Not all weeds are evil!

Jelly

So in the interests of being a localvore I try to make as many things we eat as possible from scratch.  This week  Lexi and I went on a jelly making rampage! We made orange marmalade, strawberry, strawberry balsamic, and grape (from juice from my friends grape vines). Yum! As a side note, in the past I have had trouble with my jelly solidifying , and after some research I tried using the low sugar pectin. Apparently it helps to use that if you are canning at a high altitude. Works great! Our next project is lemon marmalade. Sounds great right?

So last week I was very ill with the 'death flu' as we have dubbed it, and I was laying around watching my food documentaries on Netflix.  Lexi sat down and watched  "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead" with me, which is the one where he goes on a juice fast for three months. She was very struck by what she saw there, and asked if we could go vegetarian for a week, which we have been. I thought it was going to much more difficult than it has been since I am hypoglycemic. Actually it has been great, we had tons of things to make for dinner, the only real problem has been lunches for us. I seem to need a lot of protein in the middle of the day, so I have been eating lentil soup in addition to a sandwich or a potato. Of course I feel great, veggies don't make you sick! We may have to keep this up!
Recommended Reading: The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman

So here we are at the beginning of a new season, always exciting. I have already planted three quarters of my beds, as we are having a dry warm year. Last week I put in three colored pole beans, mustard green, smokey fennel, Italian fennel,  broccoli, hot peppers, sweet peppers and some icicle radishes. I already had spinach, garlic and lettuce in the ground. I still need to plant tomatoes, and I have herbs patiently waiting to go in the ground. Oh, and I planted some of the local red potatoes from my pantry that were sprouting like crazy. I have never grown potatoes before so this is largely an experiment and I would be happy to listen to any advice you may have for me! My goal this year is to have a large variety of veggies instead of a large quantity of a few varieties. Happy planting!