#146:🌱 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌻

So here it is, February already. Some folks celebrate Groundhog day; apparently he didn't see his shadow so an early spring is on the way. If you believe that kind of thing, that is. Other names you may hear are Candlemas, or, if you happen to be of the pagan persuasion, Inbolg (or Imbolic). I tend to follow the latter, and spent Saturday evening with a lit candle in a sun shaped holder, baking bread, and eating cheese. Imbolic means "In the belly" and refers to the start of the lambing season, so fiery foods and decor (and dairy stuff, especially cheese!)  are good.  

And then, of course, there's planting the next generation of seeds.  

Sprout, my little sproutling army! 🌱

This time around, I have jalapeno and habanero peppers, and a new type I haven't tried: Thai. They're more ornamental, but you can apparently eat them, too. We'll see if I get any peppers, if not it may make a pretty houseplant. I also planted some basil, nasturtiums, and some kidney beans. I may also go back and plant some cayenne peppers and some more thyme. I planted a few thyme seeds, but there weren't many in the package so who knows how many plants I may get from that. 

It was a bit of a struggle finding the seeds I needed. I first tried the Ace hardware up the road; because there's nothing like shopping local. But they hadn't put theirs out yet. My next stop was the Family Dollar/Family tree in Deadwood. But they hadn't put theirs out, either. This puzzled me as the Dollar Tree in Spearfish had at least some of their stuff out. "Do I really need to go clear into Spearfish?" I grumbled. Of course I did. So I hit the place I knew for sure had the seeds: Yellow Star. 

Oddly, I had to look around for the habanero seeds. The main display didn't have them; they had the other ones, and something called "Hot pepper mix". While the idea of being surprised at what pepper you get sounds fun, that may be better for when we have an actual place to grow them, and not just in the buckets out front. After some searching, I found it on an endcap. 

Sort of an off-brand, but one that I used last year and it had done okay. So I snagged a packet and was good to go. 

I also found a few things that were cute, although I didn't buy them,

I may actually come back for this at some point. If not for the daisy plant, the cute VW bus planter. Peace and love man! 

We already have enough aloe plants around the house, if I want one all I have to do is pull one out of the roommate's pot; it's got plenty of babies. I may do that at some point. In the mean time, if you want your own, starting from scratch and a cute planter, here ya go. 

On the home front, I planted some old garlic cloves that were lying around the house. The roommate has been relying on big bags of the frozen peeled stuff a friend buys him at Sam's place; so we weren't using the fresh stuff. I read somewhere though you could actually eat the green leaves (it's called "Green garlic") so I thought I would try to grow some. 

🌱S P R O U T Y 🌱

As you can see, some of the cloves like where they're at and they're putting out leaves. We'll see how well they do in the pot. 

I'm also attempting to sprout some rose seeds. We had some vague idea of using the hips or petals to flavor mead or beer. We have scads of wild rose bushes up at the park, but I am not sure I trust them for human consumption; they're mostly by the road and where people are, and the pollution may not be all that great.  Not to mention people like to pick the flowers up there so there aren't too many left by the end of the season. 😠 So I'm attempting to grow my own. Will post photos of those if/when they sprout. 

As I type, the weather app on my phone says it is -3. It sure don't FEEL like spring does it? But, I know it's around the corner. All I have to do is wait. 

Stay tuned!

Aye,

Kraneia