LysmachiaMoon's blog: Lots of rain, some wind, nothing too bad

The major winter storm that moved across the country this week gave us a lot of rain (2-3 inches over 48 hours), some gusty winds, but nothing too bad. More of an early March day weatherwise, than mid-January in PA. Today (Thursday) it's clear, sunny, and looks relatively calm so I'm going to get the bottom section of the Below the Deck Garden completely cleared off and tidied up. That heavy wet snow we had last week flattened everything but one clump of Miscanthus grass so it's time to get moving clearing away the dead stuff.

I'm going to dig out some trays and fill them with seed starting mix to let it warm up (the big bag is in the basement where it's chilly). I'd like to start seeding Coleus this weekend. I'll use seeds I saved in 2022 so I don't know if this will work or not.

This week's Progress Project will be to buy 10 half-width concrete blocks to do another stretch of raised bed in the veg. It's not much, but I'm determined to do at least one thing each week that moves the garden forward/makes an improvement.
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The wind brought down oodles of persimmons. I have several quarts in the freezer now and that's after I left most of them on the ground for wildlife. I may make a loaf of Persimmon bread after finishing up a cherry pie I baked from last summer's cherries and a hunk of banana bread that E brought over to trade for a dozen eggs. She used a recipe in which you use the WHOLE banana, skin and all. You run it through a food processor first. Supposed to be more nutritious. I dunno. It tastes ok, but considering there's chocolate chips and nuts in it, I'm not so sure the banana skin adds anything flavorwise or nutrition wise. R tried it and did not like it, he said he thought it was a bit bitter. I did not detect bitterness, but I think I'll stick with my tried and true recipe.
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In re: my post about using local honey instead of sugar. The substitution ratio for baking is 2/3 cup of honey for every 1 cup of sugar. Also reduce liquid in your recipe by 1/4 cup for every 2/3 cup of honey to make up for the liquid nature of honey.

So endeth the lesson.

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