Life in Tee Harbor, Alaska

Picture Tour of My Homestead

We have been getting out and working in the yard as much as we can this past week.  The yard needs lots of work yet - everything looks so wild and out of control.  I have these buttercups that take over EVERYWHERE - they are hard to keep up on.  I don't have a lawn at all, and we really don't want one.  Would rather have garden areas for flowers, shrubs, and edibles.  So, it is a work in process...any ideas are welcome!  We try to keep things looking natural - rock borders, etc. mostly because it is cheap  :o)

Our home is on five acres owned by my dad who runs a marine repair business and uses this property to store boats.  I have claimed more area as mine each year I've been here - now over 10.  Here is the house seen as you drive in the driveway.  We have been working in the side yard on the right to get things tidy - but it sure is hard when you lack storage space.

Here you can see the whole layout.  One of the big projects this summer will be to clean the log siding and get it sealed.  Sure looks bad when it is wet! 

On the left behind the trucks, is the future home of our chicken coop.  That big pile of dirt is getting moved and used around the property.  Then the coop will be on the left with a fenced area for them to run around when I'm not home.  I would like to be able to let them out and roam around when I am home.

Just beyond the dirt pile is my veggie garden.  I have peas, strawberries, potatoes, beets, red currents, raspberries planted and onions to go in (I got 1/4 planted tonight).  It is about 25' x 20'.

To the right of the garden we have our camper, which we could move to beyond the shed and open up this area - for more garden  :o)  Under the tarp is my chicken coop project.

To the right of the camper, I have four smaller raised beds.  They are about 2 1/2' by 4'.  I have zucchini, cabbage, carrots and radishes planted in them.  Then our little greenhouse is 8' x 8' which will hold our tomatoes and cucumbers.  The hill behind I tried to tame a bit - I've planted a rhodedendron and a cherry tree up there.  I get all my dirt from the hill for planting beds - talk about alot of work!  I have an area dug out that I think would be a great spot for a root cellar...one project at a time!

The rhubarb is doing well here.  The raspberries have moved themselves from the other side of the greenhouse - guess they wanted more sun. 

Tomatoes and cucumbers waiting to be planted:

To the right of the greenhouse, I have my compost piles - made out of pallets and I have one of the black plastic ones with a cover.  I put the kitchen scraps in the one with the cover so the dogs/bears don't get into it.  Leaves and other garden stuff go into the other 3 open bins.  The blue tarp is where our wood shed will be going - right now we are keeping our extra lumber there.

Okay, now we turn around and are looking at the side yard toward the front of the house and the driveway.  The road is on our left, parallel with the house.  Here is where we have been working on a new pathway, laying it out with the rock and filling it in with rock.  To try to keep the buttercups down, we layered sheets of newspaper under the rock.  We have the clothesline on pulleys from the back door to a tree - works well.  We have a bird feeder hooked up to a pulley so we can get it way up off the ground where the bears can't get to it, but it is easy to lower down to fill up.  The birds really love this area and it is so entertaining to watch them from the dining room window.

And now we are back to the front of the house and where we started!

On the other side of those trees, we have a little pond.  We get mallards, geese and eagles here.

Well, that's it for our place.  Thanks for looking  :o)

Beautiful Day for Gardening

The weather today was outstanding - sunny and WARM  :o)  And I feel like I got alot accomplished. 

I finished planting the beet seeds - about 1000 of those little suckers.  Hope they produce well for us.  Then I moved on to the 2 smaller raised beds (2.5' x 5') - added sandy soil and fertilizer and planted carrot seeds.  It is so hard to get those spaced right.  I know you can buy seeds strips, but that is more expensive.  So in a month or so I will be out there pulling hundreds of little guys so the rest will have room to grow big.  Carrot tops are really good in stir fry or fried rice.  Next, I had another small raised bed that I had planted rhubarb in a couple years ago.  Well, they needed to move somewhere else so I could use the box for other veggies.  I weeded out an area for them in the side yard - not a full sun area, but it does get some sun.  Added fertilizer and sandy soil to loosen things up a bit.  Dug up the rhubarb and divided the clumps.  Boy some of those roots were huge - like 14" long and 1 to 2" around!  I hope they like their new home.  I have some extra starts, so I need to decide where those should go.

Gardening Today

I was able to get some gardening done today - the weather was pleasant, and it was warm - almost 60 degrees.  I worked on one of the raised beds where I decided to plant beets.  I sifted some sandy soil and added it in to the dirt already in the box and mixed in some fertilizer too.  Got that all mixed in and evened out with the rake.  I used a stick with markings to get my spacing right - I planted 2" apart in all directions in the box which is 3 feet by 16 feet.  I got half the box done (2 seed packets).  Maybe I can get the rest done tomorrow. 

Out of this space, I should get about 100 pounds of beets.  That should come out to somewhere between 32 and 40 quarts when canned.  Will be interesting to compare to what I actually get.  We will use the thinnings for greens during the season too.

My onion plants haven't arrived yet...hope they aren't all rotten when they arrive!  Their raised bed is ready and waiting...  Actually, I have to add some wood ashes and ground egg shells I've been saving.  They are supposed to help with the root maggots - we will see!

Earlier this week, I planted another raised bed with Yukon Gold potatoes.  I used about 30 pounds of seed in that bed and have another 20 pounds to plant in my 5 potato bins. 

Still have lots to do in the garden - more seeds to plant, transplants to set in, new garden spots to prepare.  I hope to get it all done by the end of the month.  I'm trying to grow more of our food and get the most out of the space we have.

Paid Off Another Debt This Week

Yesterday I was able to pay off the woodstove we had installed a couple months ago!  So I'm down to my credit card which is quite high, but not as bad as a 1 1/2 yrs ago - I've been making steady progress to get everything paid off.  I am figuring that the credit card will be able to be paid in full by the end of September ($6700).  I can't wait until that burden is gone!!!

Truck is Paid Off!

Planted Some Seeds Tonight

Tonight the weather cleared a bit, stopped raining and the sun peaked out for a bit.  I siezed the chance to do some work in the garden.  More peas needed to be planted.  The sooner I get them in the ground, the sooner I will be tasting those fresh, sweet pods!

I try to get early varieties of everything here so they have enough time to mature before winter is here again.  The peas are Little Marvel and should be ready in 62 days according to the package, which means here it will take about 3 months.  I had already planted half of my raised bed a couple weeks ago.  No green sprouts peeking out yet, but I checked out a couple and it won't be long for that batch.  The new batch has the advantage of innoculant - the powdery stuff you put on peas and beans that gets them off to a better start than otherwise.  Will be interesting to see which ones fare better...  I had dumped two packages of seed in a jar, moistened with water, and sprinkled with innoculant.  Once this is done, the seed must be planted within 24 hours.  So I had plenty for the raised bed and found another spot near the greenhouse.  Still have some seed left, so I'll think about where to stick those and finish up tomorrow night.

My seed potatoes arrived today.  I ordered 50# of organic Yukon Gold.  They will live in the house for about a week - spread out in a light area so they will sprout.  Then in the ground they will go - try to do that this weekend.  Next week my onion plants will be arriving and they will need to get planted right away too.  Busy time of year in the garden!  I love it!

Nesting Box for Chicken Coop

Since I can't start on the coop itself yet, I decided to go ahead and build the nesting boxes.  They will be attached to the wall that joins the coop to the storage area.  The back of the nests is on hinges so I will be able to collect eggs from the storage area without going into the coop - at least that is the plan  :o)

Here are a couple pictures of the boxes before the back was put on.

Juneau's Energy Crisis Update

I shared in my previous entry about our town's main hydropower source going down due to an avalanche and the electric company having to switch us all to diesel generated power.  So we have power, it is just alot more expensive than normal - went from $.11/kwh to $.54/kwh.  Initially they were estimating it would take 100,000 gallons of diesel a day to run the generators.  I am so proud of everyone in town who is conserving their electricity and because of everyone's efforts we are only using about 56,000 gallons per day.  They are estimating it will take 3 months before we are hooked back up to our hydropower.  Fred Meyer was out of the compact flourscent bulbs - guess this has finally convinced everyone to switch over!

Here at home we are doing everything we can to keep our next bill down.  I have been monitoring our usage and we are keeping it at about 10 kwh per day on average.  There are still a couple things we could do to get it lower if we want.  Right now here are things we are doing:

1.  No electric lights - instead we are using the Aladdin lamp and 2 Coleman lanterns, headlamp and candles.  It stays light now later, until around 8 or so, so we don't need to have them on long.  Apparently alot of others are doing the same thing.  When I was in town today I tried to find a gallon of Coleman lantern fuel, two stores were out and I bought the last jug at the other store.  I'm sure they will get more in soon, I hope!

2.  Washing all clothes in cold water - hang on clothesline and pop in dryer for just a few minutes to help get the wrinkles out.  I snapped the clothesline this morning and had to buy a new one for Rod to put up.  I was quite lucky to find a clothesline, since everyone has had this idea so the stores are out of clotheslines, clothes pins and drying racks!

3.  Turned heat down to 60 to 65.  It comes on just a couple times a day.  The past week has been great weather, so we haven't used the wood stove, but if it gets cold we will have some fires.

4.  Turned off the extra heater in the camper (this one will save alot!).

5.  Turn off and unplug computer when not using, turn off internet equipment when not using and turning off our tv/vcr when not using - we were already doing this things mostly, now we are more vigilant about it.  I bought a timer for the tv/vcr because we watch a movie before bed and just fall asleep to it - so they are on until the morning when we turn them off.  So now it will turn off at the time we choose.  Cool!

6.  Turned off grow light for my cilantro - the plants are big enough to just use the light from the window.  So far, so good. 

7.  Using less hot water - just being more aware of what we are using.  I wash my hands with cold water.  Wash dishes once a day by hand (we don't have a dishwasher anyway).  Shorter showers and no baths. 

Rod and I had different opinions about the energy required for the hot water heater and whether it was better to turn it off when we weren't using it or just let it run.  So we did an experiment (very un-scientific) where one day we read the electric meter and turned the hot water heater off from 6:30am until 5:00am the next day - turned it on and took our showers, then read the meter at 6:30am.  That day we used 10.5 kwh.  Then we left the hot water heater on, took our showers in the morning as usual and read the meter again at 6:30am.  That day we only used 8 kwh.  The only hot water we used both days was for the showers.  So from our experiment we decided it was best to leave the hot water heater on and just use less hot water so it doesn't have to work as hard.  Oh yeah, I lost that one, Rod was right  :o) 

Luckily we have a gas stove, so I don't have to worry as much about using it - although the oven does use some electricity, so I will just be careful and maybe make sure I have more than one thing to bake at a time.

So, our next experiment will be to turn off our refrigerator.  The frozen stuff we will move to the big chest freezer.  Then we will use the refrigerator portion like an old fashioned ice box.  We will make ice in the chest freezer and put it in the crisper drawers in the refrigerator to keep things cool.  We will need to keep the fridge full of stuff so the temperature doesn't fluctuate too much.  I can put jugs of water in there to help stabilize the temp.  We will need it to stay around 40 degrees - do you think it will work? 

I am making a roast for dinner - in the dutch oven on top of the stove.  Rod is working night shift and his days off are Tuesday and Wednesday, so we have some adjusting to do.  I will be working Monday through Friday, but getting off work by 3:00 or 3:30 - he leaves for work at 5:30, so we will at least get to see each other.  It should work out okay.  Hope everyone has a good week!

Our Electric Rates Increasing 400% - Ouch!

Our town's main source of electricity was damaged on Wednesday.  Our power comes from a hydroelectric plant way south of town and the lines go through some steep, rough terrain.  Anyway, there was a major avalanche that took out about  1 1/2 miles of the transmission line and damaged the towers.  The power company has us on their backup generators right now until they can repair the lines, but this won't be for another 2 to 3 months.  They have to wait until the avalanche danger has passed and until all the snow has melted before they can make repairs.  So, until that happens, the rate for our power is estimated to increase from $0.11 per kilowatt hour to $0.50 or more...  ouch!!  For our house that means our bill which was $127 last month would be about $520 next month.  The city is requesting state and federal funds and has declared it a disaster, but this may not qualify for funds, so we are not counting on that.  (www.juneauempire.com)

We have already been reducing our electrical usage over the past 2 months, but obviously we will need to do some more tightening as will everyone in town.  I think the big things we are using now are our water heater, refrigerator, forced air furnace (occassionally), clothes dryer and a heater in our camper.  The camper will probably be just fine without the heater for awhile.  We could be burning the woodstove more so that the furnace doesn't come on at all.  We talked about turning the refrigerator off and using blocks of ice in it to keep the food cool and moving all the frozen stuff to the big freezer.  If the weather would warm up I could start using the clothes line again and not use the dryer as much.  Maybe we could get more serious about changing out the water heater to an on-demand model...it might pay for itself sooner if the cost of electricity is so high!

Spring Planting

I consulted my Gardening in Southeast Alaska book and one of the chapters says to plant these vegetables in the garden as soon as the soil can be worked:  peas, radishes, turnips, water cress, spinach, onion sets, leaf lettuce and potatoes.  Saturday I cleaned up a couple of my raised beds in the garden to get them ready for planting and yesterday I went out and planted some peas.  I just did two rows and will do two more in a couple weeks.  I have never planted this early - last year I planted the peas at the end of May!  More because of time than weather I think.  So I am anxious to see if the book is right...

I'm doing a little rearranging in the garden.  I have some rhubarb that I plopped in a raised bed that needs to be moved...but I haven't decided the best spot yet.  I also have raspberries coming up in another rhubarb patch, so I'll have to either move the rhubarb or the raspberries...  I would like to expand the raspberry patch, but I might wait until the chicken run is built and plant them around the fence. 

Lots to do and I have today off, but it has decided to snow a little...  So I guess I'll be doing inside projects today!

Chicken Coop Project

I shared a link to the plans I will be using for my chicken coop in my last post.  I now have three quotes for the materials: 

$650 - Home Depot
$900 - Don Abel's Building Supply
$850 - Valley Lumber

So looks like I will be going to the Home Depot.  I want to get materials and get started this weekend.  I have acquired the exterior door I needed - thanks Holly & Mic!  I'll be sharing pictures as I go along - mind you I have little building experience, so this will be a fun challenge for me.

Rod and I worked in the yard again after work today.  I did some trimming on some of our bushes & small trees while Rod did more raking of leaves and twigs.  We then used some rocks to extend our pathway in the backyard - Rod's idea and it is looking pretty good!  More to do, but if we do a little every day, eventually it will all get done!

It is Spring, isn't it?

Just checking, since it started snowing a couple minutes ago - and it is sticking.  Guess I won't be doing much outside today!  That's okay though.  We worked outside yesterday for quite a bit.  Raked up leaves and got them into the compost pile and just straightened up all the things we didn't get to last fall.  I started cleaning up the garden area, but no digging yet as the ground is frozen right now. 

We spent yesterday morning visiting garage sales - I got 2 books on gardening and a new chair for my desk and Rod found a new salmon pole.  It is still early in the season for garage sales - there weren't too many yet.  We did our errands too.  Got a quote on materials from Home Depot for the chicken coop I'm planning - it came to $650.  I can deduct about $100 because I already have some of the materials.  I will take the materials list to the other two hardware stores and get quotes from them too.  But Home Depot said that if the other quotes come in cheaper that they will match the price and add a 10% discount.  I can use all the savings I can get.

The chicken coop is 10' x 12' with a shed roof.  It is a neat design.  You walk in the door and enter the storage area first which is 3' x 10' so I will have a dry place to keep the food and supplies.  Then there is a door into the coop.  I will be using a free door I picked up that has 2 sections - the top can open separately from the bottom.  So I have a bunch of lumber to buy, and I need to find an exterior door.  I have been collecting windows, so I'm set there too.  I will need to build a feeder, waterer, nesting boxes and roosts.  I want to have a way to collect the eggs from the outside of the coop I think...we will see.  Here is the basic plan I'm using:  Poultry House.  I have just a couple weeks to get things setup since that is when the feed store will get their chicks in.  I don't think I can keep them in the house at all with the dog and cat here, so I will keep them in the coop with heat.  Wish me luck!

My friends 5 year old is coming over this afternoon and we will be baking so that will be fun!  Putting the aprons to good use that I bought from Brenda (haflinger) over at The C Farm!  Thanks again Brenda!

Good Book on Frugal Tips

I picked up a book at the library called "Gene Logsdon's Money-Saving Secrets - A Treasury of Salvaging, Bargaining, Recycling & Scavenging Techniques".  I have never heard of it before and it has some great ideas in it.  If your library has it, it would be worth reading.

Here are some other favorites of mine that I like to read over and over:
The Tightwad Gazette - Amy Dacyzyn
How to Feed Your Family For $12 a Day - Rhonda Barfield
Cheaper and Better
Better Than Store Bought
Miserly Moms

Do you have any good books about saving money that you would recommend?

Old Cookbooks Online

I ran across this great link on Miserly Moms to a bunch of old cookbooks that have been put up online for everyone to enjoy:  http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/index.html

If you haven't seen this already, it is really cool!  There is so much to explore - so far I have just been looking at The Frugal Housewife (1830!).  Miserly Moms suggested the old cookbooks to find good recipes for from scratch items.  I am slowly replacing what we normally buy from the store already prepared with a homemade version.  This weekend I was working on crackers - so far unsuccessful and not crisp, but I'm not giving up!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I have the day off work today.  It is raining out today, but that is better than snowing like it was yesterday!  I'm anxious to get some drier weather so I can start working outside in the garden.  I also want to do some landscaping in front of our house, so I am stuck just making plans for now - lots of lots of plans  :o)

I planted some seeds in flats (indoors) - zucchini, cucumbers (pickling & slicing), romaine lettuce, jalapeno peppers, and cabbage.  The Stupice tomatoes that I started last month got transplanted to 3" pots.  I already transplanted the Salad Bowl lettuce 2 weeks ago - I need to transplant the Great Lakes lettuce.  The other plants are doing well - dill, basil, parsley and celery.  The calendulas look good, but only about 2/3 germinated, so this morning I planted again in the spaces that were bare - we will see how that goes!

I found a good deal on a set of sheets at Fred Meyer.  All their winter flannel print sheet sets were 50% off - plus they have a coupon this week for 10% off - so I got the set for $18!  Yea!  So I'm trying to be economical and think of how to use the old set - the fitted one got a hole in it.  The flat one is in perfect shape, so I was thinking that would make a great backing for a quilt.  Any other ideas for the fitted and pillowcases?

I have some laundry going and I started a fire in the woodstove to get the living room all cozy.  Mixed up some bread dough and it is rising by the stove right now, almost time to pop it in the oven.  I haven't made bread for a couple weeks now, since we have been eating tortillas with everything.  I would like to learn how to freeze homemade tortillas - does anyone do this with success?

I made our corned beef & cabbage dinner last night and we will have leftovers from it for a few days - yummy!  Have a happy St. Patrick's day!

Fruit and Berries for Southeast Alaska

As if my spring fever weren't strong enough...  :o)   I went to a seminar today at the Home and Garden Show in town about Fruit and Berries for Southeast Alaska.  I'm sure every place has its challenging growing conditions - here in Juneau we have cool, wet summers.  It was exciting for me to hear that it is possible to grow fruit trees here - and actually get good fruit!!  The guy has grown apples, cherries, hardy kiwis, pears, plums and lot of different berries.  Out of those the apples do the best, then the sour cherries. 

He said it is best to get bareroot apple trees which will adapt to their home best.  Carefully choose where you will put your trees - where they will be well drained and get the most sun (when it does sunshine!).  Dig a large hole for them - add some lime.  Use a tree wrap to protect the trunk and stake them for the first couple years.  Water in well and use seaweed as a mulch around the tree.  Do not fertilize for the first year.  As far as which kinds to choose, make sure they are early ripening and scab resistant.  Yellow Transparent, Discovery, William's Pride, Pristine, Geneva Earl were some he recommends on semi-dwarf M-7 rootstock.  

Strawberries should be planted in a raised bed to help with drainage.  Should be planted in full sun and sandy soil.  Don't fertilize too much or you will just get big leaves, but few berries until the plants use up the fertilizer.  He said just a little bit of seaweed or compost is enough.

Rhubarb grows well around here - it is a heavy feeder.  It should have two buckets of horse manure (or steer, chicken, etc.) in the fall and two buckets in the spring.  If the stalks are skinny, then you know it needs to be divided.  There are many varieties and they have a range of flavors.

Red currents do very well here and they are easy to propagate.  Just cut a one foot piece off of your plant and stick it into damp soil and it will root, almost as easy as willow.

Highbush cranberries which are wild are good for making jelly or ketchup.  As with many berries, their flavor is improved with cooking.

Raspberries do well in raised beds like strawberries, but with more organic matter as they need the moisture.  If you want to start a patch, it is best to get a start from a neighbor.

The pie cherry variety that does the best here was brought to Southeast in the early 1900's to the Sitka Research Station.  It is known as the Telephone Hill Cherry and if you are lucky, you can get a sucker from someone downtown or in Douglas.  Another that does well is Montmorency - this is the kind I have, but it hasn't produced fruit yet...

So now I am dreaming of where on the property would be the best place for some apple trees and maybe another cherry tree.  And I should plant raspberries around the chicken run...so many plans, so short of a summer!!!

Saving on Our Electric Bill

Rod and I went to a Community Schools class last Saturday on Renewable Energies, Solar and Wind Power and Remote Living.  It was a great class - learned alot and came up with more things to read about.  It was put on by a guy who lives with his wife and 2 children on a remote island just across the channel from us.  He talked about how they live - what they use to generate electricity, how they get their water, how they get their fuel and groceries.

I was impressed by his knowledge of how much power each appliance used in his house, but I guess if you are generating your own power, you keep a close eye on those kinds of things.  The less power you use, the less power you have to make and possibly the smaller system you need.  He had some great tips on saving on electricity.  Our electric bill has been higher than we would like, but with winter and extra heaters and lighting needed, we pretty much accept it.  But we don't have to - we should be able to cut it down by paying more attention to the electricity we use.  I think we just take it for granted that we can use as much as we want, because it is there.  So...we have taken a few of his suggestions and we will see how much our next electric bill changes.

1.  Change your bulbs to compact flourescent.  These use so much less electricity.  We had changed a few over last summer, but Rod really doesn't like them - they aren't bright enough he says.  So we bought a few more - these ones are daylight style - and put them in - he loves them, I don't like them so much, but we will see how it goes.  I think the light is very bright/harsh with a blue-ish tint.  I much prefer the softer light.  I guess some will be the ones he likes and some will be the ones I like!

2.  Turn off your computer equipment when you aren't using it.  Put everything on a power strip and turn off the switch.  We actually already had our modem and router plugged into a power strip, so we have begun to switch it off before bed.  Then we just switch it on when we want to use the internet - usually just in the evenings.  Both our computers are laptops, so they do not stay on and I now unplug mine at night.

3.  Find your phantom loads.  These are appliances that use electricity even when they are turned off - such as your TV, VCR, etc.  Again, we already had the tv and vcr/dvd player plugged into a power strip, so we just have to turn it off now.  How easy was that?!?  There are devices that you can get to measure the power used by these appliances when they are off.  One is called a Kill A Watt - you can buy them online, or you may be able to borrow one from the electric company.  I need to call AEL&P and see if I can borrow one.

4.  Not from the class, but this will save on electricity...  Using our woodstove for heat instead of the forced air furnace.  We set the thermostat for the furnace down to about 60 degrees.  We build a fire in the evening - that keeps everything nice and toasty.  It is still warm when we get up in the morning, cools off a bit while we are at work and we just build a fire when we get home again.  Has been working great for the past few days.  Over the weekend, we kept the fire going all day and the furnace did not come on at all.  That is saving on oil and electricity!!

5.  Next, we will look at our energy use and make a plan of more steps we can take to reduce our costs.  One thing we will be looking into is replacing our electric 50-gallon hot water heater with an on-demand hot water heater, probably an oil one as we have that kind of a tank already.  Anyone have any info/suggestions on this one?  Until then, one of the suggestions from class was to use a timer so that the electric one doesn't run all day and night for just a few hours of need.

So, I will update you when we get our electric bill mid-March...

First Fire in the Woodstove!!

Our woodstove is installed (finally!) - and we had our first fire in it tonight.  We have a little to learn about getting it adjusted right, but it sure is fantastic!  What a great feeling to know that if the power goes out, we will still have heat!  Here is Rod building the first fire...

The dog seems to like it...

And one more picture of just the stove and hearth:

New Seedlings

Starting from Seeds

I started some seeds on Saturday... I have a nice sturdy shelf with flourescent lights that I use.  The lights are on a timer and I have them on for 15 hours.  I just read in The Seed Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel that 16 hours is optimum - 12 hours is not adequate (which is how long I had them set for last year).  So it will be interesting to see if these plants are more stocky... 

I started some leaf lettuce, crisphead lettuce, celery, dill, basil, parsley, tomatoes and calendulas.  I am planning to move the lettuce to the greenhouse as soon as I can...  and hopefully the tomatoes will go to the greenhouse in late April to early May.  Usually our last frost is mid-May, but this year seems to be warmer, so maybe it won't be so late.

The lettuce and a couple of calendulas had sprouted as of yesterday morning.  This morning, the basil is up.  So the garden is started!  I also started some Cilantro about a month ago in a windowsill.  We don't have nearly enough sun or light to keep them growing, so I hung a single flourescent above them and have it on from when I get up to when I go to bed.  I have transplanted them once so far, but need to get them in soil instead of seedling mix so they get the nutrients they need.  They are doing really well and I picked a couple leaves off last night to have with our dinner.  Yummy!