The finished sun room!!

It is more or less finished now.  From the awful paneled walls, nasty carpeting, and acoustical tiles...we had it gutted to the studs, and redone in a much more pleasing way.

A previous post with pics of its transformation.

And today:

Buttermilk Oatmeal Pancakes

I made these the other weekend for the 3 of us, and they were so delicious, and disappeared quickly. And they are a great way to get something as healthy as oatmeal into your diet. I think I will do these again this weekend.



2 C oatmeal
2 1/2 C buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 stick of butter
1/2 C flour (I used 1/2 wheat, 1/2 white)
2 T sugar (I used raw sugar)
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda

Soak the oats and buttermilk from an hour to overnight. I did it for an hour, and they still came out delicious.

Add eggs and butter and stir well.

Add flour, baking powder and baking soda. Stir until blended, let sit for 10 minutes to set.

Make!

Seeds at 2 weeks

My seeds at 2 weeks:


The small tray on top is my 5 different types of tomatoes in peat pots.

The tray on the left if full of more toms, pepper and herbs.

The middle tray has lots of flowers (nasturtium, calendula, marigold, sunflower, and more...), more herbs (dill, thyme, rosemary, cilantro, and more..) and lavender.

The tray on the right is full of bush beans, zucchini, cucumber, flue fescue, bunny tail, poppies, arugula, shasta daisy and cosmos.

My super fast growing beans.


I realize my grow op is not ideal...but having 2 very curious cats in the house and an even more curious 3-year old, it is best I could do. I need to do lots of transferring this weekend.

Some of them are pretty long and leggy, like the tomatoes, but I am going to transfer them to 4"pot and cover their stems to try and fix that. The zucchini, cucumber and beans are coming in strong!!

The nasturtiums and calendula are doing really well too. The calendula seeds are actually ones I collected from our flowers last year...I think I have over 1000 seeds. If anyone wants any...now I know they grow.

I was surprised how fast they grew. Interesting to see what comes in fast, and what is slower. The peppers were the last to come up. The cucumbers, zucchini, beans, blue fescue came up really fast.

Seeds, seeds, seeds!

I am probably about 2 weeks late, but I did it. I started my seeds indoors. I am so excited. I just want to stare at them and wait for them to grow.

This is what I have so far:
(yes, I am probably a little ambitious for my first year starting seeds indoors..but what the h*ll)

Tomatoes
yellow pear (heirloom)
red cherry (heirloom)
brandywine (heirloom)
celebrity
super sweet 100

Veggies
arugula
zucchini
green peppers
colored peppers
cauliflower
sugar pumpkins (heirloom)
bush beans
cucumber
beet
sugar snap peas
corn
radish

Herbs
rosemary
lavender
dill
thyme
basil
spearmint
cilantro
chamomile

Flowers
canna (these are not from seed..i have 24 rhizomes for them to plant whenever it gets warm-love these!!)
sunflower
shasta daisy
poppies
nasturtium
cosmos
zinnia
marigold
calendula
coneflower (one of my favorites)
black-eyed susans

Grasses
bunny tails
blue fescue

Phew! Hopefully when I add all of this to what I did last year, I will have a lush backyard and full edible garden too. It is all an experiment, and I am sure some won't make it, but if they do I will have loads to share.

Our front yard was already landscaped when we moved in, so it is the backyard I have been working on. Last fall we had huge areas cut out and tons of shrubs and trees put in, and just this last week, we finally filled those areas with mulch. We spent 2 days, getting a massive truckload of mulch from the driveway to the backyard with a wheel barrel and a pitchfork. I don't want to have to shovel mulch for a long time!!

And I know it sounds bad, but we had out apple tree cut down. An apple tree sounds idyllic in theory, but unless you are prepared to spray it with pesticides and keep up with picking over a hundred of apples on a daily basis...it brings mice and a fruit fly extravaganza to the yard and the house (no mice in the house so far...knock on wood...but they were in the garage). But in place of my act of green-icide...I planted 40 bushes, shrubs and perennials last fall during our landscaping mission. I hope this makes up for it somewhat.

I am so ready for spring!!