Saturdays in the Garden - Gambling with Seeds and Books

OUTSIDE

Last weekend was super productive, garden-planning wise. First of all, I got most of the way done with cleaning my upstairs rooms and most importantly turning my guest room into seed starting central.

Before

After

I still have a bunch of paper to sort through and file etc... but the important stuff is done.

I also sketched out my planting plan and made a seed buying list.  The last couple of years I have been cutting back on the variety of things I plant trying to get bigger harvests out of my small space.  This year I say Screw it!  I like trying new things.  I may only end up harvesting 3 peas but I'm sure they'll be delicious and fun to grow.  They'll also be expensive and I'll be lucky to recoup the cost in veggies but that's what hobbies are for.  Eating cash.

John Scheeper's Kitchen Garden Seeds
This is a slightly more expensive seed company but it also has some unique and gourmet seeds in particular my favorite green (bunching) onion variety - Fukagawa.

Fukagawa Onions
Asian Mesclun Mix Collection
Blue Flax Linum
Hero French Crested Marigold Mix
Brown Mustard

Seed Savers
This is my absolute, no contest favorite place to buy seeds.  It's a non-profit that sells only heirloom varieties and is dedicated to preserving seed diversity.  And they are based in Iowa! I'm glad there is one bright spot in the otherwise Industrial Ag nightmare found in most of the state.

Dragon Carrots
Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale
Seed Saver's Lettuce mix
Healthy Peppers
Sheepnose Pimento Peppers
Early Scarlet Globe Radish
Five-color Silver Beet Chard
Beam's Pear Tomatoes
Empress Green Beans
Golden Zucchini
Butterfly Milkweed
Calendula Mixture
Sensitive Plant
Globe Basil
Hyssop
St. John's Wort

Johnny's Selected Seed
This is a catalog with a large selection as well as offering good gardening supplies.  It's the source of a particular variety of heavy producing plum tomato that worked great last year.

Juliet Tomatoes

Burpee Seed
One of the best known seed companies that has a number of hybrid varieties you can't get anywhere else.

Super Sugar Snap Peas
Easy Peasy (good for containers)
Bush Champion Cucumbers (good for containers)

LIFE

After an awesome 3 day weekend, the short work week was hectic, scatter shot and frustrating.   One of those weeks where you run around crazy busy all day but feel like you accomplished nothing.  I'm glad it's the weekend.  The End.

P.S. I did make up an interesting homemade pizza - roasted beets, goat cheese, spinach and onions.  I thought it was pretty tasty but then again I'm obssessed with beets- does it sound appealing to you?

BOOKS AND BLOGGING

First, I won a book! Bibliosanctum hosted the giveaway and I was super excited to win - I never win anything! I'm also excited because the book looks awesome - it's a new urban fantasy called Owl and the Japanese Circus by Kristi Charish and it features an adventuring archeologist protagonist and a vampire sniffing (and fighting) cat.  Thanks to Bibliosanctum and Simon and Schuster for the giveaway!

I finished reading a couple of short stories and a couple of full length books this week.  A Tithe of Blood and Ashes by Alyxandra Harvey is a short story in her Drake Chronicles series.  I never get tired of spending time with hippie, feisty vampire-slaying-and-loving Lucy so it made me happy.  I also finally finished the last installment in the second Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novel series called The Search.  I also never get tired of spending time with Aang, Zuko and the gang so it also made me happy.  I'm starting to wonder if I didn't pick them up to balance out the two books I was reading which were not making me quite as happy.  Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips was a contemporary romance I was reading for the Eclectic Reader Challenge and it was okay but contemporary romance isn't my thing.  I like my romance with a LARGE dose of ye olden times or fantasy. The Eterna Files by Leanna Renee Hieber is an ARC that just never got going  - a really interesting premise, lots of potential but I never got that interested.

I started reading three new books, Lirael by Garth Nix which started a little slow and I was worried but I'm now further in and LOVING it perhaps more than Sabriel.  I'm also listening to Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See and with every new page getting more and more horrified at women's lives in Imperial China.  It's a great book but holy cow, foot binding is not for the faint of heart.  I started another ARC as well - Seeker by Arwen Elys Dayton - a young adult fantasy that I'm on the fence about at 17%.

The PAST WEEK on the Blog:

SUNDAY: Review of The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham.  This is the first in a new mystery series inspired by the TV show Veronica Mars.  The second in the series was released on Tuesday...
MONDAY: Review of Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham.  The second book in the Veronica Mars mystery series.  This series is shaping up to be a really great continuation of the TV show - YAY!
TUESDAY:  Top Ten Tuesday was a freebie topic this week and I did books I wished I had read as a child. 
WEDNESDAY:  In honor of the release of Mr. Kiss and Tell I reflect on the curious phenomenon of books inspired by TV or movies. 
THURSDAY: Tough Traveling - Pets!  A meme hosted by Fantasy Review Barn that highlights various tropes in fantasy fiction.


The NEXT WEEK on the Blog:


SUNDAY:  Coffee Prince - A great introduction to K Dramas.
TUESDAY:  Top Ten Tuesday this week is the ten books you'd like to read if you had a book club.
WEDNESDAY:  Review of Legion and Legion: Skin Deep by Brandon Sanderson.
THURSDAY:  The Tough Traveling Topic for this week is Law Enforcement.  I had one book immediately come to mind, hopefully I can think of a few more.


I may sprinkle in a couple more reviews in the next week but that's the gist.  I hope you all had a great week  - Any great reads or watches?  Anybody else starting to plan their garden?