Tomatoes are up!

So after having spent many days looking into the hothouse and frowning, looking a bit closer and wondering wether all the seed was bad - the tomatoes have all popped up. The 3 days of 25 deg plus weather has been responsible for that. Lets hope somebody gets something out of the many pots crammed into the hothouse.
I'm going to have to start evicting plants soon.

In the hot house we can see - curry plants, wormwood, Jujube, shallots, beets, honey locust and shallots

What else is going on? I really need to go out to the garden plots and pick broccoli and snopeas, dig in some compost ready for spring planting and pull some weeds. I think i'll also put in a row of french beans - as August 1 is my usual planting time, but i did wonder this year wether i should get them going in pots a month earlier to ensure a more prolonged crop before the hot weather sets in.

We have been having lovely crusty "no knead" bread for a while now. It's a convenient sort of loaf because it was sit for up to 24 hours and you can then put it in the oven when the oven is on for other purposes. You also don't have to knead it as the name suggests. I'll have to thank my lovely wife for discovering that one through the blogosphere - i just wouldn't have tried it being the pessimist that i am.

Might have a test run or saurkraut this weekend. I have obtained some unpasteurised goats milk from a friend of a friend and that has been sitting on the bench in a bowl for a week making cheese. Last night i began draining off the whey, which i'll put in a bottle in the fridge to innoculate the saurkraut. The whey keeps this way for up to 6 months but you can also freeze it to keep it for longer. I also read that you can innoculate you saurkraut and other fermented vegies by using the juice from your last jar of saurkraut (i don't think this includes commercial stuff as it may have been pasteurised??) I have not quite finished my last jar from August lasy year.

While we are on food, we have been enjoying our sundried figs (made in Dec) in nut mixes, and cut up finely in fruit salads. Although they are somewhat dry when you first put them away to store, the remaining moisture seems to get redistributed and they are now a bit moister and spongy.

My nut mix consists of almonds and pecans (each nut contains a different form of vitamin E), Pumpkin seeds (from our pumpkins) Goji berries (big vit c), dried figs and sometimes sunflower seeds. This is available to the kids at most times of the day for snacking. We beleive we are at a milestone with the kids as they have stopped picking green things out of their food now and are whoofing down green salads in a way that is most non childlike.