Trading Seeds

A few of you commented on my Cinderella Pumpkin post about being interested in some seeds. I mailed those off last week (so if you wanted some and didn’t get you packet let me know, they may have gotten lost in the mail).

It’s been very fun because I have received some seeds back as a trade for my pumpkin seeds. It’s very exciting to get free seeds in the mail, particularly for a kind of tomato you’ve never heard of. I’m very excited to try these tomatoes out this summer. So what kinds of seeds did I get back in trade for my pumpkin seeds?

So far I’ve received San Marzano, Dr Wyche’s Yellow, Black from Tula, and Brandywine Tomatoes from Chicago Mike.

I also received Stupice (Czechoslovakian heirloom, early & delicious), Wapsipinicon Peach, and Zapotec Pleated Tomatoes from Kelly over at Populuxe.

Have you traded seeds with other gardeners? Did you get something exciting?

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Garden Harvest Spreadsheet

I finally finished my garden harvest spreadsheet template, so I’m ready for the Garden Harvest Challenge. Many of you expressed interest in the file, so I am adding it to my blog for you to download. I saved them as templates to make it easy

I have a Numbers file for Mac users and an Excel file for you poor Windows users. The Numbers file is much prettier of course, but they both work wonderfully. The Excel file has 3 tabs, one for the input table, one for the total harvest table, and one for the bar graph (I’m not as familiar with Excel as I used to be so it probably could be better, feel free to make any changes to improve it). The Numbers file has all of the tables & graphs on the same sheet. When you enter your total harvest in the first table it will update the amount in the second table and include the totals on the bar graph. You do have to manually change the crop titles on both tables, but that’s easy. If anyone has any great additions to the file let me know (particularly the Excel file).

So fellow Freedom Gardeners, let’s see how much of a dent we can put in the million pound goal!

Garden Harvest Spreadsheet – Excel
Garden Harvest Spreadsheet – Numbers

I have to admit this is a far cry from the file I used last year. I just kept track of my tomato harvest by type last year, which I may do again this year in a separate garden harvest file. I’ll keep you up to date every month with my harvest tally, I can’t wait to see how well all of you do this year with your freedom gardens.

How are you keeping track of your harvests?

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Taking a Day Off

I’m too tired to write anything meaningful or interesting today so I’m giving you this photo of yours truly as a toddler. My dad snapped this series of photos one morning right when I got up. I wish pink footed pj’s still came in adult sizes, I remember loving these!



I just love old photos like this, don’t you?

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One of My Favorite Things

I love the comfort of old familiar things. I would much rather have a comfy old piece of clothing than a crispy new one (one good thing about working from home). I hate to go shopping because I know that means breaking in new jeans or a new sweater. I’m very sad that I may have to retire my old gardening jeans this year. These jeans have been in my life 2 years longer than Mr Chiots, and he’s been around for 13. I have more than gotten my money’s worth out of them, especially considering I got them on sale for $20, but I’m still sad to see them go (I’m hoping they last at least half of this summer).

I love these jeans, they’re perfect for gardening. They’re soft , comfy, and roomy for bending, kneeling and doing all other kinds of gardening chores. They’re long enough to cover my ankles against the thorns around the woods and they come up high enough in the back so I’m not drawing unnecessary attention to myself while bending over and pulling weeds. I have considered patching these, but I’m not sure what would happen, they are pretty threadbare. I think I would have to actually line them entirely. I also have a favorite shirt for gardening, it’s a thrift store cross country shirt that’s bright yellow. Once I’m wearing my jeans and my shirt all I need is my gardening hat & gloves and I’m ready for a day in the garden. I also prefer to wear sandals or flip flops if I can. my feet love to be free!

What’s your favorite gardening attire? (take the poll)

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Things I Miss About Summer: Blue Skies

One of the things I start missing about summer this time of year, is the deep blue sky. We don’t get a lot of sunny days here in Northeastern Ohio during the winter months. We do get a sunny day occasionally, but the sky just isn’t this blue, it’s kind of gray.

Since I was missing the blue skies, I looked through all of my photos from the summer and thought I’d share some blue skies to brighten everyone’s day. Enjoy!






I miss working in the gardens with the warm sun on my back. Soon enough it will be that time again, and I’ll make sure to take notice of the deep blue skies!

What do you miss about summer this time of year?

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