Hello! Wow!!! What a wild ride we’ve had this week!
But considering no one’s house was blown to smithereens . . . . . .
no one’s house slid down a muddy hillside in to ocean . . . . . . . .
no one got buried under an avalanche of snow . . . . . . . . . .
I’d say that we’re really not doing all that bad!

So, thank you, Mother Nature! And, thank you, Punxsutawney Phil! Six more weeks of winter – feels like 6 more months of winter! Actually, more like 6 more Years of winter! Now that is really depressing! What isn’t depressing is the thought of our spring garden plans. That should be making us really antsy around now.

For the past few weeks now, we have been exploring some of the new and innovative varieties of vegetables – different colors, sizes, shapes, and flavors of carrots, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and the like. The last week we started with different sizes of seed. We ended up last week complaining about how tiny carrot seed is – how difficult to plant and space carrot seed. The we brought up the idea of pelletized carrot seed. Each tiny carrot seed is individually encased in a cay coating. This clay coating splits open and/or dissolves, freeing the tiny carrot seed and allowing it to do its germination thing.

So – pelletized seed – Much more user-friendly – much easier to handle – much easier to space – much easier to plant that carrot “dust”. Why make things more difficult than they have to be? So – go easy! Go pellets!

Keep in mind, there are other tiny seeds out there that compete with tiny carrot seed for the “most difficult to plant seed” distinction. Lettuce seed, some of your herb and flower seed are all frustratingly difficult to place and space.

So pelletized seed! You can have your cake and eat it too. You can have your tiny seed and plant it too. I don’t think that pellet seed is available over the counter up here in the North Country. I have only seen it offered in mail order seed catalogs. Fedco, Johnny’s Selected Seed, Harris, and Stokes are all some popular companies that carry pellet seed, and not just carrot pellets.

Keep in mind, those pellet seeds do cost a bit more, but I think that you would agree that the convenience outweighs the cost! However, there are some other considerations. How much of these pellet seeds do you have to order? Well, Stokes has pellet carrot seed that starts at $1.29 per 1,000. And their minimum quantity to order is 10,000 carrot seed!!!

So that’s $12.90 for 10,000 pellets – 10,000 carrot seed! Now that’s a lot of carrots!!! Well, you don’t have to plant all 10,000 of them all this year; plant some next year, and then the next year. Hey, you can probably plant them for the next 10 years! Or – you can share them with your friends and neighbors.

Or you can forget about Stokes and their 10,000 seeds and go with Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Johnny’s has pelletized carrot and lettuce seeds all available in garden-size packets. So now you don’t have to plant those 10,000; these packets have 250 pellets! More on pellet seed next week.

But for this week – Boy – have I got some great opportunities for you! Are you interested in saving money? Well, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Lewis County is offering 2 different kinds of workshops in February that are guaranteed to save you money (or at least get you thinking about saving money).

We have what is called Empower classes. This Monday, Feb. from 6:30 pm until 8:30 pm at the Beaver River Central School in Beaver Falls, we will host “Making Ends Meet”. Learn some techniques and tools to help your financial situation.

The there is “Save Energy, Save Dollars”. This workshop explores tons of ways to reduce your energy bills. For this topic you can choose the time and the place. There is one scheduled for Wed., Feb. 13 from 10 am until noon at the Extension conference room in Lowville. There is also one on Thursday, Feb. 21 from 10 am until noon at the same place – the Extension conference room in Lowville. If daytime is bad for you, then there is still another one offered Monday evening, Feb. 25 from 6:30 pm until 8:30 pm at BRCS in Beaver Falls. Carla Keefer is doing the daytime ones. I am doing the night time ones.

So - are you interested? Then you MUST call us at 376-5270 to pre-register! Do call us if you have any questions.

So – sign up and be prepared for 2 hours of fun – 2 hours of free stuff, refreshments and door prizes! What have you got to lose? You have everything to gain! And you’ll walk away with some great freebies in our Empower goody bags.

So - - -

Remember – Eat Smart New York!

And – Bye – Talk to you soon!
D