Seedy winter activities

When it is too cold outside, the soil is frozen and there are only few signs of life in the garden, the (not so die-hard) gardeners (or the one's without heat in their garden house) retreat to their warm homes. Not to hibernate, no, to prepare the seedlings for the coming spring, empty the supply of summer vegetables from the freezer, or make a planting scheme. This is what we are working on now, but we do a few other things as well, which deal mainly with seeds.

A bit late, but today we sorted the seeds we gathered from our garden and other places. These are now ready to replenish our seed stock for this year. 

We have a fascination for extraordinary plants, but the only way to get those seeds is to buy them from specialist shops. A disadvantage - or in some way an advantage - is that these seeds come in large quantity packages. Seeds are perishable and we do not encourage mass production. One way to deal with this seed abundance is to grow them into sprouts. In this way they are extra nutritious, they grow even in winters, they have an explicit taste and they are perfect for decorating a dish, and to spice up sandwiches or salads. Just put some seeds on a wet piece of toilet paper, and in a few days they begin to sprout. Make sure to keep the trays moist, but don't let the seeds float. The one's we are growing now are amaranth, spinach and chía sprouts.