Happy Easter

Hope you are having a lovely day enjoying the beauty of Spring. We had our first Easter feast yesterday, and are preparing for our second today. The sun is shining, the flowers are in bloom, the butterflies are fluttering, and it truly is beautiful day.

My Herb Box

As I can't really plant much outside, I like to keep a container of herbs on my lanai. Here is an updated photo of my herb box taken on 03/07. In my last Herb Box posting, I had planted the Nasturtiums (02/15). My dill didn't make it, so am going to purchase one to replant. They were still doing really well, as was my Cilantro that popped up from roots that I had planted last summer. This was a very unexpected and very welcome surprise. Harry's Chives were still doing well, but my Basil had run it's course, so I bought an organic Dandelion plant to add in it's place. I love Dandelion Salad, so am looking forward to seeing how this grows.

I don't seem to have much luck keeping Cilantro, so I'm enjoying it while I can. We had Tacos tonight so it was nice to go and harvest my own. Maybe I will be more successful this time around, but it seems like once the summer rains begin, my Cilantro disappears.

This photo was taken on 03/15. Just one week after the first photo in this post! My Nasturtiums are growing like mad! I can't wait to see what color they will be. The Cilantro is taking over and is really filling in the container, and my Dandelion is doing well.

It keeps getting greener and larger by the day. My gnomes are enjoying the shade... This is the best my herb garden has ever looked. I use an organic planting matter mixed with a little planting soil. To enrich the soil, I add the used leaved from my morning cup of tea. Right now I'm drinking an Earl Grey Green Tea, and it seems to be suiting my herbs. Now I don't do this every day, but about once a week. The additional left over tea gets mixed in with our coffee for my gardenia and roses. Every 6 weeks I do Jerry Baker's "Happy Herb Tonic". This is the first time I've done it religiously, and I really think I can tell a difference.

If you are interested in this post, please check back in a few weeks. I'm going to be posting updates on what I've done right and wrong. Hopefully there will be more rights than wrongs! If you have an tips, suggestions, or advice, I'd love to hear from you!!!

Ikea's Basil From Seed

While I do have a fairly green thumb, I've always been intimidated by gardening from seed. For Christmas this year, my fab friend Gloria gave me a bag of goodies from Ikea. In the bag was this kit to grow basil from seed. I started it on 03/07. In the pot was a disc of potting matter that you soak for 15 minutes in 1 cup of water. It expanded to fill the pot, then you scattered the seeds on top... and wait.
I'm not known for being the most patient person, but this really started to sprout in days! One week later, on 03/15, this is what I woke up to find:
By 03/30 the bright green sprouts had started to take a yellow hue. I was also noticing fuzzy mold spores starting to appear. As the instructions weren't entirely clear, I wasn't sure how much water or sun I should be giving it. I'm not sure if there was something I was doing wrong or even how to correct it.
By 4/07, the mold was starting to take over. Sadly, this was the end of my Ikea basil plant.

Camouflage Tree: A.K.A. Sycamore (10/02)

My sister-in-law treated us to a lovely lunch at a hotel on the lake. It was such a beautiful location and the garden was lined with these stunning sycamore trees. They were the most striking trees I have ever seen. Each one was a work of art: they all looked like they had been painted in a perfect camouflage pattern that could be plucked straight out of Domino magazine. Now - we probably have them in the US and you might not see what the fuss is all about, but to a Florida girl, they were magic.

A Walk in an Alpine Meadow (10/02)

We didn't find an open place for lunch, but went further up the mountain to a lovely meadow. While it was starting to cloud up in the distance, it was sunny and warm where we were at. Here are some of the images from that walk:

This was beautiful, past bloom but still stunning. I can't remember what this was called, but will post it when I find out. If you know what it is, please leave a comment.

Having a Wild Thyme in France! An obsession of mine is identifying edible plants in the wild. As you would expect from any Ricola advert, wild thyme is growing all over the Alps: Swiss or French!

Gardening: Birds of Paradise

In my neighborhood, the houses are so close together that you can carry on a conversation with the next door neighbor while you're both sitting at your own kitchen tables. This really doesn't bother me, apart for my back yard. When I'm out in my lanai or pool, I'd like to have total privacy. A year or so after moving in we started planting things around the lanai that would grow tall and thick enough to give us some privacy.

You can see in this photo how close the neighbor's lanai is. At one point, there is only about a foot of land separating them. We wanted something that would be drought tolerant, giving us a tropical feel so we planted two white Birds of Paradise on the corners with a Rubber Tree in between. In the course of about 6 months, they shot up to almost the height you see in this photo.

Here is a close up of the combination. We liked it so much that we've planted the same arrangement on the other corner of the lanai. It doesn't get as much sun as the other side, so is slower growing.
Here are a few "Birds" getting ready to bloom.

Here is one that is blooming. We didn't have any blooms at all the first two years that we had them, and this year it really seems to be taking off.

This is a shot of regular Bird of Paradise that we have. It doesn't get as tall as the white ones, but we love the colors.

Gardening: Seagrape

When we first bought our house, we had a huge ficus tree outside our dining room window. It was beautiful and shaded the window nicely, but had huge roots that were growing towards the foundation of our house, so had to go. We were left with the dilemma of what to put in it's place. We went back and forth, J wanting one thing, me wanting another. After about 6 months of looking around different garden centers, we agreed on the Seagrape.

The Seagrape (Coccoloba uvifera) is a sprawling bush or small tree that is found near beaches throughout tropical America and the Caribbean, including southern Florida and Bermuda. It reaches a maximum height of 8 metres, but most specimens are little more than 2 metres tall. It has large, round, leathery leaves (up to 25 cm in diameter) with a primary vein that has a red color extending from the base, and the entire leaf turns red as it ages. The bark is smooth and yellowish. In late summer it bears purplish fruit, about 2 cm in diameter, in large grape-like clusters. The fruit also contains a pit.

The tree is unable to survive frost. However, it is moderately tolerant of shade, and highly tolerant of salt, so it is often planted to stabilise beach edges; it is also planted as an ornamental shrub. The fruit can be used for jam or the fruit can be eaten right off the tree.

We now have three in various places around our house. They are low maintenance and absolutely gorgeous. While we haven't had any fruit yet, I'm anxiously awaiting the opportunity to make my first jam!

Gardening: Curry Plant Update

My curry plant is doing well and is getting larger. I haven't transplanted it as I haven't been able to get another one so still haven't decided where I want to put this one.

Last weekend I found a recipe for potato salad using curry plant. I wasn't expecting much as I've heard it isn't really that great for cooking. While it wasn't horrible, it wasn't very good either. It didn't ruin the taste, but there was this strange smokey flavor that I'm sure was from the curry plant. It will definitely be kept for the scent, and not flavoring food.

Gardening: My Bougainvillea

This bougainvillea is outside my kitchen window. It requires little attention and is absolutely amazing. We fertilize it two or three times a year, it is drought tolerant and is almost always in bloom. Our house is very close to our neighbor's, so it also gives us some privacy. We've let it grow larger than we've had it in the past, first due to the fact that there was a bird nesting, but then we just couldn't bring ourselves to make it any shorter. We've had two different neighbors next door and they both have said how they probably get to enjoy it more because they're looking at the front when their blinds are open. So to sum it up: beauty, privacy, drought tolerant and shelter for the birds, what a lot in return for such little effort!

Gardening: Some of My Roses

This bush is on the side of my house and is probably my fullest bush. It blooms in clusters, which are absolutely gorgeous when cut and in my favorite vintage mustard jar with a sprig of rosemary.

This is on the side of my house, which is the best place for my roses as it get the most sun. It requires little maintenance, and produces these large, lovely scented, vividly-colored roses.

This is one of my favorites and grows like crazy. The scent isn't very strong, but it is a very bushy, hardy plant.

Sadly, this one is gone. It had the strongest, most divine scent.

This one took it's place, but isn't doing too well at the moment. J trimmed it down last weekend and we're giving it lots of TLC. Watch this space...

Creatures in My Garden: Wasp Spider

Last Sunday, J was outside doing some gardening and called for me to have a look at this spider. You can imagine my reaction... my heart jumped up into my throat! Of course your initial reaction is that it must go, but I decided to do some research on-line. After searching, we both agreed that we thought it was an Argiope bruennichi, or wasp spider. While it does look like your worst nightmare, it appears that they are non poisonous to humans. This is the side effect of not using harsh chemicals in gardening, we get all the beasties. Which is also a good thing, this fierce looking creature will help keep down the population on some of our unwanted pests.

The following Monday, on my way home from work, there was a story on NPR about Charlotte's Web. When I was little, I loved the film, but only saw it once due to the fact that I was inconsolabe at the end when Charlotte dies. The NPR program got me thinking: why wasn't I afraid of the cartoon Charlotte? Would I have been afraid of her or so upset if she hadn't been so witty, elegant, and loyal? To this day I've yet to read the book or watch the updated live action version, despite knowing one of the animators of Templeton. After listening to this though, it made me curios to read it, and see Charlotte through an adult's eyes.

And thanks to my outside guest, my garden will be without (in the words of Charlotte A. Cavatica) "flies, bugs, grasshoppers, choice beetles, moths, butterflies, tasty cockroaches, gnats, midges, daddy longlegs, centipedes, mosquitoes, crickets — anything that's careless enough to get caught in my web."

Here is the link to that story on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93263496

Introducing...

Alfie and Archie

Gardening: The Alluring Curry Plant

From the spring of 1997 until the end of summer 1998, I lived in Wymondham (pronounced "windem"), England. Wymondham is a little town just outside of Norwich, Norfolk. We lived in a lovely flint stone terrace cottage in the center of town. It was heaven, we had Thai, Indian, chip shop, corner shop, bakery (2 actually) and a video shop all in walking distance. During the summer we were inundated with the smells of Thai and Indian food. The Thai place was parallel to our back garden, so we could smell them cooking out their back door. Although the Thai place was closer, we always had a stronger scent of Indian food. That was until one day when our land lady, Brigid, informed us that the scent was actually from a curry plant that was just outside the kitchen window.

It looks a lot like lavender, with blossoms that resemble dill. The one we had in England was fairly large. The smell was so intoxicating, it really does smell like curry! When you cut it, like most things, the smell is even stronger. It doesn't taste at all like curry, which is a little deceiving. But still, to have something smell so divine, I'm not complaining.

Recently, my mother and I were down town at the Farms' Market and decided to pop into Whole Foods, where I was greeted by that familiar smell. It is the first time since Wymonham that I had seen one! (Though my mom said that Gordon Ramsey was on Martha, cooking fish with curry plant) It was still small when I brought it home, so we decided to leave it in the container to allow it to grow a bit before transplanting it. It is still in the original container, and we're having a dilemma of where to plant it. We've really enjoyed having it in the lanai, but my current container is just too small (and crowded with thyme, dill, basil and chives), so I'm thinking of planting it just outside of the lanai. I've got loads of room in the rosemary planter, but it's too far away from the area where we spend the most amount of time. Whole Foods are going to try to order another one so I can plant one where originally intended, and one on the other side to completely fill the lanai with whiff of curry. Hope the neighbors don't mind!!!

Here is a link for more information on Wymondham:

http://www.wymondham-norfolk.co.uk/index.php