Don't Be Afraid of the Dork: Saturday in the Garden

Hello! It has been a seriously crapola week and I think I have been officially broken but I guess I shall see. My reading and watching is likely to skew towards the seriously light and childish from here on out...

OUTSIDE

Well, It was 60 degrees yesterday and it is 70 degrees fahrenheit today. This is Iowa. It's February. Armageddon is here.

I FINALLY got my garden plan together this morning and made my list for seed ordering. I am really behind, but I will put in my seed order this weekend and work this week to prepare my seed-starting room so I'm ready to roll next weekend. The warm weather is making me especially anxious about being behind!

Not very colorful I'm afraid but I'm excited about it. I've built in a couple of succession plantings which has worked well the last couple years (Beets followed by Lima Beans, Radishes followed by Green Beans). The top of the page is south. I still need to go through last year's seeds to see what I may still have but my plan is to buy from 4 different seed companies the following varieties:

John Scheeper's Kitchen Garden Seeds (This company is a little more expensive than others but it has some unique varieties that I really enjoy)

Green Onions: Fukagawa Bunching Onions
Bintje Dutch Potatoes
Jimmy Nardello Sweet Peppers
Pequillo Pimento
The Gourmet Rainbow Radish Mixture
Rhubarab Swiss Chard
Bonazza Genovese Basil

Seed Savers Exchange (right here in Iowa - my favorite seed company!)

Beam's Yellow Pear Tomatoes
Empress Green Beans
Henderson Lima Beans
Seed Savers Lettuce Mix
Marigolds
Lavender Hyssop
Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata - they call it Red Milkweed)
Purple Prairie Clover

Burpees (thankfully nothing like the Crossfit Exercise)

Patio Paste Tomatoes (for containers - this is not a variety I have tried before)

Johnny's (HUGE catalog)

Red Ace Beets (organic)

Most of these are heirloom varieties but a few are hybrids. My experience is that heirlooms can be a little more finicky if you don't find just the right variety and my space is so crappy that I've chosen are a few hybrids to try.

Update on the indoor bulb forcing for grape hyacinth? We have Flowers!! So I am fully convinced that the only thing needed to force bulbs inside is a container filled with rocks that are submerged in water. Just place the bulb on the top and keeping the water filled to the level of the rocks and presto-change-o - flowers! The traditional instructions for bulb forcing are usually WAY more complicated than this and in my experience don't work as well!

Last Week

This Week

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching

I continued watching The Flash for several more episodes and think...maybe...I finished season 1? I don't know - I kept drifting off and getting confused about what was going on so it may still be season 1. I don't know what my affliction with this show is. Everyone else loves it so much and it just inflicts me with narcolepsy.

So I switched over and picked up a Netflix Original Anime (seriously Netflix is producing SO MANY shows) called Kuromukuro. It's basically a science fiction version of Inuyasha and I'm enjoying it. Honestly, I may just watch cartoons from here on out - that's all my brain feels capable of handling.

Reading

Finished Since the Last Time I Posted

Mr Impossible (Carsington Brothers #2) by Loretta Chase: Regency romance set in Egypt. It was pretty good though I expected to like it so much more.
Lady Cop Makes Trouble (Kopp Sisters #2) by Amy Stewart: LOVED LOVED LOVED.

Currently Reading:

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch: A book about how to improve your relationship with food.

I haven't really picked my next reads - I'm feeling a little slumpy - but I got the following from the library:

The Dark Days Pact (Lady Helen #2) by Alison Goodman: I'm pretty excited about this sequel to The Dark Days Club that is sort of a supernatural Buffy in Regency England.
Angel's Blood (Guild Hunter #1) by Nalini Singh: The premise of this paranormal romance sounds intriguing and I've been wanting to read something by Nalini Singh.
The Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic #2) by V.E. Schwab: I got this in Audio despite the fact that I hated the audio of the first book (liked the book but not the reader) but they switched narrators so...
Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey: A retelling of Shaepeare's The Tempest. I am so here for this.

Added to the TBR:

This is a list of books that I have added to my Goodreads TBR list this week. It helps to burn the books I want to read a little more firmly into my mind, maybe get them on some other folks TBRs and gives me a chance to recognize a lot of the awesome bloggers that add stuff to my TBR!

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley: This is an author I have heard so many good things about and this books is compared to Dune and The Fall of Hyperion so Yeah, I'm gonna read the snot out of this. Recommended by Nathan @ Fantasy Review Barn.
In Calabria by Peter Beagle: This novella sounds like it has an interesting take on the Unicorn-Human relationship and who better to write that then Peter Beagle? Recommended by Mogsy @ The Bibliosanctum
The Valiant by Lesley Livingston: Also recommended by Mogsy @ The Bibliosanctum. Set in a Roman Empire inspired world, YA, great on Audio. There are female gladiators. The End.
Deadly Engagement by Lucinda Brant: I think Amazon may have recommended this to me? Hisorical mystery series which means I'm interested.
Fallen into the Pit by Ellis Peters: This is a mystery series by Ellis Peters that isn't Brother Cadfael. One of the books in this series was recommended by Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard.
Island of Exiles by Erica Cameron: Danya at Fine Print had lots of good things to say about this start of a YA series about a girl warrior who rebels against her society.

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

I had an internet outage for a couple of days this week. That plus the stress/depression that crashed down this week means I missed posting a review of Moon Called by Patricia Briggs. It will publish tomorrow.

SUNDAY: KDrama REVIEW | City Hunter (2011)
TUESDAY: TOP TEN TUESDAY | Romance Pet Peeves