My First Salad!

I was thinning the Mescaline Mix seedlings this afternoon when I realized, "Hey, I could eat these little things!". I looked around the meager garden and noticed the Red Oak Leaf lettuce I bought at the nursery was in need of some maintenance as well. I broke off a handful of the pretty leaves, plucked some Johnny Jump Up blossoms, threw it all into a bowl and splashed on some dressing for the prettiest impromptu salad I ever did see. If I do say so myself...

Here to eating the garden!

Tomatomania!

Ever since my little venture into the frenzied world of Heirloom Tomato enthusiasts, getting my hands on some impressively unusual tomato plants has been a minor obsession of mine. Suddenly my garden will not be complete without some towering vines cascading in lumpy, multicolored, so-delicious-it’s-been-passed-down-through-nine-hardwoking-generations-of-Amish-farmers fruit. The only problem has been figuring out how to make it actually happen.

I’ve found a ton of websites selling heirloom tomato seeds. Often with tantalizing photos and ecstatic copy about how each one of their 400 varieties just happens to be the tastiest, most beautiful, biggest, sweetest heirloom on the market. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in all the hype. The only problem is, I don’t have time for seeds.

Seeds, had I bothered, would have had to have been started a month ago, in that greenhouse I don’t have, and then transferred out about now into those raised beds I haven’t gotten around to finishing…

But I just want my purple tomatoes! Like, yesterday.

I was almost ready to give in and settle for whatever predictable red variety I could find at my local nursery, when I stumbled upon a website that appears to be the answer to all my problems.

Windowbox.com is a site geared towards container gardeners like myself. Along with the usual useful tubs and window boxes and space-saving gardening equipment, they ship 10-week-old organic heirloom tomato seedlings all across the country. I still haven’t figured out which I am going to order. I only have so much space, but the pictures and descriptions make it tough to not just click “add to my cart” over and over until my finger falls off.

Anyway, I’ll update soon when I’m ready to place my order. I’m very excited!!!

Duck, duck...

Can I call it Spring yet? Seriously. The sun keeps shining like crazy, the birds wake me up in the morning, even the time has changed. And last week I sat in the park for an hour watching day-old ducklings test the waters beside their mama.

It's gotta be time to put seeds in the ground!

Any other North Florida Gardeners out there got any advice? I'm new here...

Sturm und Drang

"75 and sunny" I said! Ha!

More like menacing and thunderous.

I must have jinxed something because last night we had the most incredible storm. I'd never seen anything like it (we stick to earthquakes over in Los Angeles). Rain poured down in sheets from the eerily glowing sky as nearly continuous thunder and lightning created this dizzying strobe effect of light and sound. The wind whipped through my open window so hard it knocked half the items off my desk.

Jerrod and I raced out in ponchos to protect my tender seedlings from the onslaught. We called out to each other as we worked above the ceaseless, deafening roar, and the sense of urgency and camaraderie was the picture of melodrama.

So much fun!

Jerrod, Southern, used to all this, could brush it off and go to sleep indifferent. But I in my naive excitement was up for hours just watching the squall.

Everyone (plants included) was fine in the morning. Except for a few fallen branches it's like it never hit at all. The sky is back to baby blue and I'm gardening again as usual. Check out my amazing potato plants. They're growing like an inch a day! I can hardly mound the earth up fast enough.


And see how pretty my "mystery planter" (which turned out to be an old grill, go figure) looks all done up in lettuce, nasturtiums and two bell pepper plants?


This place is something else, I'll tell you that much.