We got our seeds

Yesterday we got our veggie seeds in the mail from SESE. Their shipping was surprisingly fast. They shipped on Tuesday, and we got our seeds on Friday.

Here's a picture of some of the packets that we got. Since we ordered so many varieties, I won't list them all here, but we got 5 kinds of tomatoes (including Cherokee Purple!), some corn, root vegetables, pole beans, etc. We'll be transferring them into some containers with some silica gel.

Hot peppers! 

In addition to vegetable seeds, I ordered some hot pepper seeds. The woman who sells them is also fast with shipping them out, and she also adds some gifts (I got Tabasco seeds and some other hot chili pepper seeds). I looked at how much bhut jolokia seeds would be at Baker Creek, and they would have been expensive and they only send out 10 seeds. This lady, however, sent me probably 20! Holy cow, I'm going to be ordering from her again. She's got so many varieties that sound interesting; it was hard for me to choose just a few. You can order from her at pepperlover.com. Best of all - get this - shipping was free!!

About the soap: it gelled on me last night and well into early this morning. I removed most of the blankets last night because I needed them, but even with just a light covering the soap was still gelled in the morning. I decided to leave it in the mold for an extra day so that it will harden a bit more, and tomorrow I will pop the bars out. Hopefully, they don't stick to the sides. **Gelling is interesting because it produces a different type of product. Basically, the soap gets a translucent quality to it. Compare that to non-gelled soap that is kind of opaque. Also, the saponification process is sped up (I think) because so much heat is created during the gelling phase. I didn't even think that this soap would gel because the mold isn't that deep and I didn't make that much soap.

Here are a few tips I've learned if you want to make cold-process soap.
1. Read about the process as much as you can! Like I said, I belong to a chicken forum (full of people who take care of chickens, mainly, but do other things too!), and the soapmakers there are very helpful. It's also great that I can post a question and someone can answer it right away. You should look for a "soapers" forum to gather as much info as you can from many different soapers.
2. Take your time so be organized. The more organized your ingredients are, the smoother your soapmaking process will be. I always start my soaping by weighing out EVERYTHING and then focusing on melting or stirring the lye into the water or milk or whatever. This has helped me tremendously and has probably cut down on my soaping time. I've done this since the beginning, so it's an ingrained process now.
3. Experiment with small batches at first. Start with at least 2 lbs. but probably not more than 3. I have been doing mostly 2-3 lb. batches but soon I will start doing at least 4 lbs. I want thicker bars, and because I have the 18 bar soap mold I can make a lot of bars at once. Small batches don't cost too much to make. I read of one beginner trying to do a 10 lb. batch for her first one...No way would I have attempted that for my first try!