Town House Homestead Tuesday

Spring has been popping her pretty little head around here lately. Temperatures in the mid sixties for several days, then back to the mid twenties and snow overnight, only to melt the next day. The flower beds are starting to show off all the life we planted last year along with a few new surprises. Bulbs that were probably tilled to the surface and will now grow well again. We just can't wait to see how it blooms. Of course there's all the new work outside to be planned for this spring reaching the top of the agenda lately too. My daughter is recovering from a couple of herniated discs, but surgery is probably not necessary. Yay! So grateful. It's still been busy for me, and with the help of Emily we keep moving forward.

The germination shelf in the basement got it's first light attached this week. I could not believe the simplicity of this task. I'll be ready to attach a second in the near future if finances permit. This has been a life long dream for me to have a place to start my seeds and be able to garden.

This happened just yesterday. To my surprise. I had tossed this pot of flat leaf parsley in a pile of pots last fall. I harvested all that I could and didn't have time to dump it outside before cold and snow arrived. I headed out to find pots to clean for spring, and there was the pot of five parsley plants starting new growth. I re potted them and  hope they grow, so I'll be able to cross parsley off my list of seeds to start. Who knew?

Here's the parsley and a small pot of basil under the new lights. They stood up straight as if they were as excited as I was that spring is almost here. 

This is a pot of garlic started from some that had begun to grow in Emily's refrigerator. I tossed it into a pot to see what would happen, and they are starting to emerge. There are eight of the largest healthiest cloves in this pot.

Outside on the other hand, I have about 34 cloves of garlic doing their thing. I put these in the front flower beds late last fall, because the back yard garden is still in the dream state. For this year the only new garden will be the pollination garden for around the bees, and I'll put in a few small items like onions and herbs. Baby steps, but we've only been here for ten months and have accomplished so much. 

I canned clementines and oranges this month. Not without one disaster as you can see, but one pint out of twenty four isn't horrible. I've been quite fortunate not to have many jars break, and since I buy second hand it could have had a crack I didn't see. 

I'm fermenting more garlic in honey. this is a quart jar, one third full and it's bubbling away on the counter. I cook with it and just chew a sweet clove when I'm feeling a little under the weather. This has a ways to go before it's ready, but there's a few cloves left in the pantry.

This is the second bag of vegetable scraps that will be boiled into stock shortly and canned. Once it's canned I have ready made soup. Just open a quart, add a bag of mixed vegetables and some noodles and in less than twenty minutes dinner is on the table with a slice of home made bread. Yes, I manage to stay busy. That's what's been happening at the Town House Homestead. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week.