A Little Change.

My Amaryllis and it's buddy, Paperwhite, as of today. I am still wondering if my Amaryllis will bloom early or not, only time will tell. It may need some support in the future, I should have put a bamboo stake in already. 

The Easiest Garden Task Ever.

Seed collecting time. Collecting all seeds is relatively easy, even tomatoes that need to ferment, however there is not much easier than saving seeds from melons and squashes. 

When harvesting your squashes and melons, look for the largest ones that ripen the earliest and are the most flavorful. Keep them marked in your mind. 

When either cooking or eating the specimen, grab a handful of seeds from the pulp. 

Clean them of the pulp that clings to them. Pictured here if pumpkin seeds. I find throwing them in a small dish of water and letting the seeds float away from their pulp and to the top an extremely easy way to clean them.  

Scoop them out, discarding any pulp that still clings to them, and spread them out in a single layer to dry. When dried, package and label.

 This is where gardening gets to be so cheap it's free. You can grow the majority of your vegetables from saved seed, potentially making your garden free. As far as my knowledge extends, you can not save seeds from the Broccoli family in our climate, as they need to overwinter to produce seeds. Almost anything else is possible. I save lettuce seeds, tomato and ground cherry seeds, pepper seeds, swiss chard seeds (hopefully, as they haven't fully formed yet), melon seeds, squash seeds, mache seeds, cilantro seeds, radish seeds, bok choy seeds and many more, including many flowers.  

Growing Up.

My baby hens are growing up. You could probably say they are teenagers now. The hens we have now started laying at 16 weeks, I'm hoping these guys will follow suit. Until then, they are loving life, having the 'big barn' all to themselves.  I often catch them all sleeping together  on their big pile of straw, growing up is hard work. 

Oh no, Amaryllis!

I don't know about this guy. I was reading a bulb book last night, that stated an amaryllis bulb can bloom in as little as 5 weeks. I know they can grow alarmingly fast, however this seems like a bit much. I may have been slightly ambitious getting the bulb started for the holidays, although, early or late, indoor blooms aren't exactly a disaster.  I had timed this planting for exactly 8 weeks before X-mas day and have a feeling it will be here for some early cheer. I started one paperwhite bulb early, in the mug, for succession paperwhite blooms. I had the paperwhite bulb timing down perfectly last year. I planted them at the very first of December and had them bloom from the 23rd on. 

This is last years paperwhites, about to bloom on December. 20, 2011. 

One stalk in bloom on the 24th, with the rest to follow quickly behind.

Garden Candy.

Three yellow carrots. We have already had a couple frosts here now, and the taste of the carrots reflect their occurrence. When the temperature drops and you have a frost the starches are converted to sugars in root vegetables, making them taste sweeter than they previously did.

I really like the colored carrots we grew this year. They did really well and are tasty! Nice for a change. Next year we'll grow them again and I'm really hoping to add purple to the mix.

Extra Credit.

My cold frame bed is actually doing much better than I initially gave it credit for.  We've had some really nice days that the seedlings seemed to have appreciated. The Bok Choy is coming along quite well, as you can see pictured here. 

Kale, those are some oats that snuck their way into the cold frame bed in the back. 

Radishes and arugula seedlings. 

Little baby Kale outside the cold frame. I'm going to put a row cover over these guys for the winter since kale is so cold hardy and one of the only vegetables I can grow year round. We eat a lot of kale in the winter months, good thing it's so tasty. 

Brussel sprouts after I removed all the leaves. You remove the leaves to encourage the sprouts to form. 

Again. 

Ruby red radishes. We also eat a lot of radishes into the fall and winter months. They certainly don't mind the cool weather, they enjoy it. 

I love growing celery.