Getting a Jump on Spring

So it's the middle of January ( nine weeks till spring!) and I'm nowhere near thinking about this year's garden- I don't even know where my seedling trays are and haven't ordered a single seed catalogue yet! But apparently the garden is impatient and started without me this year. I was watering the indoor plants and checking on my recent transplants and realized I now have a whole mess of things that, for the most part, weren't there last week. This is what happens when you reuse potting soil and add worm castings straight from the bin.

In the dumb cane pot-I think it a rapini seedling, or perhaps a mustard green of sorts. The one behind may be a cucumber. Or not.

These have actually been growing for a bit but I only just realized they are nicotiana- the plants were growing side by side on the deck this past summer and apparently somebody self seeded.

In the thumbergia pot - a couple sad looking morning glories and something I suspect is a hanging petunia- I did not plant this I assure you.

And in the recently potted lemon and walnut seedlings I have a whole mess of volunteers.

At least one is pepper seedling but the rest are still too small to identify. Since they are gifts from the worm bin they could be just about anything. Except clementines. Those peels are just there to prevent the cats from digging in there- they dislike the smell of citrus. Perhaps I should consider using citrus scent toilet paper. Oh and yarn- this is what I woke up to this morning!

It was stretched from one end of the apartment to the other and wrapped around a number of chair legs. Probably retaliation because I finally hid all the tp where they couldn't get to it. Who knew cats could get cabin fever?

Back to the indoor garden:

Sharing the pot with the pineapple mint who is looking a bit bedraggled I have yet another tomato seedling.

Speaking of tomatoes my previous volunteers are still hanging in although they are a tad thin and spindly. But look what appeared this morning! Yes those are actual tomato flowers. On January 15th.
These guys are serious optimists.

Wildlife Tree

Christmas came and went in a blur this year and we've both been working a lot ever since so I'm a bit behind on this. Traditionally in my family we leave the Christmas tree up until "Little Christmas" also known as Epiphany, Orthodox Christmas or Twelfth Night if you will. It's always a bit of sad task to put away all the glitz and tinsel for another year, and the discarded trees look so forlorn waiting on the street for garbage pick up. A few years ago I had the idea to recycle my tree for one last celebration of sorts; I turn it into a wildlife tree and decorate it with tasty treats for all the small creatures that appear outside my backdoor, looking hungry in the dead of winter. It looks so pretty out side in the snow!


I like to use a variety of nuts, fruit and seeds. Acorns and chestnuts I picked up in the fall, seeds I saved from sunflowers, squash and pumpkins, and bits of fruit I salvage from stuff I've dried. This year I also have apples from that last late harvest that didn't get preserved and are too far gone for us to use. I also had some dates that got lost in the fridge and were dried beyond edible at least for human teeth. And of course I use popcorn, and cranberries if I have them. I drill holes in the nuts and use bits of yarn and twine to tie them to the tree like ornaments, and string popcorn, berries and seeds on thread. The animals eat the food and take the bits of yarn and such back to their nests.

For the birds I also like to make suet balls. Suet balls are really simple to make and you'll find you have the necessary things on hand most of the time and can likely find a good substitute if you don't. Rather than buy suet, I keep the fat from cooking beef or pork in a jar in the fridge until I'm ready use it.

Suet Balls

1 cup beef or pork fat ( or a mix of both)- you can also use commercial lard.
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter ( natural preferably)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds-( I use some flax seed and sesame seeds as well)

Raisins, small pieces of dried fruit and/or nuts- optional

1 cup mixed wild bird seed- set aside half

In sauce pan over low heat, slowly melt fat and peanut butter.

Add all ingredients plus half of bird seed. Mix thoroughly. Add dried fruit and nuts if using. Allow to cool slightly but not completely solidify. Spread remaining bird seed on a plate. When it's cool enough to handle, take enough mixture in your hands to make a ball about the size of a golf ball, roll in bird seed and set aside to completely cool- you can put them in the fridge at this point. Or if you prefer, you can divide the mixture into muffin tins and make them into suet cakes

I save mesh bags from onion, garlic, etc to hold the balls. Place on tree branches where birds can access them. Squirrels around here will steal anything they can, so I sometimes use bits of wire to attach them.

I put my tree out on the deck yesterday, on a cold but sunny day, and almost immediately it was covered with squirrels and birds. By last night it had been stripped of almost everything so I will add more over the next few weeks. It's a great sight to watch all the creatures through the sunporch windows as I sit here warm and dry; the farm cats like to watch as well, although I swear they're licking their lips. Since there's snow now they rarely venture out and it's good to have something to amuse them , otherwise we end up with this!

That's the 3rd roll this week!

Looking Forward

Now that the holidays are past and we've had a chance to absorb the news that the Russian is here for good, things are starting to return to normal around here. We still have a few days off however so it's been a good time to talk of plans and dreams for the coming year. Some are still far off dreams, like where should we travel first, when he actually has documents in hand. Others are more day to day; like when will we finally finish some of the building projects that have been on hold forever, like the coldframes.

I have a few small projects of my own that I'm planning on doing this winter. Some are repeat projects such as sprouting and making yogurt. Others are new to me like making my own wine from various sources- I recently was given a book called Peggy Hutchinson's Homemade Wine Secrets, published sometime in the 1940's, that gives recipes for making wine with everything from clover to beets and I am excited to give it a try. I've also got plans for a wildlife tree which makes use of the christmas tree once it's taken down- a second chance to shine, similar to the pumpkins at Halloween.

Gardening of course is always at the top of the list and even when the weather isn't condusive to growing things outside, there's still things to be done. New Year's Day was unseasonalbly warm so I made use of the thaw to finish up a few things that hadn't been dealt with in the fall when my arm was in a cast- emptying pots of dirt and storing all the tools that hadn't made it away. Yesterday was right back to frigid temps so I took the time to change the worm bin and was ecstatic to discover another sprouted lemon pit ( they keep sneaking in somehow) and even more exciting, a walnut sprout! I had thrown one of the Pelham walnuts in the bin months ago to see if it would grow and had all but given up on it. I used the worm casting to augment some used potting soil and transplanted them both, along with the volunteer tomatoes which are still hanging in although one looks like it might not survive the transplant. There are also seeds still drying all over the place that need to packaged up and labeled for future plantings. And I'm already musing over seed catalogs and dreaming of what I'll grow in the gardens this summer.

Of course canning is still ongoing, although it's slowed to a trickle lately. We're still waiting to hear about this year's version of the Can Jam but you can be sure Colette and I will be signing up. I've also agreed to be part of a Spice Rack Challenge so there will be posts of those as well. There's a few other blogging projects that I'm intrigued by but haven't committed to yet- I'll be sure to post about them if I do!

So as the days get longer ( incrementally I know, but still!), one thing is for certain- this year is going to be a busy one- hope you're along for the ride!