Monday, February 20, 2012

Puttering

Yesterday was just the kind of day I like - a day for puttering.  A slow start to the morning. Coffee in the sun room.  S busy with a wood project (a gorgeous walnut table set he is making), the boys busy with their fun and time to plant more seeds for me.  I wanted to start a few tomato plants in the hopes of having some very early tomatoes to offer.  I planted some of my purchased seeds and then went through my box of saved seeds and had a moment of wonder when I couldn't find any of my saved tomato seeds.  A rummage through the garden "shed" and I discovered another box of saved seeds that was mostly all tomatoes.
I'm thrilled with the variety that we will have this year.  I have several planted as trial early birds but will wait to do the main tomato seeding in several more weeks.  Tomato seeds really are so very easy to save, if you've been wanting to start saving some of your own seeds but haven't tried it yet I highly recommend starting with beans and tomatoes.  If you're interested in keeping up with our market garden I've started a blog to share what's going on with our endeavour and you can see it here.
This is what our sun room is starting to look like - seedling trays all over.  Snow outside and tender green shoots inside! (J...see the little found greenhouse you gave me?  S just shook his head and muttered a bit when I dragged it inside). ;-)
There was time for a walk in the woods and time to catch up on things I won't have time for in a few weeks - like finally shelling my saved beans to use for planting this year.
Time for soap-making  and special drink making (made a batch of mead (or Sima) with E) and time to make some delicious caramelized onion soup with a few tomatoes from the freezer for extra flavour.
I don't normally freeze tomatoes this way anymore (although I know many people like to) but I found them so handy for this soup that I will do some again this year when I am in a rush and have too many tomatoes to deal with...and I'll be able to use this soup as justification for doing so. ;-)
My boys love this soup too and we've decided we should have it much more often.  This week I told them I would make it with bread and cheese on top and then broiled. I'm hoping that E will make one of his yummy loaves of bread. 
Just my kind of day.

3 comments:

daisy g said...

How blessed you are to have such a warm and cozy sunroom!
Love all the tomato seeds you discovered!
Looking forward to seeing your garden grow this season.

erin said...

no kidding! I love your sun room. I just tried saving tomato seeds last fall! I'm always amazed at how many seeds one fruit/Veg gives you.

What is this Green Zebra btw?

I see you are using those organic spinach/greens containers for growing! Great plan. I just think its so lame that they've become the norm for packaging greens.
They were handy last summer for my teeny tiny CSA box! I filled em up with greens and lettuce mixes

love yer felted hearts too!!

Heather said...

Daisy - we LOVE and I do mean LOVE that sunroom. We practically live in there!

Erin there is a photo of one of last year's Green Zebras in the market garden blog that I linked to. If you check out the From Our Garden page you'll see one on the top left corner. ;-)

The plastic boxes were given to me from a friend about 3 1/2 years ago. She knew I could find good uses for them. The boys store Lego in some, I freeze fruit in lots and the rest have been used for years for these mini greenhouses. They work like a charm. I put the lid on to keep the seed mix damp while they sprout and then once they're up I remove the lid but leave the seedling packs in the plastic trays so I don't have to worry about any drips or spills. Very handy.
Hoping to hear more about the CSA going on at your farm one of these days. Sounds so interesting. I guess you'll be heading to a Seedy Saturday in your area soon, they seem to happen earlier down your way.