Green Thumb Sunday

Daisey on the patio wondering what I am doing
What's left of my succulent garden after two years in what turned out to be a bad spot for succulents. My beautiful big jade tree did not survive the winter.

I've moved my succulents to the screen porch, and the orchids out to the key lime tree, so that I can better control how much water they receive.

This pot is actuallty broken but i like it so much that I am going to plant some string of pearls in it anyway. When my succulents were outside, something kept digging them out of this pot.

Orchids in key lime tree

My "pot" garden ;)

My backyard is a series of border gardens really.

The jasmine arbor freshly cut back.

Another bromeliad border.

Why is Blogspot adding these crazy spacings between my photos? I go to keep going back and deleteing the space but it never leaves it as I set it.

Green Thumb Sunday & Sunday Breakfast Recipe

Due to budget cuts, the plants in our office have either been removed or are no longer maintained by a service. They really didn't announce it to us, at least not to my knowledge, but eventually I noticed the decline of the health of this plant that were left in my area of the office. It was absolutely parched after neglect and I found it with all the leaves down, below the pot. I thought it was probably doomed but slowly tried to rehydrate it and, not only did it respond within a couple waterings, it is now healthy and blooming! Now I've moved on to some other plants on our floor that I notice are in decline too. Geez, they are living things and I hate to see them just die the slow death due to budget cuts.

There is a recipe going around our office, more like a procedure than a recipe, for making an omelet without using any oil/fat and without using a pan. Basically you crack two eggs in a zip-loc bag and add a couple teaspoons of several fillings (i used red bell pepper, vidalia onion, ham, and a mixture of shreadded cheeses). Smooch it all up to break and distribute the yokes. Then put the bag in a pot of boiling water for 15 minutes. The photo above is shortly after adding the bags (i made two omelets) to the boiling water.

Here they are after 15 minutes. It seems like 15 minutes is a long time but i understand from other folks who have tried this that anything less it is too wet.

Photo above is just out of the boiling water. It pretty much looks like an omelet but I wasn't sure until I took it out of the bag.

On my plate! You could dress it up with a little cheese and/or chopped veggies on top but it actually looked better in person than this photo. I dont' like eggs cooked in oil or butter so this was great for me - i usually eat poached eggs but ever notice it takes forever in restaurants when you order them poached?

This is the inside. I did a better job of the squishing process in Jerry's omlet so he didn't have areas of just egg white in his like in this one.

My favorite fruit - papaya! Actually my favorite food. I bought a really big red caribbean one from publix yesterday and we had half of it with our breakfast this morning. It was fabulous. Apparently this fruit is serious about procreation, lol.

My friend Vivian, from when I lived in Seattle, taught me a little trick to squirt lime juice on papaya. Wow - what a difference it makes. Papaya is very good on it's own but with lime it is the best thing - my favorite even above scallops and I love scallops (having them for dinner tonight).

We also had home-made blackberry jelly courtesy of my friend Kim from Georgia who I met in person for the first time two weekends ago in Kentucky. Meeting my online rat-terrier friends was awesome, especially when they bring homemade jam and dog toys, lol.

The fruit that is plentiful supply around here right now is the mango. Lots of people have trees in their yards and it is interested to hear of the mango wars going on (ownership disputes, fruit stealing, etc.) A coworker brought in some from her tree to share. I don't eat mangos but jerry does. The first one was super juicy but he is waiting on this one to ripen a little more. The flesh looks a bit like papaya but is taste nothing like it to me.

I'm going to make tomato pies tonight - one for dinner and perhaps a couple for sharing. If you've never had tomato pie you have to try it! Kinda tastes a little like pizza but "eats" more like quiche. The few people who have tried it as a result of me bragging, have loved it. Seems pretty healthy too. I got my recipe from the blog Deep Fried Kudzu here.

It's been a long time since I've done a Greenthumb Sunday since my own garden is a mess but with all this fresh produce in my kitchen, I just had to share!

Green Thumb Sunday - The Return of the Green Worms/Catepillars

Ack! You might need to click on these photos to enlarge to understand my response. Every few years we have a worm/catepillar year - depends on who you ask as to what they really are. They hang down from silky threads and form tents around some objects much like a spider spinning a web. We were parked next to this car at breakfast this morning. Obviously there is an oak tree near their driveway. Yes, those lime green specs are living, crawling organisms.


Look close at the photo below and in the very center you will see one dangling. It was quite breezy so they were moving when I was taking photos. I didn't want to get too close or to the areas where they were really heavy because frankly I did not want them in my hair!

My next door neighbor's truck. They are in the midst of "webbing" it. The amaizing part is that this is happening so quickly. If this was a horror story.....well, I don't even want to think of what Stephen King could do to this!

Here is the tree between her house and mine and it's the culpret. It is covered and I meaned covered in pollen. Jerry is a mess with allergies right now. The neighbor on the other side has an oak tree too (these are live oaks) and isntead of pollen it bombards us with acorns. Covers the cars and driveway and I guarantee you that even as small as they are, when an acorn comes plumeting to the ground from the top of a large oak tree, you are gonna know when it whacks you on the noggen. Both the trees also bless us with millions of small leaves.

Enlarge and look closely at the bottom of this shrub/tree. Those things have created a giant cocoon. I should have got a photo of my neighbor's mailbox because it completely enveloped. I was trying when one of the green creepy things almost landed on me and quickly ran into the street to avoid being cocooned myself.

It will be interesting at work tomorrow to talk to the meter readers after they come in from their routes (they walk them). Lucky for me I have a cushy office job ;)

Too Hot To Green Thumb Sunday

I did look around the garden today and I have to say that my shoe gardening isn't working out too well. I am guessing it is all the rain we've had or the hot temps. I dunno. Looks like I will need to replant and perhaps I don't use succulents again.

For the first time ever, I saw a Roseate Spoonbill standing on something. Typically they are working the waters of the retention pond or standing beside the pond. Until today I had never seen one perch.


Crockpotting again. Have three going right now. Making chicken adobo, beef paprikash, and a ham & wild rice soup. This will feed us all week and will have dishes to share with MIL who really can't do much cooking anymore. The bill at the grocery store today was $44. Not bad, I say. It took me a long time to really use slow cookers but now I am hooked. Notice the modern girl cook here - have to have my laptop in the kitchen for recipes, lol.

Finally, my hubby thinks we don't need those windows with the mini blinds built in. He thinks they are too expensive. You be the judge.....................

Green Thumb Sunday and Woofstock

I have this small fascination with palm fronds. I really dislike throwing them away as debris. Normally I let them stay on the plant as long as possible so that the plant (did you know palms are not a tree at all but are in the grass family?) can replenish nutrients from the old fronds; however, sometimes you just have to remove one . Weaving a few strands together was all I could think of. I did look online and people do some fancy stuff but don't think I am up to that.

Now, different subject. August 15th - 18th is the anniversary of that famous concert Woodstock. In honor my doggies are dressing up for a Woofstock celebration. I was busy sewing outfits for them to wear.

Daisey in her peace and love dress. She's normally such a good model as I try to measure each peace agaisnt her for fit but today she wasn't having it so I;m lucky it fit so well. You can see Woody in the background (click for larger image) before I convinced him to wear clothes - he was going with the nekked Woofstockers wearing only beads, a peace symbol, and a smile.

Eddie was happy to model his fringed vest.....especially with Jerry holding a treat to get his attention!

And, finally Woody in his fringed vest made of faux suede. Well, we gotta go get in the VW van so, until next time, have a groovy time.

Peace!

Since they weren't the most cooperative of models today, here is a group shot of my handiwork. I spent hours on their costumes and they were only willing to wear them for a couple of minutes. Downer dude.

Green Thumb Sunday - My Garden Has Sole

Back in the seventies, when I was in high school, a girl that I knew planted a teeny palm in a ceramic boot. I loved plants at the time, especially succulents, but they were hard to come by since there were no garden centers and mass merchants where I lived like there are today. Plus mostly what I could afford were small plants meant for terrariums...remember those?

Anyway, for all these years (and there have been LOTS of years) I have thought about planting succulents in real shoes. My blogger friend Cinde has a shoe garden she calls "garden of lost soles" and has inspired me to finally use that idea that's been in the back of mind for far too long.
So.....a few succulents.....

Some potting medium...........

And, the star of the shoe, er show................

Fill the toe areas with a little moss........

Add some sole, er soil.....................

Stick in a succulent...............

And this is what you get!

These shoes already look better and all they have is potting medium!

Add a couple trailing succulents in these....................

These bowling shoes were working shoes in their first life....now they have a new job!

After I got home from the thrift shop with the shoes I was a little disappointed to realize these were terra cotta colored and may not look like real shoes :(

Once filled they REALLY looked like shoe shaped clay pots. Bummer...

Water them down and they look MUCH better :)

My little collection. Now what to do with them. I considered grouping them all together but decided to incorporate them into my bromeliad borders since there are some sparse areas. The beauty of these is that they can easily be moved if I changed my mind - much different than planting something in the ground.

Stylish pumps...........

Bowling anyone?..............

Baby boots......................

I don't even know what to call these things other than ugly.

Thanks Cinde for inspiring me! Keep up the good work on your blog - I love it.