Planting Seeds

What a week!

We've been busy this week clearing away clutter and trying to find ways to simplify. Though I miss the holiday decorations, it's a good feeling to have everything put away, and have our living areas back in order. It frees up room to plant new seeds in different spaces. 

Single digit temperatures kept us indoors for the most part other then the several times on some days when we suited up to go outside to break ice up in water bowls, and check on the chickens and our other outdoor pets. After snipping a few boughs from our Christmas tree to make a batch of DIY Pine Cleaner, our tree found another purpose in the chicken run and was greeted by nearly two dozen curious birds.

Cold weather is what many of us refer to as soup weather. If you enjoy making soups, then check out my quick recipe for Easy Focaccia. It's the perfect accompaniment to hot soup on a chilly day.

With the holidays behind us and time spent indoors, we began thinking about warmer weather and our goals, wishes and hopes relating to our home, property and journey to living a more satisfying and self-sustainable life.

When it comes to lists, I tend to get carried away. So, here's a few items that we're thinking about:

• Growing mushrooms: We're looking for ways to create a space in our garage where we can begin cultivating mushrooms. 
• Continuing to cultivate the wildflower and medicinal garden that we started last spring
• Create a tea garden: we have only begun to skim the service of using many of the herbs that we grow for teas. Currently, we grow and dehydrate several mint varieties, lemon balm, lemon verbena, and lemon grass. Lemon grass, ginger and honey has become a favorite so far this winter and is especially comforting and  soul-soothing.
• Create an additional garden for pumpkins, squash and gourds.
• Learn about alternatives to preserving foods without an actual root cellar

We have many more goals, but at a quick glance, I guess one could say, we'll be gardening! With gardening in mind, we've begun to think about which seeds we will be planting for the upcoming season and the timeline for our specific zone. 

Thumbing through seed catalogs during winter provides promises of hope and warmth, and along with planning our garden are easily some of my favorite indoor winter activities. Just today, we received one of our orders. Exciting! We have done some  winter sowing the past two years with varying levels of success. This year, were going to do the same and try out our new cold frames. Lumber is still pretty expensive, so Jim and I are thinking about repurposing wooden pallets into additional cold frames. I think it turned out pretty well.

I don't know about you, but we rarely use all of the seeds that come in some of the envelopes. That said, we'd like to try something new, and it involves you! No worries, if you would rather not be involved. That's okay too!  For those of us who garden, we're proposing an online seed exchange. 

If you have seeds and are willing to share in exchange for ones that you want, then this could present an opportunity to get seeds for vegetables or flowers that you have been wanting to try.

We invite you to respond to the upcoming Seed Exchange post in our Facebook group.

Seed packets need to be labeled with:

• Common name and variety
• Latin Name (family, genus, species)
• The Year they were collected or purchased
• Extra information that you would like to share about the seeds, tips for growing, what makes the plant unique
• Feel free to post and trade within the group, messaging those individuals that invite you to do so.

When I first thought about this week's blog, I was thinking all about seeds and our upcoming gardens. As I moved though the week, moving between the warmth of our home and frigid outdoor temperatures, and creating lists for the months ahead, I realized that I was planting seeds or ideas of what would hopefully be nurtured and grow with time. After all, seeds are investments--albeit small ones that can really add up.