Aloha- I'm in love.

Philadelphia is usually filled with peculiar smells.

You've got that odd, urine stench from the subway which you ignore, except to tuck your hands safely in your pockets to avoid touching the stair railings. There's the waft of baked goods- Amaroso rolls, pretzels and the like. And there's the people who smell heavily of meat, onions and cheese whiz. Or provolone if you prefer...

But this week, Philadelphia smells like Hawaii- which smells strongly of flowers with just an underlying, delicious stench of kona coffee. It's the Philadelphia flower show, Five-0 style.

And I am in love.

But of everything bright and colorful and tropical, the highlight for me was perhaps one of the most ordinary of all the displays. Ordinary in the sense that it was simply vegetables- but grown in the most spectacular way.

The garden above was so fun- interplanted and just a mess of all sorts of vegetables with no apparent pattern.

Tomatoes mixed with asparagus and kale and beets and everything inbetween....

And there was that wall of lettuce....

The overhead cherry tomato garden with clusters of tomatoes hanging like grapes....

Spectacular and simple cold frames....

And walls of herbs that you just want to run and jump onto, like those inflatable velcro carnival walls...

I think i found my dream house- much better than the candy house of Hansel and Grettle.

And that doesn't even begin to describe a fraction of the show...

Dresses made from succulants,

Terrarriums of every kind,

Unusual plants,

Gaudy Hawaiian decorations,

New uses for old items (like this tire planter),

 And of course, of course, the Organic Gardening Magazine culinary symposium, introduced by the editor-in-chief of Organic Gardening Magazine. You know when Justin Beiber or Taylor Swift walk onto the stage and people are so excited they do that awkward, laughing, crying, warbly mouthed, stroke-like droopy-faced screaming?

That was me internally.

So what about you? Have you gone to a flower show before? Are you planning to go? What were your experiences like? Share!

Caution: Gardenista Driver Ahead

There are a lot of things I planned on doing in my life. College, marriage, children...

But I never thought that my American Dream picket fence would actually be hog fencing and I would be driving down back country roads with an angry line of drivers behind me, wondering why a person with 16 foot fencing hanging off the back of her truck would only go 5 miles per hour over the speed limit. But it's Monday and I thought I'd spice things up a bit.

I'm fighting the sterotype that women can't drive...pickup trucks...with 6 feet of fencing over the cab and six feet hanging off the back, hitting every pothole on the way. Cause I'm a gardenista driver, and we like the potholes....

I bet those angry people don't get enough organic in their diets...

So I got home and frolicked about my garden, which is VERY hard to do when you've got sixteen foot fencing in hand, overhead, teeter-tottering you back and forth in a drunken-esk stupor across a plot of mud. It was so much fun.

It's a bit hard to see, which is sorta the point; drivers hate me but so far my neighbors and I have no quarrel. This is one squash trellis. I can't wait to see how many people get concussions from my garden this year. I may have to hang a warning sign...

This is my bean tepee And probably my second home. I think I need to plant some kind of moss inside or sedum or something that tolerates shade that I can curl up on.

This is squash trellis two. (And the piles of supplies that will hopefully become our patio this spring.)

This is the stump seat from which I will perch and nibble on all things yummy. Poor hubby. He's more apt to get scurvy than he is a fresh sugar snap pea. And the asparagus is growing right behind me, so there's no way he'll get that either...



Those are the posts from which I will hang netting for cucumbers to climb up and over and through, and a rough overview of my garden.

And this is spring, fighting winter and wining. Go Spring!

What are you doing to get ready for spring? Building structures? Planting seeds? Cleaning the yard?

Flirtations

The first time I brought my now hubby over to my parent's house to meet my Grandma, she pulled me aside from Sunday Lunch preparations while he was out on the patio with a family member and told me, "You need to have more flirtations." And then there was something along the lines of "get out there on the patio or I'm going out there." My grandmother was 93 and she's still a crazy spitfire today. So hubby and I had more "flirtations" and then we got married.

Flirting is fun.

Unless you're spring.

And then I expect commitment.
I don't flirt for kicks.

It was 50 this afternoon when I got home from visiting my Grandmother this afternoon. Great! A little nap, a little food, and I'll be out stringing up my bamboo bean tepee. And then somewhere along the line, this arctic chilly blast whistled its way across the little tundra that is my back yard, blustered it's way through the trees- making them moan and howl in protest and startled a flock of geese that was returning north to the "warmer" weather.

Evil Winter. Beguiling, evil winter-- a wolf in a little spring lamb's clothing.

But the afternoon was not a complete waste. I did get that bamboo up and strung, though the chilly air and tangly twine did nothing for my chapped hands. And I got to spend time with my Grandmother.

And I learned that I am from a line of gardeners. Though growing up in the 2o's and 30's, I suppose most people were, in a desperate attempt to feed their families.

But, I flipped through some old photo albums and dug out the few pictures I could find of my Grandfather in front of one of his smaller and later-in-life gardens.

I was small, so I don't remember too much, but I do remember green beans. Behind my grandfather is the apple tree he planted and a small little bare garden in the corner. I remember picking up the fallen apples on the ground each summer, tossing them away and dragging them to the curb in a little tin trash can. Of course, we did eat some when I was very, very young, and I remember eating pears from his neighbor, my great aunt's, property. I also remember that my Grandfather made one of the best horsies ever.

What are your reasons for gardening? Is it in your blood? Or do you just like knowing exactly where and how your food was grown? Share!

Pow(ErErErErErErrrrrrrrrrrrr) Tools.

It is gorgeous outside. With just three or four layers of thick wool clothing and a double up on the socks, one can really enjoy the beautiful nearly 50 degree weather today. It's practically bathing suit season--if you've got one of those head to toe bits from the 20's. And who doesn't?

That's why I had wind blowing in my hair and the rev of the engine cutting through the noise of twittering birds. Until I turned the power sander off. I love that tool, but it does leave a handful of sawdust plastered to the scalp. But today, I finished up that birdhouse I started weeks ago, and plopped it into the yard where it belongs.

If you didn't get the title,
That's my noise impression of a power tool engine.
None of my sisters or I were gifted with power tool impressionism. You should hear my sister's impression of a machine gun. Sad. So sad.

ANYWAY...

Tada! I tried to spray paint the roof pieces with that stone texture paint. I was going for "shingles." Eh, I luv it. I'll go back out and fill the base with bird seed and suet later on.
But first I had to wait for...

...my Quickrete to dry. Which it's doing right now. I hope. But it seemed stable enough when I left it. Alone. In the yard with no additional support. Swaying in the gentle breeze...

I was going to ask for a little help today, but poor hubby is slumbering away on the couch with a dreadful cold. I think I'll dope him up with a bit of NyQuil before I tell him I used a bag of his Quickrete. I'm sure he had plans for it.

Also...

I laid out my little "stepping stone" path, made from stained slices of trunk from the tree that fell in our yard last year. I've been skipping back and forth across it since I laid it down, imagining where the elephants ear is going to come up and where the ferns will be planted and where the honeysuckle will climb up the trunks and where the astilbes and bleeding heart will go...
The path ends at this cute shepherds hook from my mom, bird feeder from hubby and nephews and seed from father-in-law. I've got a super family!

 Not so super- my seedlings. I think they're taking steroids behind my back. One of them grew an inch and a half in 36 hours. I'm off to set up a nanny cam on those little guys.

 Up to anything in your yard? Getting those tools ready? Sowing those seeds inside yet? Share!

Sidebar... Please help me eat this!

This is the fantastic birthday gift, given to me by my employer.

How does one eat a grapefruit this big? How do you eat yours? I can't imagine how much sugar it would take if I dipped this entire thing into a bowl of it.

Suggestions? Droll comments? Care to share a bit of your wit?

Come on lil' fella...

Anyone who has owned a television in the last ten years has probably seen Jurassic Park.

One.

 Not the dozen or so to follow. And not to be confused with that other really popular movie, Sharktopus, which is almost as scary and realistic when it comes to people-eating monsters.

But, getting back on track, there's a scene in Jurassic park where a little tiny dinosaur is hatching from an egg in the confines of a lab. And all the characters coax it on with little whispers of "come one little fella" and "that's it!"
Unbeknownst to them, that dinosaur probably grew up and ate someone in movies two, or three, or four, or you get the point...

And this afternoon, as I was standing, pitcher in hand, water pouring all over the basement floor, shrieking like a cat that had gotten it's tail stepped on, I found myself thinking about that movie scene.

Because there, tucked under the little granules of dirt, pushing it's way heavenward with all the might it's fragile leaves could muster, was a little red cabbage plant peeking it's tiny little self out into the bright bright world of florescent lighting and thermal infrared waves.

Only, my plant won't be eating people.

Too bad... That would make a pretty cool horror film.
You can borrow that one SyFy Channel. You're Welcome.

Anyone else see anything popping out of the dirt that tickles them pink? Flowers? Weeds? Groundhogs? Share!

Anticipa(aaayyyy)tion

Good ole Carly Simon:
We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway

But I'm sure we never thought it would snow, get up to 50, snow, get up to 50, snow and so on...

But forget about the outdoors, nature, and shadowy-sissy Punxsutawaney Phil; I've started my first batch of seeds indoors. I know, I'm jumping the gun a bit, BUT I have those gorgeous cold frames my hubby built me, so I'll move my plants outdoors mid march or so and put them in the cold frames. Between that and my uncanny ability to make things die, the timing should work out just right for anything that survives, and if it doesn't then I'll give myself a bit of time to recover.

But here's how I started my seeds this year...

I started out with my handy dandy bucket. Anything works as long as it's clean. If it's not, most instructions I've read say to wash everything with a 10 percent bleach and 90 percent water solution, especially if you're using pots from the previous year. Unless you want things to catch disease and die.

I got these fantastic all natural seed starting soil bricks. You just add 8 quarts of water and it makes a LOT of soil, all from a teeny tiny lightweight block of dirt. (they are GREAT if you have little space for bags of dirt or are afraid that bugs have crawled inside the big bags and will gnaw on your hand when you stick it inside--it's not an irrational fear)

It's great to get the dirt wet first, rather than plant things in dry dirt and then pour tons of water on top, either floating the seed out of place or risking mold or damping off- or so I've read.

Mound up the dirt to the top, even creating a convex bubble at the top, since the dirt might sink down a bit when it gets watered.
I got these peat pots at the Christmas Tree Shop -$.25 for 20 last fall. I like them because they show when they are wet and dry very easily. It's the idiot's best friend for determining when to water.

Use a pencil, a stick, a carrot, rolled up dollar bills, whatever you want, to push a little hole at the center of your pots. Put in one or two seeds. I do two because I am paranoid that one will never grow. Push a little bit of the soil over the seed. VIOLA.

Label your pots and water. FROM THE BOTTOM. That probably explains why nearly all of my seedlings died last year. I always watered from the top (when I watered) until they were nearly floating. My seeds were like Noah's ark, adrift in a giant ocean of water, with no land in sight.

I put my grow light and heat lamp on during daylight, and turn them off at night. I should probably get a thermometer to check the temperature, but i made sure my heat lamp wasn't so close that it was roasting the seeds.

So far, I've got Spinach, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Brussel Sprouts. I'm crossing my fingers on this venture. I have a tendency to kill anything not permanently set in the ground. These poor little guys... Hopefully blogging will keep me honest and watering. I'd hate to disappoint the dozen or so of you who have somehow misinformedly determined I am knowledgeable enough to give advice. :)

I'm looking forward to starting the rest of my indoor seeds in the next few weeks, though I typically do well with direct sowing rather than the indoor method. But here's a view of the handy-dandy spring planting planner I got from Organic Gardening Magazine.

The left column lists the vegetable, the center lists how many weeks before or after the last spring frost seeds should be sown, and the right column is blank so the dates can be filled in according to zone. It takes all the guesswork out of it, for those of us who really wonder if we have to wait at all.

Hey, Lowes is putting everything out, it's time to get going, right?

Anyone have any success with starting seedlings indoors? Dismal failures? Warnings? Helpful hints?