Garden Clean Up & A Winter Experiment

Hello, friends.  Last week, J and I cleaned up the garden, pulling up all the cages and plants.  We then weeded our asparagus beds, and hope to get leaf mulch on them.  Another day, we pruned all our fruit trees and the wine grapes.  We've never gotten enough grapes to make wine, and really only had some for fresh eating one year, thanks to the critters. I'm happy these chores are done, and feel more ready for this growing season now.  A batch of suet was made for the birds.  Lettuce and arugula were replanted.  I've been meaning to mention my experiments to overwinter the rosella and dwarf pomegranate plants.  Though the rosella bloomed, after being moved into the house in the fall, it died over the winter.  I'm happy to have gotten to harvest some small calyces.  The pomegranate seems to be happy.  Whether it will have enough of a head start to actually grow fruit this year remains to be seen.

prototype SoulSeeds table

Last year, a custom table was requested, but the customer ended up going with our standard water filter stand.  At some point, I brought the prototype into the house, which has been handy next to my computer.  Our powder coat oven holds two of our stands at a time, and with the amount of energy it uses, I always try to paint two at a time for efficiency.  Recently, I had an odd number of stands to paint, so I added the prototype table to the batch, which has been on my to do list for some time.  We got the last of our estate planning errands finished, and can breathe a sigh of relief, now that it's done.  I've had several essential oils I no longer use, due to the price going up too high, making using it for soap not profitable, or poor sales of the soap they were used in.  I gathered them all up, and decided to make soap for our personal use, to use them up.  The batch I made last week used used fir needle, scotch pine, cypress, and a little geranium added for warmth.  It smells like a winter forest.  A future batch will likely use rose, jasmine and oakmoss.  

If you've followed here very long, you may have noticed I plan my schedule with an eye on the weather.  So, on our coldest day last week, with a high in the 40's, I canned up some more lentils.  I couldn't find notes I'd made during past sessions, and followed the official guidelines (soak 1c per quart) as to amounts, and only ended up with 5 quarts, instead of a full canner load.  Oh well, I'll have notes for next time.  Speaking of lentils, last week I noticed that Aldi had raised their price from .99 to $1.29/#.  I'll see if I can find anywhere cheaper.  Recently, I noticed Food Lion's organic potatoes went up .50 per 3# bag.  Blueberries for my smoothie were $1 off per bag, so I got three.  Gas came down locally to .20, to $3.09, which was welcomed when I filled up.  I redeemed a $5 off $15 coupon at Big Lots.  I hope you found some good deals, and ways to save money last week.  Be well, friends.