Planting Day

Its still technically winter, but I managed to get some seeds in the ground today. Ideally I'd wait another week or so, but I'll be gone then, so I planned to plant a some cold-hardy stuff today. Here is what my garden looked like this morning.

Pretty barren, but hopefully not for long. In fact, the garlic I planted last fall looks like its thinking about growing.

I laid out a few spare patio stones to act as markers and stepping stones. I tossed some semi-rotted leaves from a pseudo-compost pile onto the area that I was going to be planting and then turned over the dirt with a shovel, mixing the leaves in. I raked the loose dirt flat and then planted. I put in Scallion seeds, Kale seeds, Radish seeds, and Onion sets. I had also planned to plant snow peas, but I couldn't find the seeds. Somehow after all this planning I am missing seeds!? I did turn over the dirt there, so if I can stop by a store quickly and find some seeds I should have time to stick them in the ground before I leave. Here is what the area looked like after I was done.

Its entirely possible that some or all of these plants/seeds will not make it, but I'm prepared for that. If they aren't alive when I get home, I'll just plant some more.

Wine Update

Yes, this is a post about wine, but first a quick update on the watering system. The 2-liter bottle emptied surprisingly quickly. It was empty in about a week. During that time, the soil looked pretty saturated with water. I'm not sure how healthy that is for little seedlings, but the arugula I planted didn't seem to mind too much since the majority of them sprouted. On the other hand, only a couple of the onion seeds sprouted and only one is still alive. After the bottle was empty, the water in the very bottom of the flat dried out and the soil started to dry out slowly. Its been 14 days now since I filled the bottle and the soil hasn't quite fully dried out yet and the plants are still happy. We'll be gone for about 17 days, so I'm planning on putting a bit of extra water in the bottom of the flat and just hoping there are plants when we get back. I figure there should be enough water, but we'll see how happy the different plants are with being saturated for a couple weeks. If they don't live, no big deal. If they are alive when we get back, thats a 17 day head start!

On to the wine.....

That picture is taken a moments after taking the carboy out of the snow. Actually, ice would be a better description. I packed the snow down real good when I first put it outside and during the various freezes and thaws it turned into pretty much solid ice. I had to break out the garden shovel to chip away at it and get the carboy out. The good news is that the wine looks in good shape. The wine was almost totally clear and there was a bit of sediment and some crystals on the bottom. Thats all good news. After racking the wine off the sediment, it is time to bottle! Jaime was kind enough to take a picture as I was bottling.

We sampled a bit of it and the two of us had very different opinions. I liked it and Jaime did not. The wine isn't quite done as it needs to rest a bit in the bottles, so I won't do a full review yet, but that should come in a month or so. Of course the critics are already raving about the wine.

Random Muffin Picture