my vegetable garden & sour dough starter: part 2

So the first of my seeds/plants arrived the other day and we finally went to Lowes to pick up soil so I could plant them! We might have gone over board...oh well! I have one (17x36inch) planter box finished already, by the wonderful boyfriend, and he built another one that's twice the size but the sealant needs to dry before I can put it outside and fill it with delicious-ness!

I must say I'm a little upset at Gurney's for the fact that my order is taking so long. I've only received 2 of the 12 seeds/plants I ordered...and their 'order history' page basically sucks. I'm emailing them today to see if I can get some answers. But in the mean time...

I planted my strawberries! They are shipped as plants (25 total) but I only had room to plant 18. Most places say to plant strawberries far apart because their roots like to spread but I've been reading about square foot gardening and decided I would attempt to grow them closer together and see what happens! (I planted them yesterday evening and this morning they look extremely happy. They've started to open their leaves and are turning green-er)

I also found a great online kitchen garden planner from Gardener's Supply Company that is fun to play with, and they also suggest square foot gardening.

I've also started my seed potatoes by sticking them in southern facing window so they can grow 'eyes' before I put 'em in the ground. I'll be growing my potatoes in garbage bags because it's a cheap an easy way to continue to cover the plant with soil as it grows so that I, hopefully, have a larger harvest!

I also tended to my sourdough starter this morning! You'll see in my spreadsheet that I've separated my starter, rather than it throw away, with each feeding. I also made a sponge today that should be ready in 24 hours so I can make my first sourdough loaf!

My sponge:

2/3 c. starter
1 c. warm water
1 1/2 c. flour

I'll post the whole recipe once I make it, with my suggestions of course. It's a recipe I found in the brochure off of Carl's website and it is apparently the San Francisco Sourdough Bread recipe from Bread Alone by Daniel Leader & Judith Blahnik. I'm exciting because it uses the starter yeast for the rise and flavor rather than adding more dry yeast which would give it a different flavor. I'm excited!

My two starters...both with white flour. If you click on the pictures you can see better the top line of bubbles, that's how high the starters got last night before they fell again. And you can see in the left jar that there is a clear layer on top of the starter. That is what everyone refers to as 'hooch', I just stir it back in...mmmm alcohol :)

Below are my three starters that were left after I separated and started my sponge. The far right one is now my Rye starter (it's supposed to make a better 'sour' taste). Tomorrow I plan on feeding them, placing the Rye and a one regular white flour in the fridge so that they last for a week or so between feedings. Taking another and drying it for a safety net, and making another sponge for a different recipe.

Oh man....so much sourdough!