just knew it smelled really good. Looks matter with dehydrated food too, but there are no headspace rules. Although, I was told once if I just added a few more dried oranges the jar would be full. In the end its all fun and games and keeps me off the streets and out of jail!

Happy county fair!

Spiced Orange Slices Recipe

2010-08-15T05:00:00.000-05:00

A reader wanted the recipe for the spiced orange slices I did last week, so I thought I'd just do it as a post since it's kind of long. The recipe is on page 158 of "The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving," 2nd ed, by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. It is by far my favorite canning book ever.

Spiced Orange Slices

4 large oranges

8 cups hot water

1 tsp salt

2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup each: cider vinegar and water

1/4 cup corn syrup

8 whole cloves

4 cardamom pods (didn't use them because they are hard to find around here)

4 cinnamon sticks

1/2 tsp peppercorns

Combine whole unpeeled oranges, 8 cups hot water and salt in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes or until fruit is tender. Drain oranges, discarding liquid, and cool.

Cut oranges in half crosswise and then into very thin slices.

Combine granulated sugar, brown sugar, vinegar, water, corn syrup, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and peppercorns in a large saucepan. Stir over high heat until sugars have dissolved. Reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes. Add orange slices, cover and cook gently for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Remove and discard cardamom and cinnamon.

Remove hot jars from canner. Remove orange slices from liquid with slotted spoon; pack into jars (I used tongs to pack them into jars a slice at a time). Pour liquid and whole cloves over oranges to within 1/2 inch of rim. Process 10 minutes for half-pint jars and 15 minutes for pint jars.

Makes 4 half-pint jars

Salsa!

2010-08-14T20:07:00.003-05:00

Made 6 pints and 2 quarts of tomato salsa and 4 pints and 2 quarts of mango salsa today. Tomorrow will be hot rhubarb jelly and apple butter. After that I'll just need to finish up my dried black krim tomatoes, can some fire roasted red peppers and I'll be ready for the fair. I don't think I'll have time to pickle any okra before the fair, but I'll definitely have to can a poop ton of it sometime soon because I had people wanting to give jars as gifts last year. I've also got a recipe picked out for my Christmas gifts, but since I know people who will get it read this blog I'd better not discuss it! Let's just say it has to do with a fruit that I can't get until November anyway, so it'll be in the fair next year.

Spiced Orange Slices

2010-08-08T10:15:00.000-05:00

My plans of course are to can or dry 2 things a weekend all month, but I'll have to make up for only canning 1 thing this weekend. I know it's only Sunday, but I've just had so much other stuff going on this past week that I don't think I can can (haha) anything else. I'll make some cherry jelly sometime during the work week to make up.

The spiced oranges turned out beautifully!

We've been over our average temperature for 23 straight days now and hadn't had rain for 3 or so weeks until a few days ago. 100-103 F with 105-113 heat index.Needless to say the grass is brown and what of it is still green you can't mow because it'll die too. The only things that are surviving are what has been watered every day. Things like impatiens though, watered every day or not, are croaking. Luckily, it rained a few days ago and broke the heat. It's not so bad this weekend, but we still need a lot more rain. Trees have started to turn brown and are prematurely shedding their leaves.

Last Week's Results

2010-08-07T18:10:00.002-05:00

Peppered beef jerky. Mom says is great (she's my guinea pig because I'm a vegetarian).

Dried Cinnamon Apple Rings

Bread and Butter Pickles and Gigi's Hot Tomato Relish.

Race to the Fair!

2010-07-31T11:38:00.002-05:00

If you follow this blog at all you know I enter the county, district, and state fairs every year. I always have 12+ entries into the food preservation class. Last year I won grand champion at the county fair for my dehydrated onions and grand champion at the district fair for my dehydrated strawberries. Of course this isn't quit good enough as I'd love to have something I've actually canned win...nothing can ever be perfect!

This year, as usual, I've done some canning and drying this summer, but now is the month long race to can/pickle/dehydrate what will be entered into the fair. Each weekend until I have to hand in my entries (Aug 30) I'll be canning at least 2 things. I've already done some cinnamon peach chutney that I'll be entering. This weekend I'll be doing bread and butter pickles, which I just started a few minutes ago...

As for my dried entries, I'm finishing up some beef jerky. I've never entered any dehydrated meat, but there aren't that many entries in the category, which is the way I like it...makes individual entries stand out. I'm a vegetarian, so my mom is my guinea pig on this one. She first said it needed more spice, then 10 seconds later changed her mind saying it had a back kick. she just tried it again and apparently its a keeper.

This weekend I'll also be making my Gigi's hot tomato relish. I have plenty of tomatoes! I've been collecting all of the ugly and split tomatoes for this effort. We've had a lot of really hot, dry weather lately, so we have a lot of splits. In the morning a tomato will look like it needs a few more days, return at 7 pm and its red and split.

My dried vegetable will be black krim tomatoes with basil leaves on top. I've been drying these as they come in so I've got several more rounds on tap.

Of course you have to listen to music while you can...I listen to Hair Nation on XM...what do you listen to?

Last Night's Bounty

2010-07-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

Big handful of yard long beans, 3 squash, 1 cuke, 2 bell peppers, and a handful of grape tomatoes. I'm to that point in the summer where I really don't care to eat any more yellow squash. Zucchini, however, I've only had 5-6 to pick so far. I've had a squash vine borer problem :( Several of the plants have new growth from the center of the plant and new blooms, so I'm going to wait another week to see if I just need to yank them. And I have no clue what's wrong with my pablano pepper plant. The jalapeno plant is only 2 feet high and I get 2-3 jalapenos a week, which is fine by me. But my pablano pepper plant is 4 feet high and each time it gets a new bloom the bloom turns brown and falls off before the day is over. The rest of my plants are doing very well though.

Yard Long Beans

2010-07-13T18:03:00.003-05:00

This is the first year I've grown yard long beans, aka asparagus beans and they are doing very well.

What's with the ants loving this plant?!

I love how you can pick just a few and make enough for a side dish. I'll be growing this again for sure.

1st Canning of the Season

2010-07-01T21:56:00.001-05:00

Cinnamon peach chutney/compote.

Deck Check

2010-06-22T05:00:00.001-05:00

Cherry tomatoes are in my future.

I have to start using the basil or it's going to take over the deck. The plant in the back on the left is a jalapeno plant. It has 3-4 blooms. The plant in the back on the right is a pabalano pepper plant. It has 1 bloom so far.

Blueberries Have Arrived

2010-06-20T05:00:00.000-05:00

After 3 long years of waiting I finally got some blueberries I can pick! It doesn't look like much, but this is just the first picking of 3-4 pickings. I have 1 Duke plant and 1 Bluecrop. These are from both of them. And they were delicious!

Babies

2010-06-19T05:00:00.000-05:00

3 of these things are not like the others...

2010-06-18T05:00:00.000-05:00

Tangled in with my sugar snap pea plants are apparently 2 snow pea plants. I don't know how this happened and I can't confirm it, but there's no way those are sugar snaps. They don't taste like sugar snaps and they look just like snow peas.

Yesterday's Harvest

2010-06-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

5 beets, 1 onion (the only one that didn't randomly disappear into the ground), probably near the last of the sugar snap peas, and a mess of green beans.

Oh the weeds and grass...

2010-06-16T21:27:00.002-05:00

...are the bane of my existence. Every time I turn around there's more grass to be weeded. Grass is almost worse than weeds because it's so hard to get the root out. But the garden plugs along anyways...

Zucchini and yellow squash are doing very well. The plants seem to double in size every day and I've started seeing blossoms and baby fruit.

The cukes are finally growing. I made the grave mistake of not hardening them very well before putting them into the garden and as a result I'm just now getting the size of plant I should have had weeks ago.

Green beans are doing very well. Where I had some onions fail I planted more green bean plants so I should have another crop come a few weeks after this first one is done

Blueberries Turning Blue

2010-05-30T10:15:00.000-05:00

PBA

2010-05-21T05:00:00.000-05:00

I need a support group. Gardening is like any other compulsive habit...smoking, drinking, shopping. You swear you aren't going to buy any extra plants this year after you put everything in the ground that you planned on growing. Then you see someone with a plant or walk by a place selling plants and it's like magnet...you have to go buy plants you don't need.

As I've said before I work in a library and next door is a hardware store that sells plants during vegetable gardening season. Man it's tough to work next to a place where you constantly see people walking away with armfuls of plants. So I go over there today to run an errand for the library that had absolutely nothing to do with plants and I noticed they have pabalano pepper plants. Well of course I have to go back later and get one. On my lunch break I go to get the 1 plant and of course walked away with a flat full. I bought a grape tomato plant....

...sweet basil, the pablano pepper plant I had set out for, a jalapeno pepper plant...

....as well as 6 asparagus bean plants and 6 Arkansas Traveler tomato plants, which haven't been planted yet and are not pictured. I have no where in the garden to plant them; hence the pots. I will be planting the beans and tomatoes in the garden where I have room.

Like I said...PBA: Plant Byers Anonymous.

Dwarf Citrus Trees

2010-05-20T19:44:00.001-05:00

Left to right: dwarf orange tree, dwarf lime tree, and meyer lemon tree. Yay!

New Vegetable Garden

2010-05-12T05:00:00.000-05:00

My new vegetable garden is done for the moment. I finished planting tomatoes, cukes, yellow squash, and zucchini this weekend. I had a bunch of seedlings that didn't make it though the hardening process...better than getting them into the ground then dieing I guess. Okra will be the next thing to go in, but I'll wait until June.

Doesn't look like much now, but hopefully it will soon.

Blueberries

2010-05-10T05:00:00.000-05:00

FAIL

2010-04-28T05:00:00.000-05:00

All of my seedlings are doing well with the exception of one tray of tomatoes.

Tall Vine Prudens Purple Tomato

Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomato

At the moment my plan to is to plant out what few Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomatoes look good and pitch the rest. I probably won't plant any of the Tall Vine Prudens Purple unless I can fine one that looks healthy enough. I just suck at growing tomatoes that don't have traditional tomato leaves.

Tomato FAIL.

Blueberries

2010-04-26T05:00:00.000-05:00

Seedling Update!

2010-04-21T05:00:00.000-05:00

I've had to start pinching blooms off every one of my cucumber seedlings. I've also got a few that are trying to cling to each other. I ordered a cucumber trellis last month, but it's been back ordered until May 5 so they are just going to have to hang tight.

All of the tomatoes and kale are doing well too. They are tall enough that I'm probably going to wait another week and go ahead and put them out...or at least some of them and maybe save some back just in case we have a late freeze.

Asparagus!

2010-04-19T05:00:00.000-05:00

Last year I planted 3 year old Jersey Knight asparagus crowns and by shear luck I've been harvesting 3-5 shoots of asparagus twice a day. I've been displaying them bouquet style while I wait for the next handful so I can have enough eat at a meal.

That long one...it's the reason I'm harvesting twice a day now because when I left for work at 8:30 am it was only about 4 inches high and by 8:30 pm it was as long as it is in the picture.

Stinky Feet in a Jar!

2010-04-17T19:36:00.002-05:00

The great kraut experiment of April 2010 is officially over! I was going to wait 10-12 days for the kraut to finish and today was day 10. I was happy with the end result, so I harvested it.

I put the kraut in jars...

I had one more liter jar I gave to my grandma. All in all next time I'm going to use less caraway seeds and a tad less salt...but it is freaking fabulous! I'll probably try it again in a few months with those changes and see it its a keeper and then I'll probably can some for the fair. I know you are surprised.

Sauerkraut!

2010-04-07T21:27:00.003-05:00

Tonight I made homemade sauerkraut for the first time! I can hardly wait to taste it, but it takes 10-12 days for it to ferment so I'll just have to wait.

You can really toss anything you want into sauerkraut, but I'm sticking to a pretty basic formula for my first try. I used 3 smaller heads of cabbage, probably around 6-7 tbs of kosher salt, about 2-3 tbs of caraway seed, 5 green onions, and a wide mouth crock. I say "probably" and "about" because I didn't measure, I just guessed. I bought the glass container for $14 at the local big box store. You can buy special crocks for fermenting vegetables, but I don't really want to let go of $135 for a ceramic pot with weights in it.

First I peeled off the outside layers of the heads of cabbage and set them aside because I'd need them later. Then I quartered and cored each head and cut into strips as small as I could get them. You could use a mandolin for this and I attempted to use mine, but I really preferred the rougher look of the plain ol' knife.

Once all the cabbage was chopped I added the salt and massaged the cabbage so that the juices were released. When I was done the cabbage in both bowls was reduced to 3/4 of the green bowl. I then added the chopped onion and caraway seeds.

Next, I placed handfuls of the mixture into my crock and pressed down with each layer to get even more juices out. After all of the shredded cabbage is in the kraut I put the layers I took off the outside of the heads of cabbage on top of the mixture.

After all the cabbage was in the crock I added the juice from the bowl. The cabbage must remain below the juice line as to not spoil at the hand of oxygen, so I devised some weights out of several saucers and a bag of water. Leaving the lid off and covering with a dishtowel, I put the crock into the dark laundry room where it will remain for the next 10-12 days.

Everything I know about making sauerkraut I learned from Chef Franky, so take a look at his sauerkraut videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuHC-QWtl6M

Seedlings Update

2010-04-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

I planted up my seedlings 2 weeks ago. Here are two trays of tomatoes...

...cukes, more tomatoes, and kale.

This starting seeds extra early thing seems to have worked out!

New Garden Plot!

2010-04-05T06:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday my neighbor, mom and I tilled up my new garden plot! My neighbor actually did the tilling while mom and I raked the grass to the sides.

It rained an inch on Friday, so the dirt was a little wet, but pretty much perfect for tilling. The dirt has turned out to be great; no rocks or clay, which is a miracle here in the Ozarks. My great-great-grandmother had her garden here and lived in the house you see in the background. I live across the street looking out onto the pasture to the east of the house where there used to be horses. I'm told her garden was much bigger than this, but I am gardening for 1 person and I work full time; so I'm only going to grow what I can maintain. If I were gardening to impress I'd never get to sleep!

I'm going to wait until tonight to see if its dry enough to plant marigolds around the perimeter and then I'll plant my onions, beets, lettuce, beans, and soybeans. I planted sugar snap peas in my backyard where my entire garden used to be so it can climb up the fence.

P.S. That's my mom's dog Buddy!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-03T16:45:00.003-05:00

Had a few blooms on my tulips yesterday and then ta-da...all tulips open this morning just in time for Easter.

Clematis is coming back quickly. It was 2 inches on Monday and 8 inches on Friday.

My two blueberry plants are getting leaves and have buds.

Blueberries

2010-03-11T05:00:00.000-06:00

Two years ago I bought blueberry bushes...from ebay! Miraculously they are both still alive and should bring me blueberries beginning next year. One is bluecrop and the other is duke; both being highbush. Highbush blueberry plants produce berries once every year after their third year in the ground. Lowbush plants produce every other year. Blueberry plants need acidic soil, so when I planted mine in their pots I mixed a little garden sulfate into the potting soil. Every year I add just a little more. When I finally plant them in the ground, probably next year, I'll add some more in the planting hole.

During the winter I store them in my carport where they get pretty good shelter, but still get the winter weather they need.

A few weeks ago they started to show buds. Their foliage is so pretty in the fall so hopefully I'll remember to take some pictures of them this fall.

Feeling Like Spring!

2010-03-07T11:47:00.002-06:00

Its been feeling a lot like spring in zone 6! It hasn't been a hard winter, but it has been bitterly cold a lot longer than normal. The past few days the highs have been in the mid-60s and lows mid-40s.

My romaine lettuce is finally showing up. I was starting to get worried, but it's just been slow starting.

Cucumbers are doing very well. They all have 3-4 leaves now and are looking very hardy.

Tomatoes are also doing very well. This tray has (L to R) red brandywine, black krim, Cherokee purple. The 4 rows on the right are kale.

Everyone seemed to think I was starting way too early this year, but everything looks so good so far I think they are all wrong! If I have to keep some rather large transplants inside a while that will be fine. And I've grown way too much intentionally. I'll probably end up giving away some or possibly selling them as a little fundraiser for my library.

What a difference a day makes!

2010-02-21T13:11:00.002-06:00

Take a look back at my post from yesterday...I'll wait while you refresh your memory.

Ok, that was just a day ago, now look at what the cukes look like....

...and the kale...

...and tomatoes are coming up.

Cukes and Kale!

2010-02-20T10:19:00.000-06:00

Gentlemen and women start your engines!

2010-02-16T19:11:00.003-06:00

It's seed starting time!!! I'm starting a few weeks earlier this year in an attempt to get bigger transplants. I've started 2 long trays and that will be it this year.

The left tray has:

4 rows Green Forest Romaine Lettuce

2 rows Marketmore Slicing Cucumber

2 rows Bushy Cucumber

2 rows Heirloom Tall Vine Prudens Purple Tomato

2 rows Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomato

The right tray has:

2 rows Red Brandywine Tomato

1 row Black Krim Tomato

2 rows Cherokee Purple Tomato

4 rows Green Curled Ripbor Kale (Hybrid)

Everything is organic and has been purchased from Seed Savers Exchange or Johnny's Selected Seeds. The kale is hybrid, which is disappointing, but I really couldn't help that. The only thing not organic this year will be the okra as usual since no one seems to ever carry organic okra. If you know of anyone who does please comment and let me know.

HAPPY SEED STARTING!!!

Can't wait to see how these go...so pretty!

2010-02-10T05:00:00.000-06:00

Soap Nuts!

2010-02-07T12:47:00.003-06:00

You are going to think I'm crazy, but hear me out! If I were the only one using soapnuts this company would already be out of business, so there must be a lot of soapnut devotees out there. Soapnuts are the fruit of a tree in the Himalayas. They are organic, biodegradable, and perfect for those with sensitive skin. I get mine from Laundry Tree.

This is the soapnut starter kit. I've been using them since late November and still have about a months worth of soapnuts left. I do about 2-3 loads of laundry a week.

I use 4-5 nuts for big loads and 2 nuts for small loads. Each nut can be used 2-3 times; I usually toss them in the compost bin after the 3rd use.

You have the option of putting a few drops of essential oil on the cloth bag if you want your laundry to have a very mild sent. I usually put a few drops of lavender oil in a load with towels and sheets. Sweet orange oil also does really well.

I just bought the 500 gram bag, so of course you know I'm highly recommending soap nuts, especially from Laundry Tree.

FAIL

2010-01-23T16:02:00.002-06:00

Foreshadowing much? Obviously I have failed at my 3 day juice feast. I think I might have been able to make it if I hadn't had to work today (Saturday). I brought my juice with me, but once I was done with work I was starving and the thought of juice made me want to yack. I ate an orange. I know, it could have been worse. So I've ended the juice feast prematurely. I'm not going to pretend I learned something very profound in the day and half I juice feasted because I didn't. So now my unofficial plan is to replace at least a few meals each week with fresh juice. I'm going to start writing down what I eat and give up cokes. I'm also going to start packing different lunches. I get stuck in a rut really easily, so once I've got 10 cans of soup at lunch guess what I get to eat for the next 10 days? I did a whole week of kale salads in December and by Friday what was once one of my favorite things made me want to hit someone. And no more Sonic at lunch, though I shall miss my grilled cheese sandwich with pickles! Oh and just in case you were wondering, I drank a quart of juice this morning that consisted of:

6 Grapefruits

2 Oranges

1/2 lb Spinach

Now I'm going to go drink some coffee. One and a half days of no coffee was brutal. If there is a coffee diet out there give me hollar.

Juice Feast Day 1

2010-01-22T19:38:00.004-06:00

Today was day 1 of my 3 day juice feast. This is my first juice feast and I am so excited! For those who don't know, I'll explain that juice feast is simply drinking fresh juice instead of meals for a set amount of time. A juice feast is the opposite of a juice fast. In a juice fast you would restrict calories. During a juice feast your body gets the calories it needs through consuming a gallon of fresh juice a day. For further information just google 'juice feast.' There is a lot of helpful information out there if you are interested in doing a juice feast or just curious as to what the hell I'm thinking. I'm not alone here though, a lot people do juice feasts from 3 to 92 days.

I am currently using a Jack Lalanne Power Juicer I got in high school. So I've had this at least 10 years and its still going strong. My plan is to make half a gallon of one type of juice and half a gallon of another each day. This way I can drink some for breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack, and dinner. I'll also be drinking herbal tea and a lot of water. I will not be taking my vitamins during this time.

This morning I made a half gallon of juice consisting of:

1 bunch of celery

1 head of romaine

7 apples

I drank this for breakfast and lunch. In between those meals I drank 2 cups of herbal tea and 4 cups of water. In the afternoon I drank 6 cups of water. I didn't feel the need for snacking on juice in between meals, but I did eat a teaspoon of bee pollen, which I read in A Juice Feaster's Handbook by Angela Stokes-Monarch, is fine. I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but it looked very similar to my morning juice. For dinner I had juice consisting of:

8 oranges

1 lb of spinach

I don't really feel anything yet, but I'm really enjoying trying something new that may change the way I eat. I am a vegetarian who occasionally eats fish, but I'd like to stop eating fish and introduce a lot more raw foods into my diet. My motives are that I need to lose a lot of weight and I have eczema that I've had since October 2008 and is now getting ridiculously out of control.

I'm thinking something grapefruit in the morning...maybe some pear and cucumber in the afternoon. I'll report again tomorrow night.

Roku Review

2010-01-17T11:07:00.006-06:00

Last May I cancelled my cable. I didn't get an antenna and don't ever intend to. There was really never anything on that I wanted to watch and what the cable company was charging me was crazy. I thought my bill was high before, but then it went up a few more dollars and I was done paying almost $85 a month (that's including mid-grade internet) for a bunch of crap I don't watch. So I ditched the cable and the internet and switched to WiFi through Windstream. It's been fabulous. It's cheaper and way faster.

I borrow a lot of tv shows on DVD from sister libraries and I have been using Netflix since 2005. I started using Hulu last year and I started actually using the streaming video on Netflix. My tv time was spent in front of my laptop 90% of the time. That's when Christmas came along and I cashed in with a Roku Box!

I haven't been able to tear myself away from it! The Roku Box is very unassuming, so if you have a several toys (dvd player, wii) it will easily fit in. I have the mid-grade Roku HD.

The remote control is small. Here it is next to my DVD player remote and TV remote. Getting the batteries in is odd, but it's not nearly as bad as CNet made it out to be. In that video she makes a big deal about having to have a HDMI cable if you want a decent picture. I didn't use an HDMI cable and everything comes through very clear and have had no problems with the picture at all.

The Roku Box was very easy to set up; so easy that it may have taken under 5 minutes.

My Roku's main use is streaming movies and tv shows through Netflix. Some may think the "Watch Instantly" selection is small, but I haven't had any trouble finding things to watch. My queue is never below 10. And Netflix is always adding to the selection.

You can use Pandora on the Roku. I already had a Pandora account, so I just had to sign in through the Roku. This feature has been great. You can even give songs the thumbs up or down just as you do on the computer.

After several minutes (I think I have mine set to 10) the screensaver will turn on, which is great for when you want to leave Pandora running, but obviously don't want it burned into the screen. The screensaver when you pause a movie is just the the word Roku bouncing around. When you are in Pandora it is the album cover of the song that is playing. Randomly fun.

I have also found things that I wasn't expecting to find with the Roku. I have listened to TWIT podcasts for a while now, but through Roku I can now see them as they are recording! Under the Revision3 channel I have come to love Tekzilla and Diggnation.

The only complaint I have about the Roku (so far) is the fast forward. It's very weird and you never know where you're stopping even though it's showing you the scene. It's just not accurate. And it's annoying that when you press play again the entire show has to reload.

In my opinion the Roku Box is a must have for anyone and everyone who has internet.

FTC disclaimer: This is a personal blog post and I did not recieve any of the above mentioned items for free.

2010 Seed Order

2010-01-09T10:45:00.005-06:00

I had a lot of seeds left over from last year because it was such a rainy Spring I didn't plant as much as I wanted fearing what eventually happened...a dud of a garden. I also got a late start on starting my seeds because I finally broke down and got some grow lights in March. But that was about a month too late and by the time it was time to transplant them the plants were still on the small side. So left over from 2009 that will be used again this Spring and Summer are:

Spinach - America

Cherokee Purple Tomato

Black Krim Tomato

Red Brandywine Tomato

Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomato

Ovations Greens Mix

Encore Lettuce Mix

Bean - Provider

Basil

Here's what I ordered from Seed Saver's Exchange (SSE):

Beets - Early Blood Turnip

Cucumber - Bushy

Okra - Hill Country Red

Okra - Red Burgundy

Soybean - Fiskeby

Zucchini - Black Beauty

And from Johnny's Selected Seeds:

Beans - Provider (you can never have enough bush beans in my opinion)

Cucumber - Marketmore

Kale - Ripbor

Encore Lettuce Mix (you can never have enough lettuce mix on hand!)

Onion - Nabechan

Sugar Snap Pea

Yellow Squash - Soleil

Pruden's Purple Tomato

I always order more bush beans even if I don't need them since when the first batch is done I usually try to do another sowing. Provider beans are all I have ever tried bean wise and they have yet to fail me. I've never done climbing beans, bush beans just appeal to me for some unknown reason.

I'm going back to the Marketmore cucumber again this year. Last year I decided to do just pickling cucumbers and that worked ok, but the really wet weather didn't help. I got Bushy because they are smaller and I'll probably use them as my pickling cuke this year.

Spinach...oh how I suck at growing spinach. This will be my 4th and maybe final year at getting spinach to grow. Last year was of course too wet. The other years? I don't know what went wrong.

I'm using the same Sugar Snap Peas I used last year. They were the biggest crop I had of anything all year. Yellow squash and zucchini are usually what takes over my kitchen, but last year they totally failed. I'm blaming a combination of me starting the seeds late and the rain.

Last year I started some Russian Red Kale, but what little did come up ended up dieing quickly. Whatever, it really wasn't the kale I was looking for, but this year I think I found what I was looking for in Ripbor. We shall see. Also going to try beets again this year.

You must look at this beautiful Hill Country Red Okra I got from SSE. I have much better luck with red varieties of okra, which is why I always grow Red Burgundy; but I just had to have Hill Country Red When I saw it.

Some of my seeds were backordered, but it looks like I'll have everything read to start in the next few weeks. Johnny's website has had an overhaul and it is so fabulous now. The predictive search save a lot of time. As always I get as much as I can organic and untreated. Let the 2010 Veggie Gardening Extravaganza begin!

2010 Not So Much Resolutions

2010-01-03T10:15:00.003-06:00

These are my 2010 not so much resolutions, but things I want to do this year or improve on:

*I want to be as enthusiastic about my vegetable garden at the end of the season as I am when I'm just starting seeds indoors in February. Obviously I love to garden or I wouldn't have started this blog, but sometime around late July I start getting tired of it. It's probably the heat. I want to pick the vegetables and be done. Don't want to water or weed (not that anyone ever wants to weed!) so the garden goes into kind of a downward spiral and around September I kick myself because if I had kept on top of it I would have a nice fall vegetable garden too. So this year I'm going to make myself weed in late July no matter what.

*I want to get outdoors more. I get outside to garden, but that's about it. Last year my best friend and I had grand plans to go camping every other weekend all summer. Yea, it didn't even happen once. I want to start camping and hiking once the weather warms up.

*I want to try a week of raw foods. No, I'm not crazy. I want to go raw a la Mat Monarch and Angela Stokes-Monarch. I've been following them and several other raw foodists for a little over a year now and I am just fascinated. But that's all I've been until now. I want to try at least a week. Maybe more because I don't want any detox symptoms I have to bring it all down. So maybe I'll try 2 weeks and we'll see where it goes. (I'd have like to link to their YouTube channel here, but it's been suspended for some unknown reason, so use the Googlez.)

*I also want to do a 3 day juice feast. No, not a fast, a feast. You don't deprive yourself, you just have a lot of fresh juice. If I can accomplish the 3 day juice feast I'll do longer ones later.

*Start going to church again. Doesn't matter where, but I'll probably start going back to the last place I went even though I hated having to get up by an alarm clock on Sundays. I think that's a deal breaker for me just because I work every 3rd Saturday and I don't like the thought of having to wake up by alarm all 7 days a week. But obviously it's only that way every three weeks. Whatever, those are just excuses.

*Try to be more positive. I've been working on not being so negative for years and I honestly think I'm less negative than I used to be. Jaded and skeptical yes, but not negative. This is probably all linked to the item above this one.

And I'm going to do all of these things regardless of your eye rolls. If you think I'm crazy then go home a write it in your journal. I don't need to hear it from you. You don't have to like what I do and I don't have to like what you do. And if you can't handle shutting your trap when you feel the need to let me know you think I'm crazy then maybe you need to not be in my circle.

Whoa, that wasn't meant to be that heavy, but it was. Last but not least...

*I'll try to blog consistently. Yea right!

A Month!

2009-12-15T16:26:00.003-06:00

Geez, I decide to blog again and then take month long breaks. It's not that I don't have anything to write about...I wrote an entire 2 page list of topics...just can't seem to find the time. But I'm going to start making time. Coming up:

*How to make my favorite kale salad

*My new vegetable garden

*2010 garden

*Living the no cable life

*New smoothie recipes

*Chia and hemp seeds

*Eczema

*Laundry Tree Soap Nuts review (Not paid to review. I bought the product myself.)

Food, Inc.

2009-11-15T22:11:00.003-06:00

I just finished watching Food, Inc. and was going to go straight to bed, but I just had to blog about it. This film was just amazing. It covers corn, contaminated food, E Coli, factory farming, companies keeping farmers under their thumb, FDA and government failures to keep our food safe. And of course one of my favorite topics MONSANTO!

I knew it would come up in the film because a conversation about food at this level cannot happen without at least mentioning Monsanto. I believe, and have for quite some time, that Monsanto is the biggest problem with our food and farming. I could list the reasons, but there are just too many. Google Monsanto; a majority of the hits will be negative towards the company and there are good reasons for that. Monsanto ruins lives. Monsanto is causing real, honest farmers to lose their livelihoods. I loved how Food, Inc. called out some of the former Monsanto executives and lawyers that now work for the government. I've always thought it was rather unethical to have a former Monsanto, or several former Monsanto employees and lawyers working at the top of the FDA. Of course Monsanto execs didn't want to be interviewed for the film. Like it matters, all they'd do is lie anyway or try to justify ruining lives and patenting seeds. See, I can blab on and on about Monsanto! Go see for yourself, there's plenty written about Monsanto's wicked ways.

Please see Food, Inc. Check at your local public library to see if they have it...I know mine does! If it doesn't make you want to put effort into changing your diet or the way you shop for food, at least it you'll have the knowledge of knowing where that crap your putting in your mouth came from.

Oh the Shame

2009-11-09T18:14:00.005-06:00

It's taken me weeks to write about it, but with my held once again held high, I'll let you know my Arkansas State Fair results. As you may remember, I won a big momma prize at the county fair and at the district fair. So of course the next natural step is the Arkansas State Fair. I wasn't expecting to win, but once you've won 2 big momma ribbons in one fair season you kinda get the feeling it's not impossible. At the state fair the items that won Best of Show or Grand Champion at county or district fair get a special upgrade points wise. If you have no clue what I'm talking about the shortest way to explain it is that everything gets points and the points add up to the ribbons and money you win. So your big momma ribbon winners get extra points at state fair, which automatically sets all those winners above all the other stuff that is entered. So all my stuff that didn't win any big momma ribbons automatically lost to my stuff that had won them the minute I walked through the door.

It's now been several weeks since I got the results from the state fair, and no I'm not crushed, but I didn't win the big momma ribbon. I am so proud of my peaches and dried strawberries!

My peaches won 2nd place in the canned peaches class! I'm supper excited about this because I usually have canned peach issues, but this year I cut the into slices instead of halves, which worked a lot better for me. I tended to have a lot of floating to the top and touching the lid when I did halves. This year I also used a different recipe, not that it matters to the fair since it didn't look any different. But I used honey and water this year instead of sugar and water.

And my dried strawberries that won the Grand Champion ribbon at the county fair won 1st place in the dried foods class!

One problem did happen though. One of my entries was either broken when there was a mass avalanche of jars the day before the fair opened, or someone took it as their own (I'm going to assume on accident). So I didn't come home with my hot pickled vegetables. Could have been worse though, could have broken them all.

So now that 2009 fair season is over I've started planning for 2010 already of course! I already have one thing I plan on canning that I randomly did one morning. I realize I'm not the first to add sugar to chopped up peaches, but hey, next time I plan on adding maybe some cinnamon or a tiny bit of vanilla; maybe even nutmeg. Maybe I'll say it's a peach chutney. I'm not sure yet, but it was damn good on whole wheat waffles instead of syrup.

District Fair!

2009-10-07T05:30:00.000-05:00

After the county fair I took my things to the district fair. I entered the exact things I entered in the county fair...have to go by the rules ya know!

I got 3 red ribbons and 9 blue ribbons! And holy cow again, another dehydrated entry won! My dried strawberries won Best of Show!

Now all of my entries are at the state fair with the exception of the hot pickled mixed vegetables. Nothing was wrong with that entry, but at the state fair you are only allowed 1 entry per class. This is usually fine, but I tend to make unique things that don't have their own class, such as the canned peaches class, so it gets complicated when I have multiple items that only fit into wildcard classes. The pickled mushrooms and the hot pickled mixed vegetables both only fit in the wildcard pickled class...which means I had to kick one out. I had gotten a comment on the back of my tag at district that the veggies were a little too full, so I let that be the deciding factor. Also, the pickled mushrooms tend to get some attention because they are so different and are packed in oil. My mother says they look like alien brains.

I'll be picking up my items at the state fair at the end of October, so I'll update you then. Honestly, I'd love to get the trifecta!

County Fair!

2009-10-05T05:30:00.000-05:00

The next few posts will be catch up posts. I don't have pictures of the exact jars I entered into the fair this year because they are currently at the state fair...but they'll eventually be back at the end of October and I'll get some pictures up then.

This year I entered some selections from this years canning into the county fair as I have done for the past 3 years now. I entered 13 things, which freaked me out at first because of the number 13, but I got over it. For the first time ever I entered 3 things into the dried food categories:

Dried Basil
Dried Onions
Dried Strawberries

I entered 10 things into the other canning categories:

Pomegranate Jelly
Hot Pickled Mixed Vegetables
Pickled Jalapenos
Pickled Beets
Pickled Okra
Pickled Mushrooms
Bread and Butter Pickles
Chow Chow
Canned Cherries
Canned Peaches

I don't enter fairs to win necessarily, though it's always nice to have your skills validated.

This year I won 12 blue ribbons!

My canned cherries got a special certificate from Ball!

And holy cow! My dried onions won Grand Champion of the food preservation class! Of all things....this was by far the easiest thing I did this year.There are many ways to dry onions, but all I did to mine was slice them about 1/4 of an inch thick, pull the rings apart, and dehydrate them in my food dehydrator. I had the dehydrator on for about 8-12 hours. I never kept track of the time, I just monitored them for the color and texture I wanted. After I thought they were done I let them cool in the dehydrator for a day and then just put them in jars so they wouldn't get crushed.

The Well-Read Gardener is Back!

2009-10-02T21:55:00.003-05:00

I've decided after a hiatus to bring back The Well-Read Gardener. I'll be going back to focusing on gardening, food preservation (mainly canning and dehydrating), some recipes here and there, and a few random product reviews. I can't promise a post every day or even every other day, but I'll do my best to post regularly.

A lot of good things have happened since my last post back in July. I'll catch everyone (who's still left) up to speed as soon as I get home from a work related convention.

Alienated in Arkansas

2009-07-18T18:37:00.003-05:00

I've always been a yellow dog Democrat. I'm very liberal. Liberal to the point that most people around here would say I'm an "extremist." If wanting everyone to have a chance in life to be happy, be with whomever they want, and help to be available to those in need is extreme then I guess I'm on the 'fringe' and 'extreme.'

But I don't think I'm the only one in Arkansas who feels betrayed by the leadership we elected. The only backbone we've sent to Washington lately is Congressman Vic Snyder. Sadly, he does not represent me. Congressman John Boozman does. A Republican who hasn't gotten anything done for Northwest Arkansas...ever. Maybe I should be glad about that since he's a Republican. Then you have Congressmen Mike Ross and Marion Berry. I think a phrase I've been hearing a lot lately describes them perfectly; 'who needs Republicans when you've got Democrats like these.' Representing the poorest parts of the state, they've basically told them all to go to hell on health care reform. I have no doubt they'll all get re-elected. As long as you call yourself a Democrat, talk about your love of guns and your hate for gays, you're pretty much golden in most of the state...except maybe Benton County who wouldn't elect a Democrat if you said you were taking away Walmart. I've heard that I should just be glad we have Democrats up there and not all Republicans. What does it matter when they all vote Republican anyway?! Democrats misrepresenting their party and their state...just makes me sick.

Then you have Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. Mark Mark Mark...all I can say is, you are not your daddy. Not even 1/4 your daddy. Senator Lincoln has said she hasn't decided if she's support Sonia Sotomayor and Senator Pryor has said he probably will, but he's not completely sure yet. Seriously?! Consider any future contributions I would have made to your campaigns void. As for voting for you...I'll probably leave it blank. That makes me so sad.

I'm off my soapbox now.

Rose question

2009-07-13T17:44:00.003-05:00

My grandma's rose garden is having some difficulties. Since I really know nothing about rose gardening I thought I'd ask everyone else thinking someone will know why this is happening and a possible solution.

What look like little Japanese beetles and tiny flies have been invading her roses. If there is a large bud that is about to the point of needing to be deadheaded the gather in the flower. I swatted at one I was about to deadhead anyway and they all attacked me!

Sometimes there are just a few and they are down in a rose that hasn't even blossomed yet.

But most of the time its many of them clumped together. It might be a little less weird if there were only 1 insect involved, but there are clearly flies here too.

This picture is not the worst of it. The worst one was yesterday. A bright pink rose that was so covered you couldn't tell what color it was. Most of the leaves are fine, but on some of the bushes the leaves have lots of tiny rusty holes.

If you have any idea what is going on here or any solution to the problem please let me know. My grandma's answer is Sevendust...but I say no thanks if I can help it.

2009-07-10T10:49:00.002-05:00

Everything is starting to bloom and produce! The zucchini and yellow squash have blooms...

....and the soybeans are getting fuzzy!

I've picked a handful of green beans in the last day or so and my volunteer cucumber plant has given me 3 pickling cucumbers so far. They taste just as fabulous as they did last year when I planted them intentionally!

Cross these off my 'to plant' list

2009-07-08T05:00:00.001-05:00

I have a very small space in which to garden. This is why I'm going to start being very strict about what I grow again from year to year. Beets and carrots are two things I'm not going to grow anymore. This is the first year I grew beets. I sowed a whole packet of seeds and about a dozen came up. This is my harvest.

Two. Two tiny beets. And these are big compared to the ones I just threw into the yard. I probably didn't do them any favor by putting them in front of the onions, which Dixie dug up. So the beets were probably trampled multiple times a day. However, I didn't know that was going to happen when I planted them. Another reason they probably didn't do so well is our rocky soil. Pretty much any kind of root vegetable you'll have trouble growing here in the Ozarks unless you have a raised bed. Speaking of not growing well in rocky soil...come on down carrots...

You guessed it. I won't be growing carrots again. This will be my second year to grow carrots. My harvest looked a lot like this last year too. Who's to blame? The number one culprit is rocky soil. Last year I let my carrots grow till August and I had carrots of about this same size, but they were all very crooked. So I tried a different spot this year thinking they'd do better. So wrong. How long ago do you think I planted these babies? Way back in February! These stupid things haven't growing longer than my finger in 5 months!

So I'm not going to waste my precious gardening space on plants that frustrate me, don't work with rocky soil, or have failed. My eggplant failed last year. See any eggplant in my garden this year? Hell no. I can use that space for more gorgeous organic heirloom tomatoes.

*Side story on beets. Every time I'm at the grocery store I check the beets, even if I don't need beets. Just about every other time I shop I get free beet greens. Someone, or maybe more than one someone, twists off the beet greens, buys the roots and leaves the greens there. I bag them up separately from the beets I'm buying and tell them at the register that those were left behind, so they should be free. They usually agree. Actually, I think they just don't care and they don't understand that you can eat them. It's a whole different story when you get that checkout girl that always asks me what beets are and what they taste like. My answer is always....um...beety?! Anyway, I end up with free beet greens that I can juice or put into my smoothies. The greens are the most nutritious part of the beet plant anyway.

Volunteer Cuke!

2009-07-06T05:00:00.001-05:00

If you followed me last summer you might remember the great volunteer tomato invasion. This isn't quite the same, but I have a volunteer cucumber plant where I planted my cucumber plants last year. This year there are tomatoes there and the volunteer cucumber plant is growing behind a vacant tomato cage where Dixie dug up the tomato (because she wanted to eat the egg shells I planted them with) that used to reside there. I'm guessing this is a pickling cucumber plant because this morning I picked this...
And it seems as if that's the plant that's going to volunteer, at least of the cucumber variety, thank goodness. I've been finding a few volunteer tomato plants here and there, but I've just been pulling them up this year since last year they took up space and only gave me a a few tomatoes.

How many can you guess?!

2009-07-04T13:10:00.007-05:00

Stealing this meme from 006.7 CAR The Carrie Blog.

I've given the first lines of the first 25 random songs on my iPod and you get to guess the title and artist of the song. Post your answers in the comments and I'll update them as I receive them.

The rules are:
no repeated artists
nothing obscure (which really is very relative)
nothing foreign
nothing with the title in the first line
and no Googling the lyrics. Have fun!

The answers in red are the ones no one got...losers.

1. It's cold outside; And the paint's peeling off of my walls - "Are Friends Electric" by The Dead Weather...Gary Numan also acceptable.
2. On the way to your brother's house in the valley, dear, By the river bridge a cradle floating beside me. - "Oliver James" by Fleet Foxes
3. Oooh, oh I've had sleepless nights; Toss and turn, wake up burning; For what you inspire - "Walking Down Your Street" by The Bangles
4. Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring - "Ring of Fire" Johnny Cash via Carrie
5. The bottom feels so much better than the top! So much better! -"Nan, You're a Window Shopper" by Lily Allen
6. I really love you baby ; I love what you've got ; Let's get together, we can Get hot - "Love Gun" by Kiss
7. It's the Widow now that owns that angry plow, The spartan Mule and The Crippled Cow - "Winter Birds" by Ray LaMontagne
8. Treated me kind, sweet destiny -"Vision of Love" Mariah Carey via Carrie

9. So, so you think you can tell, Heaven from Hell, Blue skies from pain -"How I Wish You Were Here" Pink Floyd via Carrie
10. This is it, It's time for u to go to the wire, U will hit, Cuz u got the burnin' desire - "Cream" by Prince
11. In some respects, I suspect you've got a respectable side - "You Don't Know What Love Is" by The White Stripes
12. Is everybody happy? knock, knock, knock, knock You can't come in - "You're Wondering Now" by Amy Winehouse
13. Highway run, Into the midnight sun, Wheels go round and round, You're on my mind - "Faithfully" Journey via Carrie
14. I'm on strings, So move me, March, march, march, To the beat of no drums - "Pantomime" by Operator Please
15. Here I am, I'm in the wrong bed again, Its a game I just can't win - "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad" by Def Leppard
16. We got some thin we both know it, We don't talk too much about it - "Refugee" by Tom Pett!
17. I see the faces laughing-are they laughing at me? I know now where the traps lie-are they lying for me? - "Not Trying to Fail" by Gov't Mule
18. Live baby live, Now that the day is over - "New Sensation" INXS via Carrie
19. Simply knowing you exist ain't good enough for me, But asking for your telephone number seems highly inappropriate - "We Get On" by Kate Nash
20. I want a big red nose I want some floppy shoes, I want a squirty flower squirt it on you, Like all the bad clowns do - "Carney Man" by Cross Canadian Ragweed (Can I get a "THAT THERE, STATE FAIR?!"...nevermind, none of ya'll know what I'm talking about if you didn't know the first line!)
21. Ive spent my life waiting, For that famous final scene - "Lay Your Body Down" by Poison
22. Well, it's eight o'clock in Boise, Idaho. I'll find my limo driver, Mister, take us to the show. - "What's Your Name" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
23. Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray . South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio - "We Didn't Start the Fire" Billy Joel via Carrie
24. Come Here baby, You know you drive me up a wall the way you make good on all the nasty tricks you pull - "Crazy" by Aerosmith
25. I wanna say here's to me gonna change the world, Now I wanna play till they kicking down the door - "Ragoo" by Kings of Leon

Gov. Palin

2009-07-03T18:17:00.002-05:00

Just love to stay in the spot light don't ya? Were you jealous that MJ stole the headlines? Bless her poor little heart.

I have onions!

2009-06-22T10:35:00.003-05:00

I have a fabulous library patron, Patsy, who writes over at My Life and Times. She brought me onions this morning! Patsy is a fabulous lady and a good democrat...go visit her!

You know what I'll be doing tonight...planting onions!

Onions

2009-06-22T05:00:00.000-05:00

I planted close to 30 onions this year in various spots. This is all I have to show for it.
My dog Dixie felt the need to dig all of them up. These made it farther that the rest, which barely made it 2 weeks. Friday she decided to dig up the ones that were left.

Guess I won't be growing onions anymore unless I grow them in one of the front flower beds. Sigh, though not completely heartbroken.

Herb Gardens, Ugh

2009-06-21T12:19:00.005-05:00

Every year I buy tons of herb seeds. I don't know why. They don't give me the same satisfaction as vegetables do. I think I feel like I have to grow herbs because they are "so easy" and take very little space. Well, last year I grew 5-6 different herbs and most of it just went to waste. I did successfully dry rosemary and basil, made some herb vinegars, and enjoyed having fresh basil and cilantro.

Yea, those herb vinegars. I haven't touched them. Honestly, when I made them I just thought it was a neat idea and the only use I really knew for them was to put on meat. Well, come October of last year, I became a vegetarian. So what was I supposed to do with these stupid herb vinegars? Bingo, leave them sitting on my kitchen counter for a year! See, the purple basil one hasn't even been strained. Couldn't find a container I liked for it. The yellowish one is dill vinegar, and frankly I'm not sure what the other ones is...maybe rosemary? I'll have to smell it to see.

I think I'll see how good they are sprinkled over the cucumber "pasta" I've been eating lately. Or maybe salads. Surely they're still good since it's vinegar.

Back to my original thought...herb gardens, ugh. So this year I ordered my usual deluge of herb seeds, but decided a few weeks ago that I could not spare the space or waste space with something that gives me so little joy. So I've started cilantro in a pot....
...and basil in a pot.

They are both doing very well as you can see and I think I'll actually use them more since they are literally right outside my door. Writing about dill in this post has made me wonder if I should go plant some. Yea, I think I will.

Just a thought

2009-06-16T12:10:00.000-05:00

So now we all know about the tasteless joke that David Letterman told about Bristol Palin. I agree, kids shouldn't be brought into things like this no matter who you are. But, just a thought, wouldn't this have all gone away and we'd have all pretty much forgotten it if Governor Palin hadn't thrown a hissy fit and carried this on for days?

She's the one that has made this a big ordeal. If she would have said nothing it would have gone away pretty much immediately. But no, she chose to come out and talk about it, which forced Letterman to apologize for the bad joke. Yea, maybe the blame was on him in the beginning, but the blame should now be on Gov. Palin. She's the one that forced it out on the media by not shutting up. Instead she just keep talking about it making us remember the joke every time she mentioned it.

Sure, tasteless joke. He apologized for it. Leave it at that Gov. You are the one at fault here now because you made it a big freaking deal and in the end made me want to comment on my blog about it. I would have never mentioned it if you'd just kept your trap shut. Willow and Bristol, I'd be so pissed at your mother if I were you. She drug this story out way longer than it had to be and it probably embarrassed you more in the long run than the initial joke. I hope you two and your siblings can figure out a way to lead a normal life.

Veggie Update

2009-06-12T17:01:00.003-05:00

We've had several nights of good rain lately and that has helped everything I've sowed in the past 2 weeks germinate very well. I've got seedlings of soybeans, green beans, okra, squash, zucchini, pickling cucumbers, and lemon cucumbers all along this fence.
Green beans and soy beans are doing very well.
Beets seem to be getting bigger every day. I've thinned them out once, but probably need to do it again this weekend.
Good think I planted some tomatoes in the front flower garden because most of my ones in the back yard have been dug up by Dixie in search of the egg shells I plant the tomato plants with. She wants to eat them. Can't be that great, but whatever. 5 of the 12 planted in the backyard have not been dug up yet and I'm just hopping they'll jump up really fast. Once they get bigger I don't think she'll want to dig them up so bad. This one still looks really small, but remember, I was planting these out just seeing if they'd survive. And most of them have and some of them have grown a lot.
On another note, all of a sudden last night my uncle acted like he was actually changing his mind about me having a garden in the pasture he owns across from my house. I've at least got him thinking more positively about it.

School is out

2009-06-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

In case it's too small to read..
Patron: I don't have time to monitor my son every second!
Dewey: That's funny, neither do we.

http://www.unshelved.com

Tomato Seedling Sadness :(

2009-05-30T09:11:00.002-05:00

My tomato seedlings are making me sad. Most of them look like this.

The bottom leaves have all fallen off and the few that remain are brown on the ends. I'd say they need water, but I've been diligent about watering them...except for the 4 days I was gone last week. But I made sure they were well watered before I left and watered them well as soon as I got home.

But there are a few things that I have probably done that hasn't help the situation: 1) starting the seeds in egg carts and then moving them to cups. I'm afraid this disturbed them way too early in their life and I should have just started them off in the cups to begin with. I'll be doing that next year. 2) I didn't have grow lights when I started them, so they spent about a month just getting a little sun from a window and that's it. Delayed shock after I put them under the grow lights maybe? Obviously next year I'll be starting them under grow lights from the beginning.

Some of them are still really little and some have grown about an inch, stopped, and shed all but their top leaves. I've also got tomatillos under the grow lights and they seemed to be doing very well until a few days ago and now some of them are turning brown.

The plan for now is to put the biggest ones that have true leaves out in the garden and I'll see if they grow. It's worth a shot. I'm not just going to toss them all when I've worked this hard. I'm going to transplant them out later this afternoon and wait a couple of weeks. If I don't see some growth within that I'll buy some random tomato plants and plant them. They won't be anything like the heirlooms (Cherokee Purple, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Brandywine, and Black Krim) that would have come from these seedlings, but at least I'll have tomatoes and a lesson learned.

Sugar Snaps and Spinach

2009-05-28T12:23:00.002-05:00

Ding dong the spinach is dead...

But the sugar snap peas are delicious!

Asparagus and Beets!

2009-05-21T12:30:00.000-05:00

Yes, I need to weed. My mother said "if you post that picture they'll think you need to weed." Well, duh, we all need to weed and I don't really care that you see my weeds because I know you have weeds too. Here are my beets coming up among grass that needs to be weeded out of course.

My asparagus has started coming up! Planted them only a week ago. There are smaller ones....

...and bigger ones.

Could someone get Noah on the line?!

2009-05-19T05:00:00.000-05:00

It's been raining constantly for 2 weeks here in Northwest Arkansas. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. The minute we hit a hot and muggy summer the rain will stop and we'll all be complaining that we need rain, its too dry, and the hay isn't growing. All this rain has done wonders for my sugar snap peas. Some of them are just about to reach the top of the fence and all of them are now climbing it. Dixie felt the need to be in this picture.

The lettuce in the wheelbarrow shot up this week.
The loser of the week is my spinach. Last year the seeds rotted in the ground. This year they started off good, but have been the same for about 3 weeks. I'm thinking it might be a lost cause.
Finally rotated this pot of 2 different lettuces so the other side could jump up too.
And one of the pots of lettuces I have in the front of my house is just about ready to be harvested. It shot up over the past 2 weeks and the other pot just like this but smaller is right behind it.

What would be great right now would be a few days of heat to make everything really go great guns.

Chickens!

2009-05-16T05:00:00.000-05:00

If you're a gardener you surly get Gardener's Supply Catalog. Ever since they first appeared in the catalog I've wanted these chickens, but they aren't something that I would just go out and buy for myself. Instead I got them for my birthday, which was last October. I didn't put them out until now because I figured winter would only be harsh on them.

Tomato seedlings

2009-05-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

All of the tomato seedlings have now been potted up to their own cup. So yea, I still don't know where I'm going to put them all. Most of them I'll have to give away. I've thought about selling them at the library for our building fund, but I'm not sure.

Ugli?

2009-05-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

Lately our Walmart has been carrying Ugli Fruit. I'd heard of them before, but never tried one. I bought one last night just to try it and let me tell you, this is the hidden gem of the produce section.

Ugli fruit is a cross between a grapefruit and a tangelo. It tastes like a gigantic fabulous orange. Mine had no seeds and had very thick skin, which was very easy to peel. There was also very little pith, which is what I hate about oranges. And they happen to be eternally on sale for .50 each because no one knows what they are or think they are rotten.

Clematis

2009-05-14T11:31:00.001-05:00

The clematis I bought last year is doing very well. I read somewhere when I bought it not to expect much the first few years. Last year I only got a few blooms, but this year it's so beautiful. It's outgrowing this trellis so I'll have to get a bigger one for it to grow onto soon.

Oh no you didn't!

2009-05-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

Since last spring I've had an Obama bumper sticker on my car window. Well, I noticed this morning that it had been ripped off. I'm not sure by who or when, but there is this guy that's at the post office almost every time I am and he always yells something negative about the president at me while I'm driving away. Always makes me wonder what federal assistance he's currently receiving. He's already made himself a suspect.

I'd like to put my limited edition free Shepherd Fairey Obama sticker on there, but I'm afraid the same thing might happen and then I'd cry. So I think I'll just buy another plain Obama sticker. I hope it happens again and it's the guy at the post office and I catch him. I will press charges. That's vandalism and damage to private property.

McCain might have raised more money if he had as many jerks stealing his signs as most of us will just go buy another sign or bumper sticker.

New Dog New Dog New Dog!!!!!!

2009-05-09T09:24:00.002-05:00

The vet called my mother yesterday morning pleading for her take a dog that needed adopting on trial. A trial?! You really think we'd ever want to give him back?! So the paperwork hasn't be done yet, but something really really bad would have to happen for her to give him up. His name is Buddy. Here he is with my dog, Dixie.

Apparently an elderly couple who had owned cocker spaniels before picked this one up from the side of the road about a year ago. It had a skin condition, which is probably why it was dumped; medicine costs money. So they took care of him for almost a year, but decided they couldn't handle it anymore so they took him to our vet and asked for him to be put down.
The vet ran out to their car as they were leaving and pleaded with them to let her try and find a home for him because the skin condition was probably curable. So Buddy has been at the vet for several month being treated for what they think is a vitamin A deficiency. And the medicine that treats that makes his eyes red and irritated, so he has to have eye drops for that.

Dixie and Buddy seem to get along pretty well. Buddy is 5 years old and Dixie is 1 year old. Buddy likes to be the dominant dog, but he's also the newest one, so we'll just have to work past that. I just keep reminding Dixie that she was the new dog last year.

Whoever had Buddy to begin with sure did a good job training him. He comes when called and can go outside without a leash and comes right back to the door. He slept in my mom's bed right next to her and seems to not be in much of a shock...but who wouldn't be so much calmer and happier at a loving house after months at the vet. Although our vet is fabulous!

Up on my soap box...

2009-04-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

I am a single, heterosexual woman. But I also live in the state of Arkansas. This is bad because, while I love living here and have my entire life, it is illegal for me to adopt or be a foster parent. It's all due to Act 1 that passed last year. It infuriated me then and it still does now. The guts of this was really just to make it illegal for gay people to be foster parents and adopt. Every bit of Act 1 is complete baloney to me. I believe everyone should be allowed a chance in life to be happy and that a child in a loving household, gay or not, is far better than a kid in state custody.

I'm not going to go into a long statement on my beliefs because it would bring me nothing but grief in the end. I do, however, want to thank everyone who made it impossible for me to be a foster or adoptive parent in this state. Here is a link to the Fayetteville Flyer that has this interesting link to KnowThyNeighbor.org. Check it out for yourself. Gotta love public information!

Thought this would be the perfect time to post the picture I got yesterday of a rainbow. HAHA! And just as a reminder, I like debate as much as anyone, but I won't stand for mudslinging. I love comments, but they are monitored and I won't post them if you act ugly!

This is my opinion and my opinion only.

Sugar snaps, lettuce, worm babies, and grow lights!

2009-04-22T12:19:00.003-05:00

The sugar snap peas seem to be doing very well. About 3/4 of them can reach the fence so I thought I'd help them latch on my loosely tying them to the fence. Haven't done it yet in this pick. They are all pretty tangled together, but it should work out fine.

Every bit of lettuce is doing well, which makes me very happy since I had such a time last year with lettuce and spinach. This lettuce is in my broken down wheelbarrow and it's starting to take on a pretty shaped leaf.

And my worm are having babies! I check the worm bin every few days and about once a week have to add food. I gave this some kale on Sunday and last night it was half gone. The little thin worms are the babies

And I finally got grow lights! Don't ask about the crates under the grow light legs...you don't want to know! Safe to say, I had a brain fart!

I have a question for the seasoned grow light users. How many hours during the day do you have your lights on?

Durian!

2009-04-17T12:11:00.004-05:00

Some of you may know what durian is and will be surprised that I actually ate some last night. Yesterday my order from The Raw Food World came in. I had ordered some rawnola, some goji bars, freeze dried jackfruit, freeze dried mangosteen and freeze dried durian. I've always been one to try anything once.

You never know, some food could be the most delicious thing you've ever tasted, but you're scared to try it, so you never find out. Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel hates durian. I've heard him say it in disgust more than one time. But Matt Monarch of The Raw Food World says he loves it. There is a video of him eating it and he seems to be enjoying himself. I really wanted to try it so bad...why wouldn't you want to try the beautiful prickly specimen below?
I knew durian smelled really bad. Why else would they post a sign like this in Singapore?
They call it the king of fruit, surely it tastes like heaven. I'm here to tell you now, no it doesn't. Unless heaven tastes like what I can imagine a sweaty gym sock marinating in rotten eggs tastes like, then no, it tastes nothing like heaven.

It tasted so freaking bad I gagged. I immediately ate a plum to get the taste out of my mouth and so I would stop smelling my own breath. I then had to brush my teeth and chew some gum. Never again.

Tonight I'll try the magnosteen and jackfruit. I'm not scared to try them as much as I was durian because they don't have a reputation from be banned in public places. I'll let you know my opinion on those this weekend.

Seedlings!

2009-04-12T05:30:00.000-05:00

I swear, there are seedlings in those egg cartons! Last week I weeded out the really weak looking seedlings and separated out the good ones so they could each have their own pod to grow in. Since then the tomatoes are getting second sets of leaves and some true leaves should be showing soon. The leaks are just kind of sitting there. But I hear they are slow growers, so I'm not too worried. The Russian red kale continues to disappoint. Since so few of them germinated I ended up sowing a lot more seeds last week.

It's hard to see the seedlings in this picture. I'll try to get some up close pictures for the next blog.

Sugar Snap Peas!

2009-04-10T05:30:00.000-05:00

Dixie, my dog, kept digging up my sugar snap peas right after I planted them. So I wasn't sure if they'd make it, but they have! I had to cover them from a freeze on Monday and Tuesday nights, but they're still going strong.

They're at the stage where they are starting to grow the little strings that will wrap around my fence. And they're growing fast too so I have a feeling I'll be latching them to the fence any day now.

Spinach, Lettuce, and Master Gardener

2009-04-08T07:30:00.000-05:00

In 2008 my lettuces and spinach had a very hard time. Too much spring rain basically rotted all my seeds before they had a chance to germinate. The ones that did germinate just didn't grow too well. This year is a different story and a different approach. I decided to grow all of my spinach and lettuces in containers. My spinach is doing very well, at least compared to last year. Yes, that is a tomato cage in the pot. My dog is a pot sitter. The partner to this pot is her bed when it's warm enough and I guess it's a good vantage point for surveying the neighborhood because she sits in it just looking around a lot. This is the only way I can keep her from sitting in my pot of spinach. Hot pepper flakes pretty much cured her digging in my plants, but she'd probably still sit in it.
I also planted 2 lettuces mixes in my broken down wheelbarrow. They are finally starting to come up nicely and changing colors.
And these might look the same, but it's the SSE Lettuce Mixture. They are doing very well in a pot near the spinach. I also had to put a tomato cage in it and a lot of hot pepper flakes.

On another note, I called my extension office today and they are sending me a packet of information and an application to become a Master Gardener! I saw in the local paper where they'd be having the classes all day every Thursday in October. I might miss a class because I have 2 out of state conferences to go to that month, but I'll make the rest of it kills me. Of course I'll have to take off from work, but if there is one thing to take off work for it's gardening!

...and on the veggie front

2009-03-23T06:30:00.000-05:00

All my little seedlings are doing very well. Growing fast and will have to transplant some to bigger pots soon or to their own egg cart cup.
Group photo.
I think I've mentioned before that I'm trying spinach in a container this year. In 2007 my spinach did ok, but not great directly sowed into the ground. Last year we got a ton of rain in the spring and all of my spinach seeds and most of my lettuce seeds either washed away or rotted in the ground. These in the container are doing far better than any I've ever tried before.
Here's my lettuces in a pot. They are doing very well. The wheelbarrow looks just about the same as these only it's different lettuce.
I decided to put some pots in the front of my house to use this year and have planted romaine and red leaf lettuce that I bought at the hardware store next to my library. This will be very convenient for making salads without having to go to the back yard garden which always ends up being an hour trip whether I planned it that way or not! You know what I'm talking about...garden ocd...you go out for one thing and see a million things that should be done.
I thought both of my blueberry plants were dead for sure. Turns out that the Duke one is not dead, it's very much alive, yay! The Blue Crop, however, looks pretty brown. I'm going to keep watering it just in case it decides to wake up, but I think it's pretty doomed. If it is dead I'll be buying another of the same variety soon since you need that cross pollination for mother nature to do her magic.

Spring has sprung!

2009-03-22T13:58:00.002-05:00

Spring has sprung in zone 6b! It feels as if this spring is so welcomed right now because its kind of a moving on point from the terrible ice storms we had here in late January. We can now begin to move on; our plants and trees are starting to heal.

My clematis I planted last year is back. I think I'll have to get a taller trellis for it soon as it has outgrown this small one already. Now I'll have to find something to put on this trellis because I love it so much. Maybe I'll make some snow peas grow on it.
I have all of these random viola looking flowers almost covering my front flower beds. I've decided not to weed them since they are so pretty and cheery. I'm assuming the birds had something to do with this!
All my tulips are either blooming or about to bloom. My favorites are the big red ones and the ones that are light pink and green. The daffodils have been doing really well too this year, better than last year.
HAPPY SPRING!

Homemade strawberry shake!

2009-03-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

I have been majorly craving strawberry shakes the last new days. I got one at a fast food place (who shall remain nameless...hint: happy hour is from 2-4) a few nights ago and of course it was made with cow's milk, so I felt sick all night. That's when it dawned on me...I have a BlendTec, I can make my own!

So I did! Just two cups of frozen strawberries and 3 cups soy milk...hit the ice cream button and there ya go! No added sugar...no added crap you can't pronounce or understand what it is. Tastes out of this world and better than anything a fast food place could produce. This would be so great with cacao nibs too. Just think of all the possibilities!

Lettuce, spinach, and sugar snap peas!

2009-03-08T20:00:00.000-05:00

This morning I sowed my lettuces, spinach, and sugar snap peas. I ended up putting both of my lettuces mixes; the Ovation Greens Mix and Encore Lettuce Mix, in the broken down wheelbarrow in my back yard. I've planted several things in there before, but I think the mixes will work well in it with their shallow roots. So for this summer shall be known as the lettucebarrow!

I planted the Waldmann's Dark Green and Seeds Saver's Exchange basic lettuce mixture in a pot on the deck just to try something new. It was either in the newest edition of Horticulture Magazine or Organic Gardening Magazine, but I saw this great project I'd like to try sometime. They made hanging lettuce balls out of two peet moss planters. It was really beautiful.

I ended up planting my Spinach-America in a planter too hoping it will fare better this year in a different location.

This is the first year I've planted Sugar Snap Peas, but I'm hoping they do really well. I planted them close to the fence so they'll have something to grab onto.

I've caught Dixie digging in the lettucebarrow once already....any tips on how to get dogs to stop digging in a garden?

Seeding update and sundries!

2009-03-08T13:35:00.004-05:00

The seedlings are growing at the speed of light! They might not be as fast as those under grow lights, but they are defiantly faster than last year when they were in a different location in my house. Everything has at least 2 if not 3 seedlings per little pot except the Red Russian Kale. They were the first out of the gate and are the biggest so far, but there are only 3 up. Hopefully this changes soon or I'll be sowing more to make up for the crappy germination rate.

The leeks are coming up nicely too. Both egg cartons are full of little green spikes!

So far the germination superstar is the Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomato. Every single one germinated and are doing very well.

I got my worm bin in the mail in the middle of the week and put it together today. It doesn't have any worms in it yet, but will soon. I had the perfect spot for it in my kitchen, but it hung over the doorway a tad bit and I figured that if my mother trips over it and spills any muck out on herself or the kitchen she'd be royally pissed and be even more skeptical about me having it in the kitchen. It's still in the kitchen now, its just by the breakfast table.

When I bought my worm bin at Garden's Alive I also bought a sprouter! Sprouting in a jar is fine and all, but I'd really like to be able to have more sprouts at one time. I really like how this one has 2 trays so I could sprout 2 or more things at the same time. Here I'm starting some Mung Bean Sprouts.

I really love Garden's Alive, but I'm really frustrated that they still use packing peanuts. I hate Styrofoam, they're just messy, and its not environmentally friendly. So I'll be writing a letter about this to them sometime soon.

Yet another seedling update!

2009-03-03T12:08:00.000-06:00

I know the seedling updates are a little boring for some...but so exciting for me! Below are a bunch of Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomato seedlings coming up. They weren't there when I checked at 9:30 last night, but they were this morning.

And here's some Black Krim Tomatos that sprung up overnight. Some Brandywine Tomato seedlings came up overnight too, but they were so small in the picture you couldn't really see them.

More Seedlings!

2009-03-01T13:51:00.003-06:00

Not much action in the seedling world...but here's a Red Russian Kale update.

And the little white sprout at in the middle of the picture is a Cherokee Purple Tomato. No signs from any other tomatoes yet.

And a lot of leeks are starting to sprout....very slowly, but it's something.

First sign of a seedling!!!

2009-02-27T10:19:00.003-06:00

While misting my seeds this morning I spotted the first seedlings that are emerging. So freaking exciting! You can see one in focus and one that's blurry in the egg holder behind it. These are Russian Red Kale.

No signs from anything else yet, but I expect some more developments over the weekend. Happy seed sowing!

Better safe than sorry!

2009-02-25T15:00:00.003-06:00

If you've had a background check in Arkansas in the last 12 years, your personal information may be floating around...where? Who knows, but it's not where it's supposed to be!

The Arkansas Department of Information Systems has lost its backup files, which contain the personal information for people who requested background checks within the past 12 years. Even if you don't quite remember if you did a background check for a job, school, whatever, check anyway; its better to be safe than sorry. If you are affected you can have a free credit report done. I'm not affected, but at least 4 people I know are affected.

Here's the story via 40/29

And here's the site where you check to see if you're affected.

It's the most wonderful time of the year....

2009-02-22T10:57:00.003-06:00

...no, not Christmas...see starting time!!! YAY! This morning I started some seeds indoors. These will be all I start indoors this year; the rest will be directly sowed outside. My favorite way to start seeds indoors is to save up egg cartons (well, my grandma saves most of them since she buys more eggs that I or my mother do) poke holes in the bottom, cut the top off and make it kind of a coaster underneath and fill the egg part with seed starter.
When I use the kind made from paper I usually put them on old rusty cookie sheets that are used solely for this purpose....these pans have seen the last of their cookie days. I fill up the egg crates with seed starter and dampen the seed starter mix with water in a spray bottle so that I can better control the moisture level. The perfect tool for stirring around the seed starter mix is a chop stick or a pencil. You want the mix damp, but not drenched as you'll want to mist the top of the mix after you put the seeds in.

Now I also use the Styrofoam egg crates. I really hate Styrofoam, but at least I'm giving them a second life before they hit the landfill. The good thing about the Styrofoam crates is that you don't have to put a cookie tray under them. You just put the lid as the coaster and as long as you aren't flooding your seeds you should be fine.

After I sow the seeds in the egg crates I always write on the seed packet the date that I started them indoors. I am also careful to not use all of the seeds just in case the seedlings rot in the egg crates or they just fail completely. There is always the option of direct sowing, you just won't get your vegetable or fruit as early as you would have if you started them indoors.
I also label the egg crate lid/coaster with what is inside. When I sowed my leeks I did 2 whole egg crate of them, but when I did my tomatoes and kale I made them share. Here I have Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomatoes sharing a crate with Black Krim Tomatoes.
And her are all my babies. For a little while I think I'll try them by this window in my guest room. The light isn't too bright, which will be good at least for a week or so and there is a heating vent right beside the bed, so at night I'll probably move them closer to the vent for warming. I know, you aren't supposed to expect much from seedlings that are started just by sunlight through a window, but this method worked for me last year and I'm not really ready to commit the kind of money it takes to get the proper lighting system I need.
So today I started the following indoors:
Red Russian Kale
Green Tomatillos
Leeks
Black Krim Tomato
Hillbilly Potato Leaf Tomato
Cherokee Purple Tomato
Red Brandywine Tomato

Other than starting these indoors I haven't done anything else to prepare...ahh! I really hope it warms up a little in the next few weeks because I need to get out and do some cleanup and start my peas, beans, lettuce, and spinach.

Trapped Dolphins..oh no!

2009-02-19T12:58:00.004-06:00

This is so sad...almost as sad as that ASPCA commercial..I cry everything I see that.

And if you happen to never have seen the ASPCA commerical I'm talking about...brace yourself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_JqNdp2As

Another sign that spring is on it's way!

2009-02-07T09:23:00.002-06:00

My Johnny's seed order came in the day before yesterday...yay! Was strange to open the box and there not be that many envelopes since last year I ordered everything from Johnny's and this year I branched out and ordered from several. Hopefully all of the seeds will arrive by the end of next week. Then starts the fun (no, I'm not be sarcastic) of planning when exactly I'll be planting the seeds, which ones I need to start indoors, and which need to be started right now. Can hardly wait!

I bought a new tool for the garden and I can't wait to use it. It just looks ferocious! Surprisingly, it was only about $10-12. The handle looks like it will be comfy too.

Ice, Ice, and More Ice!

2009-01-31T18:04:00.002-06:00

I'm sure most of you saw it on the news if you aren't actually living it, but we had a huge ice storm blow through here Monday and Tuesday. It knocked out every one's power and my neighborhood was in the dark until about 5:45pm today. This is definitely something we'll all remember when we're 85 and telling kids about that wicked storm in 2009. We're talking massive distruction that won't be cleaned up all the way for months or longer. FEMA is here and we were President Obama's first emergency declaration.

The library has been closed since 3pm on Monday, though we did open for 3 hours today just for people to switch out books. The library still doesn't have power and I'm not going to expect it for Monday.

Tonight I'll be ordering seeds since I was going to earlier this week, but obviously a little thing called electricity got in my way...

and now for something completely different

2009-01-22T12:20:00.003-06:00

This blog will be a big departure from my usual chatter of gardening, green topics, reviews, recipes and occasional dips into politics. I'm going on a rant...

The media has been really getting on my nerves lately. It's not entirely their problem or fault. I believe it has something to do with our need to be constantly up to date with what's going on around us. I'm very guilty of this. I have a blackberry and have several applications that tell me up to the minute news. Why in the heck do I need 3 applications to tell me the same thing at the same time?! I'm also pretty active on twitter. You'd be surprised how many breaking news items I hear about through twitter. I also have a feed reader briming with breaking news. The problem with my need, and society's need for breaking news is that we get the incorrect news. There were two great examples of breaking the news so quick that the media doesn't even check with sources to verify, that happened this week.

The first was of Senator Ted Kennedy collapsing at the Congressional luncheon on inauguration day. It was first reported that he collapsed. Then Senator Kennedy and Senator Byrd collapsed. Then MSNBC apologized for saying Senator Byrd collapsed because he apparently had not. Then all the other news outlets started reporting that both of the senators had collapsed. Then finally, after several hours of everyone wondering who really collapsed the media was able to see through the inaugural fog and confirm that Senator Kennedy had indeed collapsed, but Senator Byrd had not.

The second happened late last night and into early this morning. Late last night it was reported that Caroline Kennedy (random that both of my examples are Kennedys) had told the governor of New York that she didn't want former Senator Clinton's seat. Then a little less than an hour ago, via an unnamed source "close to Caroline" (though apparently not THAT close) said that she'd never do that. Then this morning I wake up to find out that she did in fact take herself out of the running.

We all think that we can do a better job at someone elses job than they are doing. I'm not saying I'd be a better reporter than anyone who's a reporter now, but come on, I'd at least check some sources and get my story straight. In the end I'd be the one who broke the correct story 5 minutes after the person who broke the wrong story faster. It's not that hard! They are senators and well known people! They have mouthpieces! Call those who speak for them and ask for a confirmation!

Like I said before, this is a little bit my personal problem too. I'm addicted to breaking news and if I weren't this probably wouldn't bother me so much. I know I'm too connected, but I'm pretty sure that's not going to change anytime soon.

And that, my friends, is that...

Seed Order List!

2009-01-19T05:00:00.000-06:00

Here's the seeds I plan on ordering where I'm ordering them from. The ones with the * in front of them I will be ordering for sure. The ones without might be ordered, but they are wish seeds more or less.

Seed Savers Exchange
*Beets-organic, Early Blood Turnip, $2.75 for 100
*Carrot-organic, Danvers, $2.75 for 250
Cucumbers-organic, Parisian Pickling, $2.75 for 25
*Cucumbers-organic, True Lemon, $2.75 for 25
Garlic-organic, Pskem River, $6.50 for 2 bulbs
Garlic-organic, Tochliavri, $6.50 for 2 bulbs
*Kale-organic, Red Russian, $2.75 for 100
*Okra-Red Burgundy, $2.75 for 100
Swiss Chard-organic, Five Color Silverbeet, $2.75 for 100
*Soybeans-organic, Fiskeby, $2.75 for 50
*Zucchini-organic, Black Beauty, $2.75 for 25
Radish-organic, Plum Purple, $2.75 for 250
*Tomatillo-organic, Green, $2.75 for 25
*Spinach-organic, America, $2.75 for 250
Tomato-organic, Black Krim, $2.75 for 25
*Tomato-organic, Brandywine, $2.75 for 25
Tomato-organic, Black Sea Man, $2.75 for 25
Tomato-Hillbilly Potato Leaf, $2.75 for 50
Lettuce-Heirloom Lettuce Mix, $13.50 for 6 pks of 250
Includes: Amish Deer Tongue, Bronze Arrowhead, Crisp Mint, Forellenschuss,
Red Velvet, and Susan's Red Bibb

Johnny's
*Green Beans-organic, Provider, $3.95
Pole Beans-Red Noodle, $4.15
Radicchio-organic, Indigo, $4.80
*Cucumbers-organic, Northern Pickling, $3.50
Pac Choi-Mei Qing Choi, $3.15
*Lettuce Mix-organic, Ovation Greens Mix, $3.95
*Lettuce Mix-organic, Encore, $3.95
*Lettuce-organic, Waldmann's Dark Green, $2.95
*Leeks-organic, Pandora, $3.10
Scallions-organic, Deep Purple, $3.75
Snap Peas-organic, Sugar Snap, $3.25
*Yellow Summer Squash-organic, Yellow Crookneck, $3.95
Spaghetti Squash, $2.95
*Basil-organic, Genovese, $2.95
*Cilantro-organic, Santo, $3.35
*Dill-organic, Bouquet, $3.25
*Parsley-Forest Green, $2.95

I had my pick from Henry Fields, Harris Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Seed Saver's Exchange, Jung Seeds and Plants, Farmer Seed & Nursery, Gurney's Seed and Nursery Co., and R.H. Shumway's. I ordered pretty much everything from Johnny's last year, but I didn't get most of these catalogs last year either. Obviously this year I paid to belong to Seed Saver's Exchange, so that was the first place I looked for anything. I still really like Johnny's, so I'll be ordering quite a few things from them too.

I'm still hunting for purple sprouting broccoli. I've been wanting to try that for over a year and cannot find it anywhere, so if you know of a place where I can order it please let me know. Or if I passed it over in one of the catalogs I have please alert me!

I'm also looking to add asparagus this year. If you look back to my earlier blogs, I tried to start asparagus by seed, which is usually a failure for anyone. Well, it was for me too. So I'd like to grow some 2 or 3 year olds this year, but I'm having a hard time deciding. I have narrowed it down to J.W. Jung, but they only come in 1 or 2 years; and Henry Fields, which come in 1, 2, or 3 years old. I'm thinking I'd like to grow Jersey Supreme or Mary Washington. If you have any advice on the asparagus front please feel free to push me in the right direction!

I tried to limit myself to non-seed items, but I'll probably be ordering a couple of 18 foot garden tunnels from Harris Seeds. $18.95 seems like a deal to me!

I'll be ordering later this week after I let my list rest and see if I want to change anything. I'll post a final list of what I ordered asap.

It's Seed Ordering Time!!!

2009-01-18T10:23:00.002-06:00

Ah, I haven't posted since the 4th! I've just be way to busy living life...working, bowling league, Wii...yea, it's tough. But I promise to have a fabulous entry up soon as I am working on my seed order! I have a very long list of "wish I could grow," but I have to narrow that down to what will actually work here in the lovely zone 6B. I've been keeping a list in my BlackBerry for quite a while of things I want to grow that I haven't grown before. Hopefully I'll be able to actually grow some of my "wish I could grow" things this year. Quality space with enough sun, good soil, and reachable by water is in short supply in my backyard. I've begged my uncle to let me share crop in his pasture across the road from me. Told him I'd give him vegetable. Don't think he cared for that.

Pineapple Slicer!

2009-01-04T11:18:00.005-06:00

I love pineapple! I love to put it in smoothies, eat it plain, and grill it. But I really hate wrestling with a pineapple. Every once in a while I'll buy the carton of pineapple that the store has already sliced, but its around $5! A whole pineapple is usually around $3 depending on the season.

So my mother got me this pineapple slicer from QVC for Christmas. I used it for the first time this morning and let me tell you, it is fab-u-lous! You just cut the top and bottom off a pineapple, put the cutting end of the slicer into the pineapple and start turning. It takes really no effort. A person with bad arthritis could probably do it.

And there's the pineapple straight out of the skin. Then you just take the handle off and slide the pineapple spiral off the slicer.

My only complaint is that it's too short. It sliced all but 3 inches of pineapple and was full. So I took that pineapple spiral off, cut off the hollow pineapple skin and put the slicer through the remaining pineapple.

Borscht goodness!

2009-01-04T05:00:00.000-06:00

After my long quest for beets ended I finally made borscht last night. I followed the recipe over at Sarah's Homestead Blog. Now I've never had borscht before, but I love everything that's in it...so I figured I'd give it a try. I'm so glad I did! I've saved a big bowl in the fridge to eat from for the next few days and will freeze the rest. The only differences in what I did and what Sarah did are that I added more celery and I didn't add cream. I had half a bag that was going to go bad in a week so I just threw it all in.

Here are my lovely beets. I've never roasted them, but it worked great. I know, its odd looking that I have them in cake pans; but my roasting pan that my grandmother bought at a garage sale for me was used as a seedling holder last spring and its still in my shed!

And here's my shredded cabbage, potatoes, celery, and garlic.
And here's my finished product. It doesn't look chunky, but it is. I ended up blending about half of it in my BlendTech to make it extra creamy without having to add the cream.
And I'll get to make a smoothie from the beet greens tomorrow morning! Yay! I've just started reading "Green For Life" by Victoria Boutenko...what a fabulous book! She put some fabulous charts in the book comparing the nutrition in beets, turnips, and carrots to their greens. Their greens are overwhelmingly better for you than the actual vegetable root, but the taste is often bitter. So why not blend them up in a green smoothie?!

And yes, the greens are in Debbie Meyer Green Bags. I've used them for several years now and have bought about 4 sets. They really do work. My refrigerator is full of them!