Very exciting news (for me personally, anyway)!! There are little pumpkin plants poking out of the soil in the garden at my house. Though I doubt that they will actually become full-grown pumpkins before the season is over, it is one of the most exciting things in the world to see that. Maybe I have been really busy, but it seemed like they came up really fast! This is so exciting... I'll have to post some pictures. After so much talk, I'm going to try and get the worm bin started this weekend. There's really no rush, but since this weekend is a long weekend I might actually have more time. I think I'll dig around in the yard some more and expand the garden as well. Mother Earth News tells me I can plant spinach right now, so why not?? I think I'm going to head over to Edward's Greenhouse today, because I think they carry heirloom varieties.
I also have several tomatoes left from the garden on Friday, and have yet to save any seed. However, apparently saving tomato seed is easy... you essentially scoop out the seeds with your thumb, a spoon, whatever, soak them with the juice in a jar, then add a bit of water. You let the jar sit for a few days in a warm place, stir it ocassionally. Mold should form on the top of the water, and then you clean the seeds with water. The mature seeds will sink to the bottom, and the mold and immature seeds will pour out when the contents of the jar are dumped. There's a much better description in the Seed Ambassadors zine, which is where I got this information from. They also tell you how to save LOTS of other seeds as well. I think I posted it on here before, but it's definitely worth posting again. In the spirit of seed saving, this information is completely free for anyone to download who wants it.
As an update, I went grocery shopping with the reporter from the radio on Tuesday. I ended up talking a lot about the VISTA program, because as far as I'm concerned, it was incredibly easy for me to get food stamps. So my food stamp story may not necessarily be... your average story! I essentially chose to have them, and most people... don't (obviously). It was probably interesting for them, anyway. Hopefully!