almost 100 bottles of...

So last night I got the bottling bug and bottled my Belgian Saison (52 bottles) and my concord grape wine (44 bottles). The wine was started in September with homegrown grapes from my inlaws. It is a bit rough going down right now but apparently after a few years it gets better. My goal is to enjoy it for Christmas 2010.

Hops

I pulled back the mulch on the hop mounds last night and it appears everything has survived with the Chinook hops surviving the best. Here is a picture of what I found.... Once the bines get going I'll keep the best 4 or so and the others will get cut back.

 

Spring has sprung....

....well in our basement anyway. Below are two pictures of my seed starting operation which is working so far. Now comes the tough part, not killing the little buggers.

Red Amposta Onions

A lone pepper plant

In other musings...

• We need to get the new U2 album. Everyone keeps talking about it being one of the best yet but as I type this listening to Achtung Baby from front to back that is a tall order.
• My mother in-law sent this link to us today and I have to say this is great news.

http://www.ediets.com/news/NewsArticle.jsp?id=400023

• I normally make fun of generally pathetic cheap american lagers but as I type this drinking a bud light I have to say they do have a soft spot in my heart.
• Last night the space shuttle discovery lifted off from cape canaveral. No matter how many times I watch such a thing I still think its cool. To watch yourself see below:

http://tinyurl.com/de2p2z

I once saw the space shuttle liftoff when I was in Daytona Beach. I dragged a bunch of people out there to watch it in the middle of the night even though most said I was nuts and wouldn't see anything. Oh how wrong they were. The above video is not mine but one I found on youtube.

Starting Seeds

I'm starting to wonder if the blog should be gerbick grown but ah well. So yesterday I started my first seeds for the 2009 garden....onions and peppers.

This is my grow setup version 1. I can't claim any of the ideas but it works so who cares. The base is 1/2" rigid foam insulation. The first layer is just strips to keep the base off the table. The second layer is just a flat base piece. The third layer is a coil of rope lights going back and forth with intermediate supports throughout. The top layer then has cutouts for the tupperware containers and the burpee grow system trays. The different container are sitting on plastic trays to trap water. The burpee system has the bottom watering fabric which is the black thing hanging into the orange water reservoir. The hanging light is a 48" (4) bulb flourescent light that I pulled out of the kitchen.

Each burpee container was for 72 cells so I had to sacrifice 12 cubes to fit on the trays leaving me with 60 each. That being said when the full system comes on line I'll have four tupperware containers (for onions at this point) pluss 120 cells for other plants.

Close-up of the cutouts for the trays and rope lights.

Onions.

Last night I planted:

Peppers: Napolean Sweet (seedsaver.org)

Bulgarian Carrot (seedsaver.org)

Garden Sunshine (seedsaver.org)

Santa Fe Grande (seedsaver.org)

Anaheim Chili (old seed packs)

Serrano Chili (old seed packs)

5 Hot Mix (old seed packs) Onions:

Red Onion (old seed packs)

Green Onion (old seed packs)

Ringmaster (botanical interests)

Yellow of Parma (seed saver)

Red Amposta (botanical interests)

New Hops

So a weekend or so ago when my brother was here we ordered our new hops for 2009. We ordered them from fresh hops which worked well last year so hopefully my luch will be the same (www.freshops.com). I ordered two for my backyard, two for Heidi's dad and my brother got four. Here they are in all there glory!

They are:
Zues, Northern Brewer, Tettanger, Newport, Ultra, Jumbo Mt Hood, Sunbeam, Mt Hood

While a bit excessive the hop twine does work very well.