Luffas, crushed pepper, seeds

We went to the Walk for the Animals this afternoon and Dia did really well. People and children came up and petted her and she sniffed lots of dogs and she was very well behaved throughout.

*Sidebar: Roger just came in from mowing to report that he saw a chicken catch a mouse and now the flock is out fighting over it. Good chickens!


We're in the process of drying lots and lots of red chili peppers to make crushed pepper. We have about 3 pints of crushed pepper right now. These plants don't stop!



We now have three dried Luffas. We have probably 10 more on the plant still growing. We are also saving the seeds from the Luffas.



We're saving seeds from just about everything. We're packaging them in packs of 20-40 seeds. We'll be selling them hopefully at the Winter Market this winter. We'll also be selling the crushed pepper, the luffas, and dried basil and catnip.



And lastly, we caught an Opossum in the live trap yesterday. Woodchucks aren't terrible because while they dig huge tunnels and endanger the barn's foundation, they don't eat chickens. Opossums eat chickens. We also have noted mice, moles (which Jeza actually caught one and brought it up to the house), rats, and the neighbor says he has spotted a raccoon by the barn. Raccoons are particularly bad news.

We've talked about getting a barn cat. Of course, the first problem with that is that the cat has to somehow know that rats and possums are good to eat and chickens are not. Also, we wouldn't want to get a barn cat unless it was a feral cat. We'd feel guilty leaving a domestic cat outside at night. So where does one get a wild cat? It's something we'll have to look into further. Of course we'll wait until spring.

We realized recently that the purple jalapeno plant we have is rare. So rare, in fact, that people who swap/collect heirloom and rare seeds often list them on their 'want' list. (We've noticed this as we joined seed swapping online communities to find new and rare strains of vegetables for next year.) So, in addition to them being our most prized bargaining tool on the seed swap forums, we've also put them up on ebay:


here

We've been swapping seeds for about 24 hours now and have already scored a rare spinach and white pumpkin seeds.

For Sale

The Helpful Gnome is breaking into sales this season. We anticipate selling at the market next year, but this year we planted extra to sell a bit out of the house. We're selling potatoes, catnip, and lemon basil. It's all organic and grown from organic seeds. Lemon basil, for those who have not tried it, is a very potent scented, flat leaf basil that smells like basil and lemon pepper.

The basil and catnip are dried. They are sold in $1 pouches, with a Gnome label. Here are pictures of the pouches:



For potatoes, currently, we have both All Blue and Sangre. All Blues have a dark blue/purple skin and light blue flesh. They retain color when cooked, so you can make purple mashed potatoes, purple french fries, etc. The Blues have a rougher skin with some brown, like a russet. It's not dirt, it's just the nature of the skin. The Sangre's have a thin, rosy pink skin and white flesh.

We're selling the potatoes for $5 a sack, which is approximately $2 a pound.






If you are interested in purchasing basil, catnip, or potatoes, email the Gnome at helpfulgnome.gmail.com