Planning and thinking

I was just reading one of my garden books and realized as I put it down that I planted daffodils and tulips that should come up in the spring! Also, I have irises that should bloom again. I can't wait to see what all comes up this year. I spread lots of random flower seeds around the house and along the new fence. It will be fun to see how many hollyhocks and others come up around the fence posts. Also with some of my amazon.com gift certificate (Christmas present thanks to Ginna) I ordered some tomato seeds. Brandywine, Black Krim, and Cherokee Purple. I'll also end up getting some paste tomatoes for drying and making paste, but they can wait. I think that and some different kind of potatoes will be all the seed I have to get this year. I still have tons from last year. Although, now that I think about it I may not have zucchini seeds. Not sure what happened to them. Guess I'll add that to the list.

End of 2008

Well, I harvested the brussels sprouts a week or so ago. They were frozen right on the plant and I harvested in several inches of snow. I didn't even wash them. (Beauty of knowing exactly what wasn't put on them.) Just plopped 'em in a casserole dish laid the last 4 pieces of bacon in the package that needed used up over the top and tossed them in the oven. At somewhere around 300 degrees F. I baked them for awhile. I basically forgot about them until I got the rest of dinner going and realized I could smell the bacon. Opened up the oven and mmmm... Poor little brussels didn't even make it to dinner. I ate them all up. Just a handful is what I got but they sure were good. There were two more plants but they never could seem to muster sprouts. Don't know if they didn't get enough to eat or what. Oh well.

We've had our cold snap, snow, and now it is raining. While it snowed the other day I started planning next year's garden. I'll try to be a bit more disciplined this year. I'm going to try to not totally cover my shelves in seedlings. If nothing else because Bear will probably pull them up. I'll have to enlist his help this upcoming year outside. He loves to play outside and helping me in the garden will be the perfect excuse. Not yet two should still be plenty old enough to play in the dirt with Mom. Hopefully he'll still enjoy all the peas and tomatoes straight from the garden next summer. I never could get a basket of tomatoes in without Bear-bites out of at least one tomato, if not two or three tomatoes. I think he was what they call quality control.

Speaking of tomatoes, I want to try several different varieties. Brandywine, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, and a paste tomato are on my list. I wonder what a good paste variety would be... I haven't really heard anything one way or another. If only I can keep myself under control when obtaining seeds this year. I want to go more the heirloom route with most of my veggies. Mostly because of the history behind them. I like the idea that I can grow something my great-grandmother would recognize.

Off to build more wish-lists for spring...