Welcome to Growbox Hill

Welcome to Growbox Hill
Welcome to Growbox HIll!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

And T minus.....

So, back home from my trip to WI...

My wedding dress is totally fabu, exactly what I wanted it to be. Still needs a bit of tinkering, but not much. Need to come up with some of the finishing details. It's hanging in on my dummy in my workshop right now :) Thank you Bad Bear!
I will be taking pics and probably getting taken pics of in this awesome creation. Be patient, I will post them when they turn up.

Picked up the brew.. And whew, what a lot of brew! 10 cases, all sorts of different yummy goodness. I think when I load up the tubs I will have to set aside a bottle of each so I can make sure I sample them all if I don't get to on the wedding day. I have never tasted anything he made that wasn't worth drinking many many times... Thank you Brewer Chuck!

Here's a pic of Brewer Chuck having a well deserved sit and sip among the yummy brewing all boxed up and ready to go. Yes, that whole heap is being served at the wedding :)


Of course now that we are T minus, I'm in total panicking bride mode. Meh, I think that's to be expected. But totally freaking none the less, heheehe.

Started working on my jewelry- and after half a days work, realized I was screwing it up. It's damn hard sometimes because I can't read Japanese. So I had to tear the whole thing apart, and start over. I figured out where I went wrong. Also realized I only had half of the 6mm that I needed for the project, so I picked up some more on sale. Also picked up some 6mm on clearance I think I will like even better for the project. All of the leftovers from the project will do nicely for the rest of my sparkley.

Got 6 more solar lights painted up. Just need to jar them. Picked up 4 more to start too. I won't have as many as I would have wished for, but plenty enough to set out how I want them. 

All of the tulips are popping up right fine- so I think I might actually get some blooms at the right time! Perhaps the grape hyacinths will be blown by then though. It turned chilly and rainy as hell, we might get snow Friday- so I'm kind of unwilling to put them outside to slow them down. But that's ok, I know where they are going in once they bloom :)
The irises aren't doing diddly, and I'm a tad concerned about that. Not for the wedding, but I want to plant them in the yard and would hate to lose them. 
The little daffs and big hyacinths on the south side of the solarium are already in full bloom, so were the little irises by the raspberry patch. I need to mark them off now so I know where to dig and re-distribute later in the season.

About half the seed I started before I left is popping. All the brassicas, some of the herbs, some of the marigolds... None of the carrots :( But some of the mixed radishes and golden beets.

MY TOMATO SEEDS CAME IN!!!!! Offer off the Gardenweb. Someone getting rid of older seeds- that means 3+ years on that site, but still in right fine range for tomatoes. I sent off a SASBE for a buck with three forever stamps inside for the return.. and a load of seeds back! It snipped a few off my wish list, and a lot of colors!!!

Black Prince
Purple Russian
Old Ivory Egg
Yellow Perfection
Nyagous
Sunsugar
Brad's Black Heart
Great White
Gold Medal
Black Plum
Purple Calabash
Speckled Roman
Yellow Pear
Black Russian
Sungold
Snow White
Jubilee
Kelloggs Breakfast
Orange Queen
Black from Tula
Mirabelle
Dr. Wyche
White Wonder
Black Krim

Of course I still have to ton of tomatoes on my wish list. Now I get to go through and strike some of those off because I got in a lot of seed that covers it. I have my reds, yellows, and oranges covered. With a couple exceptions on the red and yellow. My blacks/purples are mostly covered too. I still have greens and browns out there, but meh, those are far down my list. Got an excellent hop on my whites too.
Of course I didn't start any of my own toms from seed this year- got too much going on. But I think next year is going to be a seed growing year. As many different tomatoes as I can to build a fresh seed stock from. Then the year after start really doing the rainbow effect for canning.

Hehheeee, my seed wish list. It currently has 350 kinds of seeds on it. This winter when all of my favorite seed catalogs came in, I marked and drooled and noted just like I always do. This time I noted all those seeds into a list. Some are novelty, or interest, some are wow, I really want to grow that. But it's every seed I think is neat.
And heh, I have about 180 kinds of seeds already.. I'm such a greedy little thing.
Ultimately I want Growbox Hill to have a 700 variety seedbank, maxing out at 1000 if needed. With careful storage, rotation, and growing, that can happen. Like I can have 50 kinds of tomatoes on storage, rotating through colors. Or some flowers like nasturtiums I want to grow every year several kinds or other wild flowers that will just be what it is. Or herb seed like dill and catnip :)
Our first year here was learning the lay of the land. Last year was a good learning attempt, and good planning preparation. This year is just a coasting year and building up for next year.

Cept for the luffas for the hops experiment. By golly that will work this year.

The Green Gauge Plum came in. I picked it up today bareroot, need to get it into some dirt tomorrow. 14 bucks, and if we treat it right, it will grow fruit for years :) Our wonderful brewer is also able to do blessings, and he will be doing a special blessing on the tree for our wedding :) Perhaps in a few years of loving care, we will be rewarded with yummy fruits to remind us of the happy day. Every time I go to Watervliet, I'm happier with them.
I took Gene's advice and potted up horseradish root from Meijer just before I left. Now there is green popping up from all three crowns I planted.

Made my first donation to the local library today. I like food mysteries. I owned the first two books in one volume of the Hemlock Falls series.  My library had books after that, but not those. I figured why not, and called in about donation. I dropped it off today along with the others of the series I had checked out, and they were glad to have it :) I have a small pile of media for donating, think I might have to search their catalog and make a list of what I got that they might want. Otherwise, there is a media donation bin at the Meijer.

The Salvation Army picked up our donation while I was gone. I usually like to donate nicer stuff to Kirby's, our local thrift shop. But I had built up a pile of good and random I didn't feel like sorting out, and SA was willing to pick up all of it- one less fuss to town for me :) Used plastic garbage bags for it all. One big contractor bag of random house stuff, and four kitchen bags of clothes. Three bags that don't fit me or don't wear so much anymore, one bag of clothes the menfolk weeded out.

And ugh, trouble with the south neighbors.. again... Golly I can hardly wait till that fence is installed. Dave said it might go in by our wedding- and that would be the bestist kind of wedding present. But they got stuff going on too, so I understand that the fence is secondary concern.
Anywho, today.. My love pops up by me and says there is a white sedan in their drive.. I couldn't see it clearly at first, but then the headlights popped on, and they started backing away from the garage.. then grrr, proceeded to pull onto our easement, then looped back around the barn... by then I had tossed on my shoes and jacket and started out the door. By the time they crossed my path out the office, they were already past me and headed right on out. Turned on the blinker left, and drove off that way.. Few minutes later a very similar, perhaps the same car drove north on the road. It was a car full of older folks. Couldn't see the driver clear, but the front passenger was in an old man hat and colors, and the back seat had an older person too.

Made up a big pot of soup today.. the wet and rain just made me do so. Picked up potatoes on clearance, had pork stock in the freezer and dried corn on the shelf... The leeks weren't on sale, but made up a big ole kettle of potato chowder for dinner.. it's in it's final burblating now. 
And off again, more for another day...



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