2nd Weekend in March: Mother’s Day was only 9 weeks away.

Mother’s Day is my starting date for planting the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant outdoors.  So I pulled out my seed tray starter kit and started planting them.  I have 6 trays sitting on my heating mat set for 75^oF.  I hope to see tomato seedling in the next 7 to 14 days.  The eggplant and pepper will sprout a little latter.

Here is my initial seed starter list for 2012.

Tomatoes
Brandywine: These heirloom pink tomatoes are large and taste great.
Black Krim: It is a little hard to tell when they are ripe.  The area around the stem may still be green and the lower section is a dark red (almost black).  This is my favorite for a bacon and lettuce sandwich.
Pink German: Pink Germans can weight up to 1 pound.  It does not take many of them to fill a quart canning jar.
Celebrity: A large perfect round red tomato.  This tomato is not an heirloom but it does produce well but not as flavor full as the three above. This tomato has been bred with resistance to many of the viruses that attack tomatoes.
Delicious: Another hybrid tomato which is a medium round size and colored red.
Green Zebra: When this tomato is ripe, its skin is yellow and green striped with green pulp inside.  I heard some say it taste like an apple but I do not think so.  To me still has the tomato taste but less acidic and not as rich as a red tomato.  It is nice to have different colored tomatoes to add visual appeal to a cold salad dish.
Gold Metal: A large yellow tomato with red streak in the pulp.  It is less acidic than the red and has good flavor.

Paste Tomatoes
Amish: After I told the guys at work that I started my tomatoes seed, one of them requested that I saved some Amish Paste for him.  He commented that they make a nice smooth thick tomato sauce.  All my paste tomatoes do not look like anything you can buy in the store.  Amish paste get about 4 inches long and about 2 inches wide.
Opalka: This is a new type for me and the description state 4-6 inch long with few seeds.
Federle: Another nice paste tomato about 4-6 inches long and 1-1½ inches wide

Cherry Tomatoes
Chocolate Cherry: This cherry tomato is large about ½ to ¾ in diameter.  The color when ripe is a dark reddish brown and has a nice mix of acidic and sweet flavoring.
Sungold: Pop this golden cherry tomato in your mouth and you will get a wonderful sweet rich flavor.  It is the taste of summer.

Tomatillo
Green Husk: Last year this plant grew to 7 feet high and it had the biggest tomatillo I ever seen.  The biggest were at least 2 inch across and produced tons of fruit.
Dr. Wyche's Yellow: When this tomatillo is ripe it is a little yellow color and tastes very sweet.  It only grows to about 5 feet in height.
Purple: Another 7 feet tall plant, the fruit has some purple coloring on the skin.  It grows to about an inch in size.

Sweet Bell Peppers: Orange Bell, Chocolate Bell, Purple Beauty, Early Sunsation Hybrid (Yellow), King Arthur (Fat’n Sassy, Red), King of the North (red).  All the peppers except Purple Beauty and Early Sunsation are green until they ripen into their color.  They can be eaten green or wait until they turn color.  The peppers are sweeter when fully mature.  The red is the sweetest with chocolate next.

Hot Peppers: Early Jalapeno and Ancho Girantea both are great.  I add roasted Ancho to green salsa made with tomatillo from my garden, and boy that was good!

Eggplants
Udumalapet: This egg shape fruit is a bright yellow and purple striped when ready for picking.  The fruit ranges from 2 to 4 inches in length.
Rosa Bianca: A nice round fruit and I picked it as big as 8 inches.  The prefer size for grilling is 4 inches.  I cut it into slices and brush on a little olive oil with some salt and pepper.  Melted provolone cheese on it and add fresh tomato, lettuce, onions and some vinaigrette on it and serve it on a toasted bun.  Mmm!


This coming weekend I will be sowing my cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

Still Working on the Basement

For the past 5 weeks I have been busy working in the basement.  I have been putting off writing about it because it is the same old story which involves removing loose cement, wash it, fill in cracks and holes with hydraulic cement and then paint it.  It took awhile for me to get started on this project again.  The thought of having to find a place to move all the “junk” was just enough to put me in a funk during January.  I finely started cleaning up the area by making a trip to the Restore in Baraboo, WI so I could drop off some donations.  Then I made a trip to take my Mom out to lunch for her birthday and drop off a blanket rocker at my sister’s place.  This trip eliminated another item out of the basement.  Next I broke down my worktable which is a plywood sheet and 2 workhorses.  After that I needed to find an area to move the stationary bike, router table, dehumidifier and varies other small items.  Once I finished that I could finely move on to the real work.

Last night I put the final coat on floor but there is still ¼ of the unfinished basement floor left and ¾ of the north wall to do before I can cross this project off my list.  The floor section I have been working on was divided into 3 sections.  I just could not figure out a way to paint the floor as one unit without painting me into a corner where I could not get to the basement sink to clean up or to the stairs without stepping into paint.  The first section I painted was in front of the staircase, next in the northeast corner and last along the north side of the staircase.

Last weekend I started to clear out the next section of floor to be worked on.  This involved defrosting the chest freezer (which badly needed to be done away) and moving it temporary to the newly painted area in front of the stairs.  Tonight I plan on buying shelving to setup in the painted northeast corner.  Once the shelving is up I will move all the paint cans and laundry supplies out of the unfinished basement’s northwest corner.  I plan finish cleaning that corner this weekend then I can start working on finishing the wall.  It is hard to believe that I might finely finish this project!

Living Room Curtains

Little over a year ago I found this wonderful fabric on sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  The color was perfect and the weight was just right to make tab curtains.  I was planning on working on this project at home in my sewing room last year but do to the never ending work down in the basement I just do not have the room to sew.  My sewing machines are buried since this room is being used for temporary storage.

I pinned in a 3-inch hem.

I finished working on the patio umbrella in my upholstery class just before Christmas and had no new furniture projects at the time.  So I decided the only way the curtains would get done was to do them in class.  One panel is done except for the hem and I should have the second panel ready this week.  I will hang both panels up and allow them to hang awhile before putting in the hem.



I brought the first panel home over the holidays, so I could hang it and determine where to hem it.  I machined stitched the edge hem on each side of the curtain and after allowing the curtain to hang for a week I could see the machine stitching gathered the fabric just enough that the edges were notably shorter than the center.  I spent the next two classes ripping out the machine stitching and hand blind stitching the edges.  I would like to have both panel hanging up for a week to determine if the hem needs to be adjusted to look even.  On the right is a picture of the first panel with the machine stitched edge and look can see shorter edges compared to the middle.



I stilled have the double-hung window on the south side of the living room left to do but once I finished this project I will start on my new chair.

Sauk-Columbia Area Restore

Sauk-Columbia Area Restore moved from Sauk Prairie last fall to Baraboo.  This January I finely found time to make a trip up to the new store located on 1212 8th Street in Baraboo, WI.  The store is on the east side of town and 8^th street also Hwy 33.  The store sells furniture, recycled building material and other items.  I have been looking for a 24” two-panel door to use for a linen closet for about 2 to 3 years.  I kept hoping I would not need to make a trip out of the state to find one.  I got lucky this January and found a door for $5.00 while checking out the new store.

I need to do a little work but I am very happy with it.  I have been planning to divide the front bedroom closet.  There is a dead space in the closet which you cannot easily reach things and this would be the prefer place to divide the closet.  I am going to put a door in the hallway to access the linen closet.  I will need to hire a carpenter because the opening will be put in a bearing wall.  Here is a picture of the door and where I want to open up the wall.

I not sure when I will get around to this project but I will slowly gather all supplies until that time

Another Upholstery Project

Early this month I acquired a new upholstery project from Craig’s list.  It is a 1930’s wingchair and will nicely compliment my other antique wingchair from the turn of the last century.  Here are pictures of it.  

I been looking at fabric swaps and I believe I will be buy this Barrow fabric from the collection “Catherine”, color “Bamboo”.  I will not start on this project until I finish working on the tab curtains for the living room.
 

I will write about that project soon.

Latest Activities

Yes, I have been remiss on keeping my blog up to date but I just needed a vacation from everything.  I did a slay-cation off over the holidays and did nothing on the house except housekeeping.  This is very unusual for me.  I did enjoy working on pictures to put on a digital frame for my Dad.  I only managed to review the 2004 Alaska pictures and still have many more pictures to sort through before sending Dad his frame.  I am trying to add a cation to each picture; where it was taken and who is in it.

Tuesday night I got all the outdoor Christmas lights down before the Thursday’s snowstorm.  I just did not want to pull the lights down with snow on the ground.  I need to untangle the lights from the garland and put them back into storage.  Right now they are heaped in two piles, one is lying in the 3-season porch and the larger heap is on the basement floor.  All interior decoration are back in their boxes but I still need to put year around knickknacks back in place.  Right now they just stack on shelves or the dining room table until I can organize them.  I also need the put the two 4 feet trees up in the attic.  I hope to finish cleaning up all the holiday decoration this weekend.  I will have a 3 day weekend because of Martin Luther King Day.

I been thinking about my 2012 To Do List and what I need and can accomplish this year.  Here is the list.

1.      Finish waterproofing and painting the unfinished section of the basement:  NUMBER ONE PRIORITY.  I am tired of the mess down there.

2.      Add an Asparagus patch to the garden

3.      Plant one or two more rhubarb plants.

4.      Put in supports for grape vines and raspberries.

5.      Finish the outside back bedroom wall.

a.       Finish scraping it,

b.      Prime it,

c.       Caulk it, and

d.      Finely paint it.

6.      Weather proof window on scraped wall.

a.       Reglaze window.

b.      Put new cording on weights.

c.       Add insulation to weight’s pockets.

d.      Caulk window.

This is more than enough for me to do this year.