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bluesgardenUgh, spring. I love that it's the start of the growing season but the weather plays merry hell with my head and brings plenty of aches and pains along for the ride. The headaches could be much worse (as I frequently remind myself) but they just don't go away and it gets really old, really fast. Sigh. Anyway.
Managed to order the floating insect protection row cover last night. I ended up getting it from Johnnys as that was the cheapest I could find. There were surprisingly few options around the internet considering how often it's spoke of. It will go over a variety of crops for insect protection, primarily from the flea beetle (which ate through my kohlrabi and radishes last year). Deciding that the variety of crops which could be affected dictated the larger roll of the two options, I ordered 250 feet. The smaller was just 50 feet, which might have been enough, but I'd rather have too much than not enough when I need it all at the same time. I ordered some more spinach seeds while I was at it ("Oh look! Space F1 is just $4.00 for 10,000 seeds!").
Some people have issues with shoe sales. I have issues with seed sales. For the record, the additional Asian greens I picked up (on sale! just a $1.00!) were only mini packets. Well, plus the 3 other spinach packets that weren't on sale, because Space is a fall spinach, but yes. Ahem. I need to update my planting list for this year.
Inside, under the lights, one of the pepper plants decided to surprise me by showing up above soil level today. It seems so quick! The tomatoes are just starting to work on their first true leaves. Speaking of tomatoes, there are several cells where there are 4 seedlings, which is odd considering I'm quite sure I only planted 3 seeds in each one. Tricksy little things, they are.
Outside, things continue to grow much too slowly to satisfy my impatience. The spinach are starting to produce actual spinach leaves, though; the kind you don't even need a magnifying glass to see! The Mei Qing Choi are the cheeriest of the bunch by far, while the Tat Soi are enduring the temperatures stoically but with considerably less enthusiasm. I thinned the most crowded of the beets and radishes, although I'm thinking I could have waited a while on that? I know you can harvest some for greens and then let the rest grow, which would indicate you can wait until they're considerably larger than they are now. Then there's the more advanced of the peas containers, wherein the Dwarf Gray Sugar are starting to develop tendrils! They're so cute. :P
Meanwhile, as things continue growing, tonight is cooking things night. I pulled the remaining leeks from last year out of the garden late last week and finally got around to cleaning and trimming them on Tuesday. Tonight I diced them up, cleaned them again, tossed them with olive oil, pepper, and coarse salt, then roasted them for about an hour at 3oo°F. Now I have a container of leek confit in the freezer for adding to a bowl of potato soup or to some scrambled eggs or what have you.
Next up is the bacon. We had about a 1/2 pound of thick-cut bacon left in the fridge and I bought another 3 pounds of it while I was at the store the other day. I divided the 3 pound package roughly in thirds, wrapped two of the thirds separately for the freezer, and diced everything else for rendering slowly on the stovetop. The bacon fat will go into a jar for when Jack is feeling particularly anti-food or as a treat (a bit of it's warmed and poured over kibble - Jack might even like it more than he likes bunnies) and the bacon bits will go into containers either for the freezer or fridge as an additive to human or canine food.
Later will be the 5 pounds of sweet potatoes, also for the pups as mashed sweet potato is part of the filler rotation with pumpkin puree and green beans (oh hey, that reminds me! I have some green beans to cook off, too). I may steal one to roast for myself, though.
Now I'm off to do... something. Maybe even something productive. Reading totally counts as productive, right?
Managed to order the floating insect protection row cover last night. I ended up getting it from Johnnys as that was the cheapest I could find. There were surprisingly few options around the internet considering how often it's spoke of. It will go over a variety of crops for insect protection, primarily from the flea beetle (which ate through my kohlrabi and radishes last year). Deciding that the variety of crops which could be affected dictated the larger roll of the two options, I ordered 250 feet. The smaller was just 50 feet, which might have been enough, but I'd rather have too much than not enough when I need it all at the same time. I ordered some more spinach seeds while I was at it ("Oh look! Space F1 is just $4.00 for 10,000 seeds!").
Some people have issues with shoe sales. I have issues with seed sales. For the record, the additional Asian greens I picked up (on sale! just a $1.00!) were only mini packets. Well, plus the 3 other spinach packets that weren't on sale, because Space is a fall spinach, but yes. Ahem. I need to update my planting list for this year.
Inside, under the lights, one of the pepper plants decided to surprise me by showing up above soil level today. It seems so quick! The tomatoes are just starting to work on their first true leaves. Speaking of tomatoes, there are several cells where there are 4 seedlings, which is odd considering I'm quite sure I only planted 3 seeds in each one. Tricksy little things, they are.
Outside, things continue to grow much too slowly to satisfy my impatience. The spinach are starting to produce actual spinach leaves, though; the kind you don't even need a magnifying glass to see! The Mei Qing Choi are the cheeriest of the bunch by far, while the Tat Soi are enduring the temperatures stoically but with considerably less enthusiasm. I thinned the most crowded of the beets and radishes, although I'm thinking I could have waited a while on that? I know you can harvest some for greens and then let the rest grow, which would indicate you can wait until they're considerably larger than they are now. Then there's the more advanced of the peas containers, wherein the Dwarf Gray Sugar are starting to develop tendrils! They're so cute. :P
Meanwhile, as things continue growing, tonight is cooking things night. I pulled the remaining leeks from last year out of the garden late last week and finally got around to cleaning and trimming them on Tuesday. Tonight I diced them up, cleaned them again, tossed them with olive oil, pepper, and coarse salt, then roasted them for about an hour at 3oo°F. Now I have a container of leek confit in the freezer for adding to a bowl of potato soup or to some scrambled eggs or what have you.
Next up is the bacon. We had about a 1/2 pound of thick-cut bacon left in the fridge and I bought another 3 pounds of it while I was at the store the other day. I divided the 3 pound package roughly in thirds, wrapped two of the thirds separately for the freezer, and diced everything else for rendering slowly on the stovetop. The bacon fat will go into a jar for when Jack is feeling particularly anti-food or as a treat (a bit of it's warmed and poured over kibble - Jack might even like it more than he likes bunnies) and the bacon bits will go into containers either for the freezer or fridge as an additive to human or canine food.
Later will be the 5 pounds of sweet potatoes, also for the pups as mashed sweet potato is part of the filler rotation with pumpkin puree and green beans (oh hey, that reminds me! I have some green beans to cook off, too). I may steal one to roast for myself, though.
Now I'm off to do... something. Maybe even something productive. Reading totally counts as productive, right?
