Monday, January 13, 2025 - Something New

We still had a large chunk of ham left in the fridge this morning. We’d had ham sandwiches, some delicious ham and beans, and ham salad, but there still was lots of boned ham left. So after looking it up online, I ground the ham, added some A.C. Legg Blend 10 Pork Sausage Seasoning, and a bit of lard. It made a tasty ham sausage, but I didn’t add enough lard to make the patties stick together well.

I cooked a ham sausage patty each for Anne and I. They came out pretty spicy, as the seasoning mix is made for seasoning lots of pork. An eight ounce package of the seasoning mix seasons twenty-five pounds of pork! The ingredients for the seasoning mix are listed as just "Salt, Red Pepper, Sage, Sugar and Black Pepper."

I now have two orders from Chewy hung up in the FedEx delivery system, one dating back to January 5. Although our roads have been cleared for days, they can't seem to make it to our house in the country. To be safe, I do use 4-wheel drive to get in and out of our driveway. But once on the road, I shut it off as unnecessary. For us, FedEx has become an unreliable shipper!

Saturday, January 11, 2025 - Throes of Winter

While the temperature today just sneaked above freezing, we're definitely into the throes of winter. We received another three or so inches of snow yesterday over the six plus inches we already had on the ground.

I'd been avoiding clearing our snowy and ice covered steps. But my lovely and much younger wife cleared them this afternoon.

Our last seed order, from Johnny's Selected Seeds, arrived in the mail yesterday. I need to make a trip out to our garage freezer to bring in seed for onions, petunias, vinca, geranium, and impatiens that I want to start this month.

Friday, January 10, 2025 - More Snow

It's snowing again today. The predicted new accumulation is between two and three inches. That's on top of the six plus inches already on the ground.

Everyone I talk to around here is sick of winter already. But I feel a little funny about complaining considering the horror folks around Los Angeles are going through with wildfires destroying their homes.

The only gardening related activity for me today was moving the Tradescantia Zebrina (Wandering Jew) cuttings I had rooting in water to a sixpack of potting soil. Even though each cutting had good water roots on it, I dipped each one in rooting jel before poking them into some sterilized potting mix.

Monday, January 6, 2025 - Snow

The predicted snow arrived last night. Although the Weather Underground had variously predicted eight to fourteen inches of snow accumulation, my old ruler showed just over six and a half inches. Other areas got hit a lot harder.

Our road has been plowed, although I doubt we'll be going anywhere today. Since this snowstorm had been predicted for days, we had laid in all the supplies we need.

The last heavy snowfall here was in 2014. That was the year both Annie and I switched to 4-wheel drive vehicles. Both vehicles are still in good shape, so we continue to drive them.

The Tradescantia Zebrina (Wandering Jew) cuttings I put in a jar of water a few days ago now have water roots sprouting from the joints along the stems. From the cuttings rooting in potting mix and these water rooted cuttings, I'll start two or three hanging baskets of the plants. One of them will replace the Wandering Jew hanging in our kitchen window with the others going outside..

Wednesday, January 1, 2025 - New Year's Day

We've had a series of Tradescantia Zebrina (Wandering Jew) plants hanging in our kitchen window for over a decade. We got our start of them from a daughter who now has some of the plant's offspring.

About every twelve months, I take and root cuttings from the most recent plant, as the variety only stays nice for about eighteen months. While I used some rooting jel for the cuttings that went into sterile potting mix, some backups just went into a jar of water on a kitchen windowsill. The variety roots pretty well either way.

Another small job for today was rinsing the plant tags I'd had soaking in bleach water. The bleach pretty well removes the "permanent" magic marker writing on them. While the tags aren't terribly expensive, bleaching them clean makes ordering tags every year or so unnecessary. Of course, the tags eventually become brittle and break from outdoor conditions and/or the bleach.

When to Start Seeds

When we start our herb, flower, and vegetable transplants from seed is based somewhat on past experience. I also rely on a very helpful interactive tool from Johnny's Selected Seeds, their Seed-Starting Date Calculator. Entering an average frost free date obtained from Dave's Garden, the seed-starting calculator yields a long list of vegetables and flowers with date ranges of when to start them. Do note that the calculator only lists seed types that Johnny's sells.

I went through our Johnny's print catalog last night, finding two items I'd like to order. Our stock of seed for the wonderful Sugar Cube mini-cantaloupe is getting a bit old. And I found an interesting, new, small seedless watermelon variety, Kalahari, that I'd like to try.

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Contact Steve Wood, the at Senior Gardening