Cold this morning with more snow probable.  We did get our path on the patio cleared yesterday.  Where my containers had been clear with only a thin layer of old snow small mountains of snow four feet high obscure everything.  Looking out over the "winter wonderland" I am amazed when I realize I will be starting some of my seeds in a little over a month.

The garden planning goes on.  I have six varieties of tomatoes and I don't know exactly where a couple of them will go.  I decided to experiment with a couple of the small varieties (Micro Tom and Red Robin) and a tumbler (Tumbler hybrid) for the baskets I can hang on my fence.  I have two standard. indeterminate slicers (Costuluto and Amish Gold) both of which are heirloom.  I yielded to impulse and got seed for the Roselle cherry tomato--also standard, indeterminate heirloom.  I need to remind myself to save seeds this year.  The maturity dates go from a very early 45 days to a very long 90 days so I should have tomatoes for a long span this summer.  I do plan to make and can tomato sauce but will buy the romas from the farm market and add in any of the home grown tomatoes we can't eat right away.

Of course you can't have tomatoes without peppers.  I have two favorites (Albino Bullnose and Lipstick) ready to start in late March.  I yielded to another impulse and added the Violet Sparkle.  All are heirlooms.  We don't eat many hot peppers but if I can find a Mexibelle (very mildly hot) transplant I will make room for it.

Reading today:

From Market Watch: a good reason not to use the herbal supplements.  More details here.  We don't do herbal supplements.  We do like herbal teas and I grow several herbs every year.  But we drink the teas for the flavor not for the health benefits.   Crooks & Liars also has a comment.  Although I agree with the remarks about this being yet another example of retailers (and by extension, manufacturers) putting profit above quality and defrauding their customers, the comments ignore a long history of product adulteration which is probably as long as the history of commercial production.  Look up the penalties for selling/producing inferior/watered beer under the Hammurabi code.  And Medieval bakers created the "baker's dozen" so they wouldn't suffer the severe penalties for short weighting the goods they sold their customers.  Caveat emptor, as the Romans said.

I have thought for a long time that the so-called sharing economy, exemplified by Uber, Lift, Airbnb and others,  were a new form of a rental economy.  Robert Reich calls it the "share-the-scraps economy."  Either way it sucks.

Patrice Lewis on whether "we own our stuff or it owns us" and the place of technology in our lives.