Garden iPad cover

 The other day I ordered a "garden" iPad cover. It is not the perfect cover but it was reasonably priced and it will protect my iPad from scratches and dings. I ordered it because it has a garden theme and I thought that was appropriate for me.

I also wanted to tell you about a great iPad app I found. It is called GardinateHD. It was started by a gardener in Australia who developed it to help keep records of planting and maintaining your garden. It has a list of plants and the times you should plant them.

You can make notes about all you did to grow a certain plant and here is the thing I like best -- you can put in the date of planting and you can then see when the harvest date should be for your area. I think this is really great and I hope -- really hope it will improve my garden record keeping this year. So far it has been an enjoyable for me. You can even use an online version, but I don't know if it as helpful as the App. There is also an Android version.

If you are wondering if there is an app for almost anything, the answer is probably, yes.

Two things

I have some great news about our new Crossroads Garden Club. See the inhttp://twosistersgardening.blogspot.com/formation here.

My seeds are looking so good -- or should I say my plants. Above you can see my baby basil plants and my cilantro babies, too at the lower edge of the photo. They are beginning to put out second leaves. They are amazing!

At this point I will just say that I think grow lights are just wonderful. The difference in growing last year without a light and this year with a light is just night and day -- or should it be darkness and light? I do notice from the photo above that one of my little pots doesn't have a plant!! How did that happen? Anyway, grow lights. They don't have to be wonderful, a fluorescent will do. They also sell just regular lights at Lowe's and Home Depot that are made for growing and they fit in a regular light bulb and are very reasonable.

It is time now for tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. I will be moving these plants to another spot to start my next group of seeds. I would also like to grow a few flowers, especially alyssum and marigolds because they are great companions for vegetables. Some of these herbs I will grow in the regular vegetable garden, too. I am hoping this continues and I have all the basil I could possibly use.

Oh, the Places You'll Go, and other reflections

Today is the big release day for the new Lorax movie based on the beloved book, The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. More importantly, it is also the birthday of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel).

It is hard to find a person who hasn't in some way been entertained and inspired by Dr. Seuss. The first of his books I remember reading is The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. I also read If I Ran the Zoo so many times to my children that I can still recite most of it and who hasn't made green eggs for their kids? I never could bring myself to add green food coloring to ham, though.

In honor of this day, I found some rare plants inspired by Dr. Seuss. Do you think Dr. Seuss was inspired by any of these for his truffula trees?


"Mister!", he said with a sawdusty sneeze, I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,
And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs" --
He was very upset as he shouted and puffed --
"What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"
-- From The Lorax, Dr. Seuss, 1971

By Fort Photo, Michael Menefee: "Oh Gee!" the Lorax said with glee, "I've found a green bee in a truffula tree!"

From Lolabud: Remnants of my clematis blooms, a reminder of Dr. Seuss', The Lorax.

From Lee Sie's Photostream: The Truffula Trees

From MegaGood: Flowers from a Dr. Seuss Arrangement

From Doug's Blog: A Garden of Dr. Seuss Flowers in Boston Near the Location of the Reformation 500

From Nathan's Two Cents

From houzz.com: Great Design Plant: Tree Aloe (Aloe barberae). Plant this Dr. Seuss-like evergreen for an added character in your garden

From Eric Toensmeier - writer, trainer, plant geek: This was apparently Dr. Suess' inspiration for the truffula trees in The Lorax. Theodore Giesel (Dr. Suess) lived just down the road from my house, in Springfield MA.

From Floral Sense: The Blog: Thing 1 and Thing 2

Also from Floral Sense: The Blog: And my floral interpretation of the Lorax trees in the theme colors

From amyfancher.com: Sculptural flower arrangements inspired by Dr. Seuss!

From Project 365, A Picture a day ... and maybe more: Truffula tree

From Rwanda on the Wing: I am not sure Dr. Seuss visited Africa before writing and illustrating The Lorax, but if he had, he would have seen his fictional truffula trees. The umuko, as it is called in Kinyarwanda, or Erythrina abyssinica, lights up the hillsides of Rwanda.

I don't know where Dr. Seuss got his inspiration but he certainly has continued to inspire us, gave us joy in reading and sometimes taught us a few lessons from life. I am pleased to join everyone in celebrating his accomplishments.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
“From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
“And will you succeed?
Yes! You will indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed)”
-- From Oh, the Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss, 1990

Snack time!

I am sorry to say this is not a healthy recipe or a gluten-free recipe. This is however an easy recipe and sometimes easy wins for me. I also thought it was tasty and made a TON of snack mix. This will serve a large crowd.

I made it because I wanted something tasty that wasn't corn chips or potato chips. This just seemed a more festive alternative. The taste reminds me of chips and onion dip combined in a form that is less messy. Here's the recipe and I will follow it with some gluten-free suggestions.

Ranch Snack Mix

1 box of Crispix Cereal (approx. 12 ounces)
1 box of Cheese-it Crackers (regular-sized box, approx. 13.7 ounces)
1 bag of small-sized pretzels (approx. 10 ounces)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 packages of Hidden Valley Seasoning Mix
2 gallon baggies or a very large bowl

Divide between 2 gallon bags, equal parts of the cereal, cheese crackers and pretzels. Leave enough space to carefully roll the bags to mix in the oil and the seasoning mix. If you would like, carefully stir the mix with a large spoon.

Drizzle  the olive oil between the two bags and roll so that the oil will blend into the mix.

Add one package of Hidden Valley Seasoning mix to each bag. Rolls until seasoning mix coats everything, and you're done. This should last in a sealed container for up to two weeks.

Note: I don't believe the size of the boxes really matter or how much of each ingredient you add. I like the Crispix best so I would probably add more of that than anything but you can make this your way or make a half recipe if you don't need such a large quantity. I used a very large plastic bowl that held the two gallons of mix and I carefully turned the bowl until all was mixed. Be careful not to break the ingredients because you don't want to be left with crumbs in the bottom.

By the way, my husband commented that this stuff was just too good and we were going to have to do something with it because it was making him f

For a gluten-free alternative: Crispix is not gluten free because it contains barley, so substitute Rice Chex for the Crispix. For the cheese crackers use either Wellaby's Cheese ups or Shar Cheese Bites. Glutinos has a gluten-free pretzel that is good and the Hidden Valley Ranch Mix is gluten-free so here are my gluten-free alternative suggestions. I think adding the seasoning would enhance these gluten-free products and make it even better for a party. I think it would be good enough to serve to all guests.

If you try the gluten-free mix, please let me know how it turns out.

A great website

I just received an email that asked, "What would you do if you could add an extra day to your year?--Wait, today is that extra day!"

That gave me some food for thought. Today is an extra day we have to catch up and for me, to do some extra garden planning. It is also a rainy day and that isn't exactly what I had hoped for, but as a gardener, I do think rain and proper planning are essential.

http://www.garden.org/

That is why I wanted to recommend one of my favorite informational websites. It is a website that gives you a bit of everything, from houseplants to regional zone info. It talks about bugs and gives you information on almost every topic. I really like the regional garden guides, the calculators, the plant finder and the pest control library.

It would be hard to answer every question that comes up, but this website attempts that.

Of course what you may want to do on this drizzly and possibly stormy leap year day is sit down with you latest garden book and have a good read. I would suggest that a nice cup of Earl Gray topped off with cream in a comfy armchair would just be my idea of heavenly.

Seed starting progress

Last week I planted some of my seeds in peat pots so I could transplant them in our garden later in the season. I am already having more success in this attempt at seed starting than I did last year. One of the things I am doing differently putting my plants under a grow light. Last year I just put the seeds in a room where we had a daytime light source. They grew, but it wasn't spectacular. This year the grow light is making all the difference.

To see how what I did to start the seeds go to my blog post on starting seeds indoors.

Almost a week ago I started with the little Jiffy starter pots above. I bought them at my local WalMart and I ordered some seeds online and bought some in the store.

Above, in the foreground are my Evergreen bunching onions and at the top of this photo are the my American Flag Leeks. I will have to work with them make sure they are hearty enough to plant in the garden. Last year, my onions didn't grow at all.

At the bottom of the above photo are Munstead English Lavender sprouts. Last year, they didn't sprout at all.

In this photo are the tomatoes I have sprouted. Last year I was able to grow some tomatoes but I had problems with the seeds floating all over the trays. They haven't all sprouted yet.

I also have a few cilantro plants. I am very excited about that, too.

None of my pepper seeds have sprouted. I do think they will but it takes longer for them. It might be next week for pepper plant sprouts.

I think the basil is my favorite. Last year, I bought basil plants for $3.49 per plant. That means I have about $84.00 worth of plants here. That is especially wonderful when I think about how much I will be saving if I can grow these plants and transplant them into the garden. I am especially excited to know that the grow lights are increasing the chances of my success.

Brussels sprouts and honey bees

This past weekend I looked at our garden and noticed several things. First our Brussels sprouts are heading on the top like cabbages. Is this normal? We still are getting little Brussels sprouts on the stems but I am so surprised that we have one great big cabbage-like top. As long as the weather stays cool we will have these wonderful sprouts but if they stop producing and start making loose sprouts, we will try the top and probably shred it and cook it like cabbage.

The next thing, we have honey bees. We have been concerned that we haven't seen bees in our garden for the last couple of years. No bees. We have bumblebees but no honey bees until this winter. We have let some of our plants like this mustard go to seed to draw bees and we are so glad that they are back -- not in droves, but we have seen a few each time have have been to the garden. That has to be a good thing. I certainly had a problem getting a photo of this little honey bee. He was really dodging my camera. Click on the photo if you want to see our friendly garden helper.

The other thing was that it was so nice to be back in the garden. It was something I have been missing. My sister and I both agreed it would certainly be nice to start our spring garden. It's hard work but it's fun, too.

I also wanted to remind everyone about the charter meeting of the Crossroads Garden Club on Tuesday evening, February 28th, at 3072 Highway 154, Newnan, Ga. It will be nice to get that started, too. We are really looking forward to beginning this club. If you need more information follow this link.