I can tell you are getting really bored.

I hope the greenhouse helps you to take it easy, let your body heal and not overdo anything. You want to be back, physically well and better than ever, by the time the 2015 planting season rolls around.

I hope the dogs enjoyed their bath and that you enjoyed your planting.

I'm starting tomato seeds indoors on December 1st, so I can grow my own early plants instead of buying the few varieties that hit the stores here at the very end of January or in earliest February to plant in containers for early tomatoes. Believe me, I am counting the days until December 1st. I've always just purchased those few early plants in order to get the first harvest by the end of April because I've never wanted to be starting seeds in the middle of all the holiday season preparation and activities, but this year I am so ready to get started. I blame it on spending almost all of 2014 in drought, which made me plant less than usual so that we wouldn't have outrageous water bills. I am hoping for a wet 2015 and perhaps one that will be largely drought-free, but I'd start seeds anyway, even if I knew that we'd have drought every week in 2015. That kind of love for growing things (and I know you suffer from this peculiar illness as well) is an addiction. Our motto should be "I'll plant it anyway" because no matter what the weather or life throws at us, we'll be out there planting.....

Happy growing (and healing),

Dawn

I agree to the motto. Around here if I would have just listened to the locals and not planted anyway I never would have had a garden really. I have learned so much right and wrong just by planting anyway.
Dawn even tho I cant eat tomatoes anymore I still want to grow a few for my grandson so I too will be starting seeds indoors before Christmas. And I need to look at what else I need to start to plant out early.
kim

I guess time will tell if the seeds were viable.

We went and picked up pecans today. have a little over a bushel to take and get cracked. These were native pecans.

Not sure what to do now, can't really lift anything. All I see is things I can't do. This is going to be a really long winter.

guess i'll get caught up on reading all the different forums here.

Kim,

Did I miss something? Why can't you eat tomatoes any more?

I love them so much that I cannot imagine what I'd do if I couldn't eat them any more. I guess I'd keep growing them and canning them so the rest of my family would have them.

Robert, There's always all the seed company websites. I can spend a whole day just looking at all the tomatoes at mariseeds.com or tomatofest.com. I've already seen some new varieties of different veggies and flowers I want to grow in 2015, and I was only on a few seed company websites for a few minutes looking to see what was new. Burpee has a nasturtium that is new and different so I want to try it. I want to try the orange corn at Victory Seeds, and over at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, the Alabama Blue Collards and the Yellow Cabbage Collards are calling my name.

I've been stuck in a rut for a few drought-type years now growing the most tried-and-true varieties that always produce well, even in drought, and I am getting bored with them. I need to branch out and try a bunch of new stuff this year.

Roselle is one of the newest trial plantings that I have fallen in love with. I only grew small amounts the first 2 or 3 years, but this year we had about a dozen plants (most survived the drought, but a few did not) and I harvested a lot of roselles. I dehydrated six cookie sheets worth of the flower calyxes for tea, and then I made two dozen jars of rozelle jam and jelly with the rest. The jelly and jam have a fruity flavor----they are a most worthy substitute for blueberry, blackberry or bumbleberry jam. I love having an annual plant that produces a fruity jelly or jam. It works out really well that the hibiscus plants flower and produce from late summer through late autumn because most of my canning is finished by then. So, now I am looking for the next big thing for my garden that we'll like as much as we like the hibiscus sabdariffa plants that produce the roselles. Searching for fun things to add to the garden helps keep me occupied on rainy autumn and winter days like today.

Dawn

OT
Dawn I have not been on much because of being so sick. I discovered the hard way I have a lot of food intolerances. My new protocol is very strict and really difficult this time of the year. I had a quick ER trip to remind me to be more diligent, so no nightshades and a lot of other no no's for a while. When I am off all of the offending foods long enough to heal then I can reintroduce one at a time. Butter will be first lemme tell ya.
Anyway the hardest part is that I have to drive 100 miles one way to get good quality produce. I am seriously looking at a heated lit up kind of greenhouse. Been researching on and off all day. I eat a lot of leafy type veggies and they do not hold up well to my once a month grocery run.
It is an adjustment, and I am ready for spring planting.
kim

That is so unfortunate. I hope that your new protocol helps your body heal so you can add butter and some other favorite foods back to your diet. It would be hard for me to give up butter.

Lots of people grow winter produce indoors inside their home or their garages in a salad table, various indoor containers, etc. It is easy to set up a shelf or two with shop lights indoors so you can at least grow leafy greens in containers. Some places sell set-ups for raising a smallish amount of produce indoors. Have you looked at any of those? I will go to the websites that sell things like that and let the kinds of things they sell for growing indoors inspire me so I can build a DIY project that serves the same purpose.

Aren't we all just pitiful? Yes we are. (grin) It isn't even Thanksgiving yet and here we are pining away for the start of the planting season. I am so grateful that planting time comes pretty early here. I couldn't handle living someplace where you cannot put plants in the ground until April or May (or even June).

Dawn

I was studying that very thing and found some people even grow beets and carrots indoors. I am looking at several things and already have 6 light setups and I have plenty of soil and pots. It wont hurt to experiment while I wait patiently for spring.
kim

Kim,

I haven't grown beets indoors, but I've grown carrots indoors in a standard plastic windowbox. I grew short varieties like "Little Fingers" or round ones like "Parisian" or "Parmex".

Dawn