The eggs (and the table, and the sink . . . ) are now dyed and super-glittered. Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Society Garlic from this morning.

I posted this pic on my Facebook and a friend described society garlic:

It's got a more refined taste than Townie Garlic,
but is more expensive, and leaves when summer ends.

Jackson Pollock Cookies

Above is my batch of holiday cookies I made this year. They are yummy and super dunkable. I'm getting everyone (neighbors, teachers, co-workers) a dozen. Since I don't know all of your addresses (and couldn't afford postage anyway,) I'm giving you the gift of the recipe. Now this is important: This recipe for seriously time crunched, "only bake once a year" people with no artistic talent, preferably mothers with kids who always want to "help." I was tired of sugar cookies that looked like they were in horrible accidents. So please, if you have extra time and talent on your hands, make something more complicated and leave this one to us.

Here you are: I call them Jackson Pollock Cookies (Seriously, NO ONE I work with understood why.)

1. Bake a package of pre-made sugar cookie dough according to package directions. Let them completely cool. I made them a night before. If you are ambitous, you can roll out the dough and cut out shapes, however that would be streching my baking skills past their breaking point.

2. Get a bag of regular chocolate chips and two bags of white chocolate chips. (Reserve one bag of white for later.) In separate bowls, melt the chocolate in the microwave. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir and repeat until melted. If needed, add a capfull of veggie oil to make the chocolate flow better. (The more oil you add, the softer the chocolate on the cookie will be, so use sparingly.)

3. Split the remaining white chocolate chips and melt the same way, adding red and green food coloring to the bowls. Add a couple more capfuls of oil to these to make them very drizzly.

4. Place the cookies on a table covered in wax paper. Dip half the cookie in either white or regular chocolate. Set on the wax paper. When you have a bunch of these, let the kids dip forks in the colored chocolate and drizzle it over the cookies. It helps if you close your eyes and pretend you are Jackson Pollock. Can't really mess this part up and kids love it.

5. Let the chocolate harden. This can take up to an hour if you are like me and always put in too much oil. Putting them in the fridge helps too. Then enjoy dunking them in some coffee or hot chocolate. (I'm pretty sure I've made this sound way more complicated than it is. Its pretty simple if I can do it.)

This will be the only recipe that you see on this particular website, because I don't know how to make anything else. That's what husbands are for.

May your holidays be filled with Peace and Love.

Monsters in the Garden

What do you do when there are monsters in the garden?

Wait a while. They'll go to sleep eventually.

Halloween was fun, if a bit low key this year. Our parents all came over for food and hung out to entertain trick-or-treaters while the monster and I took the little monster out to make the rounds. The little one was a cutest witch ever:

Overall it was a fun night. (Oh, and thanks for the comments on our anniversary. Two years and counting! Our Halloween story is here. )

The 4th

Well, now that I have sobered up enough to post pictures, here's the yard before the party. Below are videos of the fire works. Yes, I'm doing most of the yelling in the background.

Backyard Fireworks

Happy Easter

Did you find all of your eggs today?

Christmas in Florida

My family spent Christmas day with my Mother-in-Law in Dunnellon, Florida. They live in a house on a swampy river full of gators and cypress trees. My husband grew up there. Thought I'd share some of the pics:

A canna growing on the bank. In the spring the banks are covered with them.

Check out the tree philodendron. I have seen them form trees before, but never climb up one!

Sunset on the river.

Toyz, Toyz, Toyz!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, I certainly did. I got lots of toys! Er . . . I mean, my daughter got lots of toys!! The debate on how to raise future gardeners has been raging in the blogosphere. Check out this toy that activates the minds of little would-be gardeners. This could also be a mock up of my future home if money and physics were no object.

It is the Garden Girlz Meadow Mansion that my daughter got for Christmas yesterday. I officially like it as much, if not more, than my daughter. Who wouldn't like to live in a flower?

The coolest part is that there is growing medium that looks like white batting that you soak and put into crevices on the toy. The set includes seeds for grass and bean sprouts that you plant in the medium. So the toy is actually a planter! So cute! It even comes with a tiny little watering can. Can you image how many hours of fun you could have had if this when you were young? I am forever trying to recreate this fantasy garden I have had in my head since I was a child. I can't wait to see what gardens my daughter comes up with after playing with this. Meanwhile, I'll be riding on a berry gondola . . . . . . and wheeling around some pollen in my rosebud house. They have an incredible boring and uninformative website here. They really should have done something cute with it. I wouldn't recommend this toy to young children because there are quite a few very small pieces.

Santa gave me toyz too! Here is a belt thingy with pouches for tools. Very cool.

I also got some primo pruners. And a Lowes Card! Wah-hoo! Way to go Santa!

Oh! And a amaryllis from my Grandma. More on that in future posts.

Halloween Party 2007

Well, now that I'm done with the hangover and the sugar rush has subsided, I can honestly say that our party was a success. As you can see, I dressed up in the scariest costume I could find, Britney Spears. (Listen, she's had a rough year. . . ) And my man is some freaky homicidal monster, like always. Me and the freak have been married 1 year and together 7. Overall, its been a great ride.

I love you, baby!!

The front of the house at night. Here are decorations during the day.

I promise, actual garden related posts this weekend!!

Pumpkins Today, Party Tomorrow

Here are this year's pumpkins. Mine is the second from the left. It would have won if my spider wasn't missing a leg.

Halloween

As you might imagine, being a Wicked Gardener and all, Halloween is a very special time around my home. There are so many reasons why this season is special. As a kid, Halloween was full of fun and exasperation at finding out what mother had come up with for my costume. One year I was a Rubik's cube with a large immobile box and construction paper squares. Another year I was Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. It was a very cute costume sewn by my aunt. Unfortunately my hair was blond, and Dorothy's was not. So my Mom and Aunt spray painted it black, which gave my Dad a conniption fit when it didn't come out for a few days. Finally, I was once a gumball machine. Yep, a gumball machine. The gumballs were colored balloons stuffed into a clear plastic bag and the whole thing put over my head. The worst part of this was that the plastic bag tore and the balloons started falling out, delighting the neighborhood kids who went down the street popping them. Seriously, was a fairy princess that hard to pull off?

Halloween became more significant over ten years ago, when I was a co-ed on vacation from school and my Monster was a married waiter who worked with and lived next to my friend who now is the Nursery Nazi. She had young son and I'd come over to help carve pumpkins. Her husband and my Monster, who was always there hanging out, joined in. Eventually, the carving became a competition, and an annual tradition we still do today. One year, when my Monster's marriage had ended and I moved back to Ocala, he asked me out. The date, our first, was on Halloween. Six years and a little girl later, we were married on Halloween. This October 31st will be our first anniversary. The party developed just as organically. The neighborhood we moved into is very Halloween friendly. I wanted to take my daughter trick-or-treating and my husband wanted to come with us, so my Mom volunteered to stay at the house and pass out candy. My Dad heard she was coming and wanted to come by too. My Monsters-in-law heard my parents were coming by and they wanted to come. Everyone else heard our parents were coming to our house for Halloween and a party was born. I don't even have send out invitations. Everyone just comes over! Eventually, I'd like to turn it into a block party, a fun way to meet the neighbors. So these are decorations for this year. A skeleton theme. Halloween decorations always look crappy in the daylight. Come back to the blog Thursday and I'll post the pictures of decorations at night and of the party.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Do They Make a Spray for This?

First the caterpillars, now these! Yes, in Florida, where the leaves do not change color and the air only barely cools off, sometimes the only sign that fall is here is the first sighting of skelatons on the oleander. In a week, the yard will be infested! Yay!!!

It has been a rainy week so far. The plants have enjoyed it, but everything is soggy. It was fun to be standing in the house, looking out at the garden and suddenly see an unidentifiable spot of pink. I ran out to the butterfly garden and found this brand new bloom on my camellia, which did a whole lot of nothing last year. Lots of buds on the plant so I should have many blooms to come!!

Fresh looking vinca soaking up the rain.

Even the roses in front of the play house, which looked dead all summer, decided to perk up.

Happy 4th of July!!!

While we weren’t able to have the big blowout we were hoping to have for the 4th, we were able have some family over, mostly because they were kind enough to bring over most of the food!! And of course, after months of drought, we woke up to RAIN!!

A big bummer, but it cleared up by about 7pm, just in time for the fireworks. Now, in Florida, fireworks are illegal for private displays unless you are using them to scare away birds for “agricultural purposes.” Now, I have noticed a lot of birds in the garden lately. It must be a huge problem because they were selling fireworks on every street corner. On the 4th the problem must have totally got out of control because the entire neighborhood decided to scare away the birds that night. First we'll smoke 'em out:
Actually it was very cool. My monster would set off a firework and then the neighbor then another neighbor. Everyone at each party would drunkenly cheer and it would become a competition to see who could shoot off the best fireworks and who could cheer the loudest. Add to that that we were only a few miles from the cities display so we can see and hear those through the trees and the countless other yards setting off their own shows. The result is near constant explosions for several hours. If you closed your eyes, you really could imagine some Revolutionary war battles going on.
My husband lit all of the fireworks in front of the butterfly garden. I'll be picking out debris for weeks. These are some he lit:

Here is a glipse of the big, city fireworks behind the trees.

The kids enjoyed the sparklers.


Interestingly, I don’t think this picture is blurry. It is exactly how it looked to me that night. What was in that punch, anyway?
The pool garden (that big blue spot is the pool) looks amazing lit up at night. I'll have to work on taking sober pictures in the evening.

Let just say the birds were scared shitless.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Here's what I got for my Mama for Mother's day. Its a green glazed pot with hot pink coleus like the ones from the corner garden and purple sweet potato vine from cuttings. Tip for anyone in an especially hot climate: always get glazed pots. They retain moisture because water can not evaporate through the pot like in terra cotas. They are more expensive, but they look SO much better and in the middle of summer it is nicer to water only once a day instead of twice!!

Happy Mother's Day!