Its cold and rainy today so I got the seed order together. Or at least most of it. I am still waiting on the Seed Saver's Exchange catalog to catch up with me. They always have interesting heirloom varieties no one else has.

But the main order is done for the most part. Need to double check that we are not forgetting anything important and than add up the damage and write checks and send the forms to their appropriate places. It's a small order this year maybe around $200 to $250. But last year we did a huge order and still have a lot of seed left over that will work just fine.

Now we have to start thinking about the perennials that need to be looked into. We need to order and plant before April or May:

strawberries (200+ plants)
asparagus (250 plants)
raspberries (100 plants)
blackberries (100 plants)
fruit trees (peach, pear, apple, saskatoons, pawpaw. Several of each)
grapes (1/4 acre)
rhubarb (100 plants)

Pretty big order but if the weather cooperates and we can get a bit of help we should be able to get everything on the list in this spring.

After lunch prepped a bunch of apples for drying. Had to peel the skin from each one than cut out the cores and slice them into thin slices, removing any brown spots (which there were a lot of on many of the apples), put the slices into lemon water than after letting the fruit soak for at least 15 minutes into the dehydrator. Added a lot of material to the compost.

After the apples were put into the dehydrator Eugene went on to cut up even more apples for apple sauce and now those are being turned into mush because of heat. later on I will get out the Victorio and separate the skin and seeds from the good stuff and turn the rough cut apples into apple sauce. I will add brown sugar, cinnamon to taste and let the flavors meld for a bit over low heat and than get out the canner, clean up some jars and lids and can the sauce. Unless I decide to freeze it instead which means getting many quart yogurt containers really clean and than ladling the sauce into them and putting them into a freezer.