New Year

Its been to cold to get much done in the garden right now, so begins the indoor activities. I worked on a pile of clothes to be mended, finished a dress for my daughter, and have been making clothes for my sons stuffed animals.

January is full of birthdays, I had no idea I knew so many capricorns. So homemade gifts have been in the works as well.

This sweet little embroidery was for my friend Courtneys' birthday.

I was reading a bunch of forums and blogs yesterday looking for a homemade shampoo recipe and ended up getting really excited about "no poo" shampooing. Wash with 1 cup water mixed with 1 tablespoon bakingsoda then rinse with 1/2 apple cider vinegar 1/2 water. Its great so far, my hair is clean and shiney. We will see how it goes. A lot of people who have tried this have been doing it for months and years and rave about the managability and health of their hair. The baking soda mixture was like a conditioner, it got the knots out easily.

Winter garden

Sweet little green house

protecting my mustard greens

Jerusalem Artichokes

winter harvest

I have been slowly creating a garden that produces year round. We have an exteremely small yard and I have expectations for a high yeild of food from it. This little green house structure is really doing the job. I have some mustard greens going strong and a few volunteer cilantro plants. There is one more green house row with a few more greens and some lettuce that probably won't make it through the low temperatures this week.

The jerusalem artichokes were plentiful! I planted a couple of rows against our back fence and plan on pickling the rest. Is nice to continue the garden work year round, it keeps you on your toes with excitement about the spring.

The cold weather gets to me pretty quick and I need a pick me up, so I have been looking at seed catalogs Burpee and Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds.

These are both great places to find good standards and unique plants, I always want to try new veggies but have a hard time giving up space to my tried and trusted stand-bys.