It’s pepper plantin’ time!

Yesterday I went down to the basement to retrieve our pepper seeds from the big plastic tote that holds 1/3 of our seeds. (Do you see some obsessive behavior there?) We’ve got seeds in ice cream buckets, jars, and tins, too! But it’s sort of a security thing. As long as we have seeds, we’ll never go hungry.

When I came upstairs, I found Hondo sitting on Spencer. He’s the sittingest dog I’ve ever seen. He just plops his butt down on anything handy, especially if it’s Spencer. Nice and soft, I guess.

I dug through my peppers and, oh, how hard it is to decide on which ones we’ll grow this year. Each year we try a few different varieties to see if we can find some new “favorites” or ones that produce very well for us. And because the big hoop houses are all set to get their plastic cover, we’ll be able to get ’em growing faster this year. I think we’ll be taking our one small hoop house out to the new garden plot on the new forty and perhaps grow some different muskmelons. We’re planting Prescott Fond Blanc in the garden hoop house and I want to try a new pretty muskmelon in the little hoop house. We’ll see what spring brings.

One thing we’ve learned is to be flexible. That way if the weather doesn’t cooperate we don’t feel all depressed and “shot down.”

Today the sun is shining brightly and our new batteries are charging well. It’s 25 degrees and it feels SO good! Spring is coming. — Jackie