Homemaking Mondays: Seedlings and Canning Chickpeas

 

Hello! 
It's been a lovely week with some sunshine and a few snow flurries.

Last Monday my boys helped me with starting seeds. 

Now we have a whole bunch of little seedlings

sprouting and reaching for the light.  

Yes, some will be a tad spindly in the end

but they'll still be beautiful! 

My friend Judith gave me some pink lupins and I'm happy 

that some of those are starting to sprout as well. 

Last year our resident squirrels ate off the ones I planted out

so this year I started a bunch more and will put 

up some protective structure around them. 

I like the squirrels and sharing seeds with them...

but some things I won't share! 

This week I also canned up some chickpeas for the first time.  

I have lots of things I want to try in canning and this is one of them.

First time canning anything like this.  I'm going to be 

trying some black beans next. 

I didn't soak the peas overnight so used the quick method to re-hydrate them.

The bag of dry chickpeas I used filled 12 pints. 

I use chickpeas primarily for making hummus but am going to try 

adding them to soups as well. 

I did open up a jar of them and made some hummus right away. 

It made a great texture and it was smoother then some of the 

other canned chickpeas I've bought at the store. 

My violet is starting to flower again with the return of the sunshine and longer light.

Funny thing is I do really like the soft fuzzy leaves violets have. 

My tomato seedlings have come up and I always smile and remember

my friend Ingrid who taught me how to start them.  

Nothing better then a fresh tomato from the greenhouse she'd say! 

Makes all the work worth it with that bite of warm juicy goodness. :) 

My cosmos seedlings are super tall and so they'll need some 

extra special attention as they grow.  

One thing I do is brush my hand through the seedlings and that 

seems to help them toughen up as if they had light wind 

blowing on them at times.

I'll also be separating them out some so that they have more 

space to spread out their roots to.  

The spread of seedlings has begun and from now 

till planting out time the windows are going to be full. 

With gardening there needs to be balance between 

edible and beautiful. 

My boys are working on building small tiny houses today. 

March break in our house isn't going to be a break from all lessons.

For us the break is just going to be a change in what 

we are doing. 

So some fun projects are on the table. 

Hope you have a beautiful day! 

Love and Prayers,

Jennifer