House of Roses

Bento, House of Roses style

I’m Not Gregor Mendel

but I planted seeds on Sunday (March 22) and I’ve got seedlings popping their heads above the divets in the nursery. Mostly spinach, chives, tatsoi, and lettuce, ’tis true, but there’s a watermelon or two in there as well.

Here’s the scoop on this round of babies:

Pictures of actual green things coming this weekend!

March Meat Haul: This and That

March brings a little bit of everything

• 1 lb Ground Lamb
• 0.6 lb Lamb Rack Rib Chops
• 0.6 lb Lamb Rack Rib Chops
• 1.25 lb Greek Lamb Sausage

• 1 lb Maple Cured Ham Steak
• 1.5 lb Pork Loin Chops
• 1 lb Pork Breakfast Sausage

• 1 lb Ground Beef

• 2 lb Chicken Legs

Lentil Bean card

As a Valentine’s gift for marymary, I designed a fake “Lentil Bean” card for the game Bohnanza.

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Buying Seed

You’d think, after that nice long entry I wrote a while back, that copying and pasting stuff into the appropriate websites and paying for things would be easy.

Er.

The Seeds of Change website could be better set-up. For example, when I click on an item, you really should default the number to purchase to 1 rather than 0. That way, at least some percentage of the time, your user won’t have to change a damned thing. This way, everyone has to change it everytime which is pretty frustrating, given the number of things I want to buy.

Second, once I’ve clicked the button that says “add to cart” add the damn item to the cart. Don’t show me a table that indicates you have and then have the item disappear when I enter another value in the search box because I didn’t click “continue shopping”. That’s frustrating.

A different level of frustration is the number of seeds they appear to be out of, which is entirely my fault. I should have realized that everyone else starts sowing about a month before I can so they’ll also be ordering a month earlier. Aie.

So, stuff on the waiting list: tomatillos, orange chard, nira chives, leeks. Argh.

Shumway’s, by contrast, had a nifty little shopping cart sidebar so I could see exactly what was in my cart at all times. Hmm.

Park, also by contrast, required me to click “continue shopping” but did not include the search box on the cart page so I was not tempted to try something that would result in me losing items. Hmm.

I still need to get parsnips. Where-o-where?

Weekly Specials

We’ve really been enjoying the winter produce share from Enterprise Farm (November-ish to March-ish).

Each week we get an onion or two, a handful of potatoes (but not enough sweets), maybe a pepper or two, a head of lettuce, root veggies if we’re lucky, a handful of apples, carrots or parsnips, and a good green like chard or kale.

Each week there’s also something a little unexpected. (Not the lettuce, though, that’s come to be expected. It’s come to be a joke. Who eats lettuce in January in the nothern hemisphere? Especially when it’s bitter?)

Around Thanksgiving there were 4 cups of local cranberries and 4 cups of pecans.

There was a jar of local (well, Massachusetts) sour dill pickles a few weeks ago.

For a while, we got oranges and tangerines each week (although that’s petered out).

We’ve gotten both yellow crookneck and zucchini (but on different weeks). Could we have some winter squash please?

Twice we’ve gotten Florida avocados; the guacamole has been good enough to silence all my concerns about freakish warm vegetables in the winter. (But not my comments about the lettuce.)

Twice we’ve gotten kolhrabi, which we found out is entirely perfect shredded in the food processor, sauteed on the stove, and mixed with butter and parmesan. Perfect.

I wonder what will come today?

Out of Season

The Christmas cactus gets more joyful every year:

February Meat Haul: Whole Lotta Lamb

Mostly lamb this time.

• 1 lb Ground Lamb
• 1 lb Lamb for Stew
• 1 lb Greek Lamb Sausage
• 1 lb Lamb Shank
• 1 lb Lamb Shank
• 1 lb Lamb Shank
• 3/4 lb Lamb Loin Chops
• 1 lb Lamb Rib Chops

• 4 lb Whole Chicken

It will all go down to the basement freezer. See you in June, lambs!

Turning two 8×8 chessboards into a 10×10

I haven’t actually created a physical one yet but I figured out how to nicely cut two 8×8 chessboards into a 10×10 one, conserving the center fold and the borders.

Creating a 10×10 chessboard

Seeds (or, I Need Some Green)

The seed catalogs started coming in December. It’s been fun, though. I’ve spent the last few weeks going through the following, picking out seeds (and other toys) I know I want:

• Seeds of Change
• Seed Savers Exchange
• Park Seed
• R. H. Shumway’s (this is their 139th year)

I’d like to list the seeds I’m considering, though, even though I know I’m going to buy more than I can plant, because I’d like to make sure I don’t miss anything I do want.

Okay, starting with Seeds of Change:

1. S16652 Germination Station ($40.25)
2. S16820 Bag of 25 plugs ($10)
3. S17175 Nira Chives ($3.29)
4. S10973 Tatsoi Spoon ($3.29)
5. S21060 Orange Fantasia Chard ($3.29)
6. S14146 Rosa Bianca Eggplant ($3.29)
7. S10930 Sherwood Leek ($3.29)
8. S15084 Lisbon White Bunching Scallions ($3.29)
9. S17206 Row Cover ($15)
10. S22037 Row Cover Pins ($8.95)
11. S18256 Flower Vase ($20)
12. S11020 Tomatillos ($2.59)

Total: $116.83
Total (seeds + ground cover only): $46.28

Shumway’s:

1. 30146 Top Hat Blueberry Plant ($8.95)
2. 03295 (Pumpkin) Mini Mix ($2.35)
3. 03158 Sweet Pepper Gourmet Rainbow Mix ($2.75)
4. 08785 Garden Geranium ($2.95)
5. 07021 Nasturtium Jewel Mixed ($1.85)

Total: $18.85

Their catalog was hands-down the most interesting to read. Their website may not be much but they are really experienced at selling to the 1908 farmer.

(And I need to continue to remind myself that I don’t need to start marigolds from seed. All marigolds are beautiful; do I really need ones whose petals are tri-color?)

From Park’s catalog:

1. 1537 Black Velvet Scarlet Geranium ($3.95)
2. 3310 Mt. Fuji Morning Glory Mix ($3.25)
3. 5885 Provider Beans ($2.50)
4. 5239 Maestro Peas ($1.45)
5. 5630 Okra Lee ($2.45 - 2 packets)
6. 5194 Annie Oakley Okra ($2.95)
7. 5254 Sweet Banana Pepper ($3.95)
8. 5611 Cherry Pick Hybrid Pepper ($2.50)
9. 5295 Sunburst Pattypan Squash ($2.50)

Total: $25.50

From Seed Savers (in addition to the seeds I have left over from last year):

1. 1177 Tom Thumb Pea ($2.75)
2. 1396 Red Cap Mushroom Pepper ($2.75)

Total: $5.50

Things I’m still missing: the little round carrots, tomatillos, jalapenos… I need to fix that. Ah, Burpee’s has Thumbelina carrots, jalapenos, but not tomatillos. What about the others? Okay, Seeds of Change does. (Above amended.)

Okay, now to decide how much to spend…

(Note to self: plant multiples of the watermelon this year!)