January 9, 2011

First off, Happy New Years all.  My resolution is to stop being so wrapped up in my bubble and share more here.  Of course, getting garden fever doesn't hurt either.  So, let's see how this goes.

What have I been up to over the last year? Well, I've been looking for work.  Anyone need a commercial real estate expert?  hehe.  Of course I haven't been just looking for work.  I've been enjoying my time with my family.  I will never have this kind of time with my boys again, and I'm taking advantage of it.  Essentialy I'm the most active dad on the planet, and enjoying every minute of it. 

I've also been taking care of nagging house projects.  Mostly it's been repairng patched holes in drywall and texturing walls to match.  Our paint all died, so I had to get new.  Thank goodness there is a place in nearby Everett that takes paint and other hazardous chemicals.  My brother and I are taking a trip there next week.  I found tons of old paint cans when we cleaned out the garage.  That project was way overdue. 

About the only thing I've been doing in the garden is harvesting candy carrots (post-freeze carrots that transform starch to sugar) and adding to the compost pile.  The last time I emptied my kitchen compost on the pile, my pitchfork bounced right off the pile.  Boy was it cold. 

Of course what made me finally decide to post here was the arrival of the Territorial Seed Company catalog (sure wish they'd just dump their dealings with Monsanto, who NEEDS Early Girl tomatoes anyway?)  I've been sitting here and flipping pages.  There aren't nearly as many dog ears this spring though.  Not only do I not have as big of need to replace my stores, but the economy is such that I'm not going to grow something that isn't a sure thing.  I need to feed my family.  Have you noticed prices have risen of late, espectially of produce?  Well, we haven't been purchasing as much produce of late, so this garden is our way of getting good nutrition into our kids. 

Some of the things I'm definitely buying from Territorial are some different tomato varities.  I'm afraid my experiement with heirlooms and out-of-state OPs is going away.  I really thing most of the problem was our crappy summers over the past two years, but I just can't invest more time in plants that don't necessarily do well here.  To that end, I'm purchasing Legend (OP-68 days), Stupice (OP-60-65 days), and Siletz (OP-70-75 days).  All of those varieties come highly recommended by Kitsap Freedom Gardener and all are well suited to our short, cool, wet summers.  This year is not expected to be any different. 

Lastly, the secondary reason for my completing so many house projects.  My wife's been kinda annoyed at me that I spend more time thinking/working on our outside than our inside, considering how much time we spend at both.  Well, after my brother told us at Christmas that he was getting chickens this spring, I begged again and my wife caved... sort of.  If I completed her list of projects, I could get chickens.  Well, after seeing her list, I have several issues with it.  For one, with everything on there, there is no way to complete it all before I'd need to make the decision to order chicks (my brother's getting day-olds via mail).  Second, I can't complete many of the tasks myself.  And lastly, once we do all those projects, we won't have enough money to build a coop and take care of the chickens.  She's softening, but defintely isn't sold yet.  I must say I too am having concerns about taking care of three or four new pets, especially when I'd have to get up at the crack of dawn every day to open the coop up to let them out, at least into their caged in area.

Well, that's about it in a nutshell.  Hope you too are getting the itch and scratching it with seed catalogs and web pages.  I really hope to get back into this to post almost daily like I did ages ago.  Let's see who comes back to read my drivel.

Enjoy your garden!