Katiebird's Garden

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Spring Updates: Seedlings, Gardening & Thyroid Issues

Well hello!

It’s been awhile, I know. The past two months are the spring doldrums here in Minnesota. There were a couple heavy blizzards, its been cold and now rainy. We are waiting for it to warm up before raking our lawn, cleaning out all the leaves and uncovering many tiny, but persistent, green shoots of iris, lilies, alliums and hasta. Speaking of hastas, did you know you can eat them like asparagus? True-I will be trying some this year since our plants are old and very prolific, even though I split them every year, they never stay neat and tidy. Hoping they taste good and are a good replacement for the asparagus as I do not enjoy the asparagus-smelling pee that I have the genetic pleasure of being able to smell. So weird. Look it up.

My seedlings are growing well in the indoor green houses. I’ve potted up a lot of things and started many things that I will be leaving in their tiny seed starting cells since it’ll be only around 2 weeks before I can plant the cold-hardy ones outside. I started plants much later than I ever have and it’s a good thing this year. I think they’ll be the perfect size to plant out. Not too leggy, but still giving the jump in growing that starting seeds indoors provides. I’m really going to try to hold off until there’s no risk of frost and the need to protect all the babies out there.

Via my work, I receive a very cool and informative agricultural weather forecast each day. It discusses world weather patterns, national crop planting data, ground temperature maps and forecasts. Lots of scientific info that gives truer info than the local weather people. Its been consistently showing us as cold and wet for a while. Hopefully the promise of higher temps in the next couple weeks will remain true. The frost threat map is disappearing northward every day!

Garden production plans this year are pointing towards many peppers, onions and tomatoes. Of course, multitudes of green beans are always in the plan. I’ve been trying to eat all the frozen veggies and canned tomato products and time it well so that the new batches will be put up right when we’re running out of last year’s production. We’re also searching for a good European cornichon pickle recipe. I bought some Hocus Gherkin cucumber seeds, which are a smaller cucumber that we hope to use. If anyone has a good cornichon recipe that has white wine and tarragon in it, please share! I’m not afraid of using European canning recipes either, I know that Ball does not rule the world.

I recently volunteered during Earth week with a group at work, shoveling compost into bags for a couple hours! It was fun and I took home 12 bags of nice compost. I’d rather pay for compost that benefits a club and some other local charitable orgs than giving my $$ to the Big Box Store that sells compost with chunks of wood and plastic in it.

I have a thyroid update too. The update is that it’s even more effed up! I recently went in for a well check up physical with a “regular” Dr. and we were discussing how my TSH was low a couple months ago, and my Endo lowered my Levothyroxin dose, so she ordered a new test to check on that. It’s 0.02 today-that’s considered sub-clinical. Totally opposite what Hashimoto’s should be doing while on Levo. So I’m still in hyper level status. I haven’t heard from the Dr. regarding this result yet, so I’m hoping it strikes her as a bit alarming and that something is going on. I have lost only a total of 6 lbs in 5 mos of consistent working out, macro tracking and calorie watching. Again, my list of frustrations is increasing as my TSH is decreasing! My pulse is elevated even while at rest, which it shouldn’t be since I’m pretty in shape right now and I’m still having heart palpitations or “adrenaline rush feelings” that are concerning to me. Come on doctors, lets look into this a bit more!

Speaking of more doctoring, I finally got a blood draw for the functional medicine Dr. I started seeing. Its called a Super Panel that checks all the thyroid levels (hoping the results come in soon to see all that,) hormone levels and food sensitivities. I’m excited to see those results, I find it a bit fascinating and am interested in having a baseline at this age. I’m feeling a bit promiscuous in my health care usage lately, but obviously I’m not totally well and can feel that, so I’m looking for answers.

I’m looking forward to yard clean-up and garden planting! What is everyone else looking forward to?

Happy Peppers Potted Up!