This Past Week's Doin's~

This past week kept me busy around the house.  I try to stay home as much as possible for many different reasons.  The main one is to be available to care for my hubby, who, as I've mentioned before, is disabled due to a stroke. The secondmost important reason is that, the more often I go out to run errands or grocery shop, the more temptation there is to spend money.  We have several different big ticket items that need to be taken care of so I'm trying to save in every area I can.

I simmered a big ol' pot of chicken broth for 36 hours, using a whole chicken, some carrots, celery, a bit of apple cider vinegar and assorted herbs and spices.  I portioned out and froze the resulting liquid gold and will use the broth in several different recipes.  I purposely don't add onion to my brother so that I can add the Nourishing broth to my dog's food as well.  The resulting cooked and cooled chicken meat was also portioned out and frozen for use in future recipes.

I spent some time working on listing items in my Etsy shop.

I collected some basil and snow pea seeds from plants that I purposely let go to seed this past season.  (I posted a quick video of my basil seed collecting on my TJ's Sweet Home instagram account .)

I also sowed several varieties of seeds in the garden: mina lobata (Spanish flag), snapdagons, salvia, forget-me-nots, zinnia, shasta daisy, dill, cucumber, summer squash, jalapeno, oregano, basil and tomato.  Being what I feel is still very much a novice gardener, I do a lot of experimenting with when and where I sow seeds.  I have not had great success following seed packet instructions always, so I figure, what have I got to lose by "breaking the rules"?  I plan on using up the seeds I have on hand and if I never succeed in growing certain veggies or flowers, I won't be buying those particular ones again.  In the meantime, I am going to vary the times and ways I sow the seeds that I already have.  

A few things that we have enjoyed from the garden's offerings have been: lemon balm (for delicious tea!), kale, green onions and tiny johnny jump ups.

I hope you have had an enjoyable week!

Thanks for stopping by! ~TJ