Winter Sprouts

I know it is winter, but I want to garden NOW.  There is a little bit of stuff out there including onions, garlic, cabbages and Brussels sprouts, but I want more.  My boss gave me a homemade seed sprouting set up for my birthday .  This includes a cool old Mason jar, the collar to the  Mason jar and a square of tulle.  She shared plain radish seeds and a salad mix of broccoli, radish and alfalfa seeds.  We have already started and finished on "crop" of radish sprouts and are now three days into another batch.  Since the middle Manimal (sorry they grew out of monkeyhood) will not stay out of them, I  started another jar this afternoon.     So now I have both plan radish sprouts and the salad mix growing in my cupboard.  Sweet right, gardening indoors and in the dark.

Here are the steps.  It is beyond easy.  Get a clean canning jar with a collar and a piece of tulle.  If you can't find a canning jar a regular glass jar will work just use a rubber band instead of the collar.  Find some seeds to sprout.  We bought ours at a local natural food market.  I also have seeds I've saved from the garden including broccoli, collards and Chinese greens that I will sprout soon.  Put about a tablespoon or so of seeds in the bottom of the jar and let them soak in a little water for about an hour.  Cover the top of the jar with the tulle and secure it with the canning collar a sturdy rubber band.  Drain off the water pretty well and put the jar in a cool dark place like a cupboard.  Wait.  In a day they will be germinating.  In about four days you can eat them, although they will be a little crunchy, which I like.  In five to six days they are ready to go.  Don't save them for special, you want to eat them young and fresh.  .

Changes

Today was the second to last day of my short career at a local garden center.  Ron's Organics is a great place to work and I will miss it, however, a full-time job at the library opened up for me and I can't let that opportunity slip by.  Plus, I got a little overexcited about the fall seed order and I'm a little afraid they may call the mental health authorities.

Because I was working two jobs and mostly seven days a week during the busy season, my spring/summer garden suffered.  It did okay, but nothing to brag about.  I was gardening vicariously through the garden center customers and my friend, Brenda Gardner-Newby.  More about her later.  No, I didn't make up that name.  

Today I left the garden center a little early.  This gave me plenty of daylight to get some of the fall garden put in.  I planted broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprout plants.  I started broccoli raab, an heirloom broccoli called Di Cicco, and collard green seeds.  These will be transplanted in about six weeks.

Over the weekend, I put in my garlic.  I also took another shot at artichokes and quinoa.  I had limited success with quinoa a few years ago.  I have managed to keep a relative of artichoke, cardoon, alive for many years.  I figure if I can't grow a thistle, I better get a new obsession hobby.

Tonight, I am going through my seed box and finding everything else I can grow in my garden this winter.  I intend to plant every inch of it.  I want to have enough to share with friends, family and maybe even a local food pantry.

Happy Fall Everyone.

Don't forget to grow your garlic.

Nasty Little @#$%^@#s

You may or may not know, North Texas is in the middle of a West Nile epidemic.  There have been 207 confirmed cases and ten deaths in Dallas County according to NBC Channel 5.  One of the fatalities was a gentleman who lived in my work-hometown.  The City of Dallas is planning an areal spray program.  I hate to think of all the poor innocent bugs that are going to get wiped out when that starts.  I am very concerned about honey bees.  We NEED our honey bees.

The way I handle the mosquito situation at Casa Debbi is mosquito dunks.  The dunks contain Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis.  Let's just call that BTi, mkay?  BTi is a bacteria that is toxic to mosquito and black fly larvae. You simply place a dunk in standing water, say your rain barrels, and the BTi takes care of the larvae.  So if you live in an area where West Nile virus is a problem or mosquitoes just make you mad, get some mosquito dunks and kill those wiggly little babies.

Read more on this at The Texas Triffid Ranch.

Gardening ADD

I'm pretty sure I have ADD. I've been wandering around outside in my garden and inside my home.  I started out trying to get a raised vegetable bed planted.  Then I needed compost.  In order to get compost, I had to hire help.  Help does not have ADD and the compost is coming along nicely.  Then I was going to make compost tea, but saw a caterpillar.  Of course I had to find my camera and post a picture of the caterpillar on Facebook.  Suddenly, I couldn't remember the task at hand.  Compost employee, a.k.a. Middle Monkey, gently reminds me I am supposed to be making compost tea.  He might have used the words scatter brains.  I make the compost tea and decide a friend really needs some rabbit poo.  Compost employee bags up the poo.  I take the poo inside, remember my glass of water and put the poo down.  Spend the next 10 minutes hunting for a bag of poo.  Decide that I need to spray some weeds (don't worry all I use is vinegar and orange oil) and make up spray.  Go spray 1/4 of the weeds, get bored and come back inside.  Waste 15 minutes on the Internet.  At that point, I actually weeded the raised bed.  It was a miracle. No, the raised bed is not planted yet.  I'm blaming the compost employee.

Happy Spring.

I'm out this morning doing a having a little pruning and planting therapy.  I am stunned at the things that didn't die last summer.  My viburnum, mock orange and Maggie rose have all returned from the dead.  The only thing I know for sure that didn't make it was a very large prostrate rosemary.  I will miss it so.

This year I'm going to try a small watermelon called Minnesota Midget.  Four seeds in containers and five in the ground.  I hope it works because we need short tomato vines for our small garden.  We don't want another repeat of "The Attack of the Giant Pumpkin Vine."

Hope all your gardens are growing well.


Happy Spring.

and here is a present for Our Friend Ben.  

Indoor Garlic

Last year, I did not grow enough garlic.  It is almost impossible to grow enough garlic.  This year I think I did better and will certainly let them stay in the ground longer to develop better cloves.  Anyhow, I did grow garlic indoors last year.  Very simple.  All you need is a nice, small container, three or so garlic cloves, good potting soil and a bright spot to put it, like the kitchen window.  Pot ups the garlic cloves pointy end up, water the potting soil and wait.  You will be amazed how fast this stuff grows.  To use it, just clip what you need off the green tops.  Don't forget to use it, it gets leggy fast.  The taste is actually a little more intense than garlic cloves.  Enjoy. 

BTW garlic from the grocery store is just fine.  That is what I used in the picture above.

Smaller Pants

I haven't lost any measurable weight in the last month.  The last date I measured weight loss was New Years Day.  I did, however, lose a pant size.  Back on April 1st 2010, I was a size sixteen.  Today, I am in a size ten.  My goal size is an eight.  Pretty happy about this. 

To jump start a little more weight loss, I made cabbage soup today. 

2 cups shredded cabbage
1 celery stalk
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1/2 teaspoon Better Than Bouillon Chicken
3 cups water
Olive oil
Cider vinegar
Hot sauce (think Tabasco) but mine is homemade
Sesame seed oil
Olive oil
Saute the vegetables in olive oil until soft.  Add the Better than Bouillon and water.  The other ingredients are to taste so have at it. 

Mine is so good it is making my nose run.