It is supposed to be clear  until Monday, so despite things being cold outside—it is the perfect time to finish Hot Mess Of Dirt That Shall Be Kitchen Garden.    I can at least get the boards cut today.  Being Christmas, everything is closed so I can’t actually pick up the brakets to put the boards together, but it can be ready to go for tomorrow.  Tomorrow I’d love to get the boards together, get the paths created, put up the fence, mulch the whole mess with a ton of compost, and hopefully pick up coffee bean bags to cover everything until spring.

When I’m out picking up the brackets, I’ll pick up lighting to start seed starting indoors this year.  I’m still nervous on starting my own tomatoes and peppers, but I might as well just try.  I’ll be starting the eggplant, kale, and stuff in early January—so it is getting to be close to time to getting everything together.  No dilly-dallying this year, for me. 

I’m going to add an additional 40 feet of planting space on the left side of the yard.  That’ll get me to 200 square feet of gardening space in the back yard.  Still unsure as to how much I’ll grow in the driveway this year. I still think the squash and potatoes should be out of the garden.  And perhaps some additional tomato plants.  I’m going to need a lot more tomato plants than I originally thought if I’m going to get serious about canning this year.

Speaking of canning, the pressure canner came in.  I’m terrified to use it. :/  They did give instructions on how to do a run on it with just using water so you can get comfortable with it.  I’m hoping that there will be chicken on sale this week so I am able to get comfortable and batch up chicken stock and vegetable stock this year.  I’m hoping to purchase about 100 jars from a fella selling them online for  30 cents a piece.  While it is wayyy more than I think I need now (and maybe in the future, although it’s nice to give away food as well)—it’s hard to let them go at that price.  Worse case scenario—I make a lot of presents to give away and perhaps sell some for what I bought it to neighbors who also can.

I never got around to making that bread with the wheat I ground myself.  I ended up working a whole lot later in the evenings than I planned. It’s been 4 days.  I still let everything come out of the fridge and see if I can work with the dough or not.  I’m not holding my breath.  I’m definitely going to be adding a tablespoon of vial wheat gluten to the loaves in the beginning to hedge my bets.  I hear there is about zero oven spring and I’m gonna need all the height I can get.

Today is also the day I measure sunlight hitting the back yard.  It’ll be depressing but I’m hoping that the place where I want the additional 40’ bed will get enough sun that I could maybe eek out some greens in a hoop house next year.  We’ll see.