Spreading Spring Tidings

Winter has been especially cruel to people in Salt Lake City this year.  We welcomed December with open hearts and glad tidings for the holiday season and got dumped on with snow.  Now, normally this would be fine....it snows, a few days later it melts...repeat.  This year the snow came...and never left.  It brought with it the worst air in the country...cough...cough....gag.  And visions of my family moving to Hawaii lodged itself in my brain. I promise, when The Mister finishes with school, I will be hearkening to more gentle climes with my little family.

Now it is the middle of February...we are still waiting for the winter thaw.  I can remember times in Elementary School when February would be so warm, we were desperate to wear shorts to school. Where is my 60 degrees?!? 

Luckily my heart thawed a bit today...if nothing else did, when I got a package in the mail, with some sweet little packets of hope inside...

That's right....you are reading correctly...dandelions.  Now before you think I've lost it completely...Mister, I'm looking at you here, in Italy, at least, dandelion leaves are eaten more than lettuce, and as we've all heard, the Mediterranean diet is apparently the best for us, but what you don't think about much when you think about the Mediterranean diet is the amount of greens they eat.  And it's weeds they're eating.  So, I am not going to just plant these in my garden, I will plant them in containers, and hopefully we are all the healthier for it.

These little beauties are a mutant.  I am game for mutant produce.  They have the most anthocyanins which are very powerful anti-oxidants than any other tomato.  This gives them an extremely dark, blueish black color.  I am not a huge fan of genetically modified food, but these are done naturally by Jim Myers over at Oregon State University.  So, here's hoping they're awesome!

Broccoli!  This particular broccoli does very well in hot climates.  Someday when it's summer, it will be very hot here.  I have never grown broccoli so I am excited to give it a go!

These are those cute little yellow squashes that cost a bundle, so you never buy them at the grocery store.  I am going to grow me some.  I decided again zucchini because...well...I don't eat them well enough, but I figured because these are so pretty, my girls would like to pick them and I would enjoy eating them more.

The three kinds of lettuce I am growing.  They are so colorful, I can't wait to pick them.  We are eating a lot of salads these days and I figure I will need a lot of lettuce!

And these little peat pellets are what I'm going to start my seeds in...here in a couple of weeks.  I've never used them before...so I hope they are amazing.

This is my grow system down in my sewing room.  I know, it is seriously freaky pink down there.  It was formerly my daughters' play room...until we discovered my kids don't like to play where I'm not.  So it didn't get used until I claimed it as my own.  These were last years plants.  I will show you this years when I get them up and planted! 

Awww, summer, wherefore art thou?

Thanks for reading!

Heather