Planting for Spring

Last year I planted seeds indoors on April 20th in a collection of toilet paper tubes, egg cartons, with no grow lights and not a lot of planning. It was a very wet and dark spring into summer, so my plants didn't have much of a chance anyway. My results, well, were leggy seedlings that didn't have much of a shot and died quickly.

This year I'm starting quite a bit earlier. Now. I've been holding off getting supplies until now so I wouldn't plant too early, but I can't wait any longer! The new supplies I bought for seed planting are:

Jiffy-Strips 10 - 50 little peat pots Jiffy plastic planting tray and lid Hoffman Seed Starter Mix - 10 quarts Burpee Vegetable Starter Garden seed mix Burpee Viola Helen Mount flower seeds

How to Plant Seeds

1. Place peat pots in the plastic tray.

2. Spray down the peat pots a bit so they're damp.

3. Fill pots with seed starter mix

4. Water thoroughly - I sprayed the seed mix from the top and sprayed all the sides of the pots as well.

5. Make markers for the seeds and place them in pots to lay out where to put the seeds. When making tags for seed labeling, make sure the tags will fit into the peat pots and you can put the lid on! I read a tip a while ago about using plastic knives for markers. I collected a bunch from the junk drawer at work, and wrote on them with a Sharpie, and went about putting them in the pots, and then I realized there's a lid...

 

6. Sprinkle the seeds in each pot on the seed started mix, being sure to read the packets to find out if you need to presoak or nick any seeds.

7. Lightly cover the seeds with a layer of the starter mix and spray again. I also poured some water into the tray. There are ridges in the bottom that will keep the pots from sitting in the water, but hopefully they won't dry out during the day.

8. Put the cover on tray, put in a warm place, and wait. I turned the lights on my seeds now to give them a little more warmth.

Ravelympics Update, and a little cross stitch

On February 12th I cast on a project for the Ravelmpics - insane knitting olympics madness. The Olympics began, and I plowed through, changing from 1 color to 3, handing my knitting over to a master for a fix of a skipped stitch 13 rows below (thanks Cassandra!), and changing out a broken circular for a spare. I had houseguests for two full weekends, a medical crisis, and chose eyeglasses (believe me, it's stressful!) and I am just now picking up my knitting again. I'm not done. It was a difficult goal for me if I had had nothing to do for two weeks. If I was on vacation for the full two weeks and did nothing but knit, I'm not sure I would have finished. I do like the pattern, but I've never done stripes before and that a little confusion. I am making the 6 month old size, but I think it's more likely going to fit a 2 year old. Time will tell. Here is a photo how my progress so far.

Now, I'm also supposed to be working on my big cross stitch project, Soul of the Rose. I belong to this other site, 2010 Weekly Stitch A Long, where people keep track of their main project and post updates. I've made some progress, added that long dark blue stripe, and the sort of green to the right of it. Hopefully now I'll at least work on it every week a bit.

Fidgety people drive me nuts. It's bad enough that I'm on a train that is not moving, escaping the rain that has soaked through my pants and knee-high socks, but now I also cannot enjoy my wonderful book because I can see you fussing in my peripheral vision. With your bag. Your wallet. Your scarf and how it rings your neck. Yes, you are straddling two open seats and mange to KEEP bumping into me. I want my space. I position myself in every situation so that I will not have to put up with unnecessary touching. Yes, put your headphones in NOW, after we've been on the train for 15 minutes. Can you hear me screaming in my head? And now the woman on my left is poking me with her bony arm. How many times do you need to adjust your iPod?

--updated 2/28/2010--
Um, yes, I was ranting a bit, but really people. Be aware of your body. PLEASE!

and that photo above is from when my big sister and I stopped at the cafe at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum and had amazing coffee, divine mushroom soup, and some unspeakable dark chocolate bread pudding.

brunch

brunch
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin

knitting backwards

I'm participating in the Ravelympics again this go around (knitting olympics in time with the Olympics) and we're now past the halfway mark, and I'm knitting backwards. I'm far behind, but I should also say that I've had house guests for the past two weekends so when I thought I would be knitting I was out on the town instead. Really, a better outcome. But now, I'm sitting here looking at this little sister's dress I'm making and wondering how I'm ever going to finish by the crazy deadline of...you know, I don't even know what day the Olympics end? Okay I've just Googled it and the end is February 28th, so I have one weekend left. Phew!! Because as it is, I'm going to have to knit every night for hours in order to make it even close. And tonight? Tonight I'm knitting backwards. Last night I did the row where I join in the round, and switch colors, and somehow I knit the increase row, instead of just knitting. ARGH! So I'm unknitting the ONE row that I managed to knit this weekend while catching up on episodes of House when I should be going to bed. Oh well. I never go to bed on time anyway. And I need to have this sorted so that when I go to knitting tomorrow I can just fly.

If you're tuned in to Ravelry, here's my project.

Busy Sunday

Oops. I think I went a bit overboard. I meant to roast some chicken breasts and veggies, but I ended up with 2 roasting pans full of veggies. See what happens when you're busy watching Superbowl commercials?

Roasting Vegetables - 375 degrees, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweet tomatoes, red pepper, carrots, parsnips, onion, salt, black pepper, basil, rosemary, thyme, garlic powder (didn't have any real garlic). I had intended to roast chicken breasts, but I wasn't really sure how to cook them roasted since they're boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I think I'll end up subbing the parmesan salmon recipe I use a lot.

I've been knitting a lot lately - working on a lace scarf that's slowly growing, starting a new lace scarf, and finally, starting on my first sweater. It's the Top-Down Raglan Cardigan by Laura Chau. Two of my knitting group friends made this sweater last fall and I've been gathering my nerve to start. I only have 12 rows so far, but I'm still figuring out how the pattern is written. I am using Caron Simply Soft in Charcoal Gray Heather. I bought 7 skeins, and I know that's overkill but I don't want to run out, and you can always find a use for Simply Soft.

Speaking of Simply Soft, for the Ravelympics I'm going to use that yarn in Orchid to make the Little Sister's Dress for my friend's daughter. Her 1st birthday is in June and I want to make sure I have something ready. This dress has been on my list since I first learned to knit and I think it's something I can manage to knit during the Olympics. I know for most knitters this wouldn't be a challenge, but I am very slow!

I've been reading a lot too, the Uglies series. I'm on book #2 Pretties. It's a fast read.

I also post weekly updates on my big cross stitch project, Soul of the Rose, on the 2010 Weekly SAL blog. Go over and check it out!

So many projects it's hard to choose.

I know what I'm doing this weekend! The yarn for my very first sweater for me came today! And some yarn for who knows what. I also stopped at the library because two of my requests came in. Um, make that 4 requests. Now do I knit or read? I haven't learned to do them both at the same time yet. Funny, in the foyer getting my mail and packages, a girl said "so you're the Ingrid who gets all the mysterious packages! Now I know." Do I get lots of packages? Have I mentioned that I love packages? Oh, and why is it that every project I make needs size 10 needles?