Taverl!!

So out in the middle of my front yard would work fine then

Thanks Estievo.

She already haz one of those, Tav... it's called a spare bedroom, walls lined with shelves full of shoes... and purses.

How much space for the cane collection?

-?

Sillies! I already have one. Realist can verify.

Everything is blooming weeks ahead of time here. All my daffodils are in full bloom when usually its time for crocus.

And I was up to my 'nads in snow Thursday morning after being called in at 4:00AM. Go figure.

And I was up to my 'nads in snow Thursday morning after being called in at 4:00AM. Go figure.[/quot \\

All our flowering trees exploded earlier this week. My daffs are spent. Periwinkle bloomed the 8th of March. Now I have splashes of violets in my lawn. The azaeleas bloomed last week and are losing their petals already.
My roses are budding up too. Everything here is blooming over a month ahead of schedule.

Werd. Birches are birching, roses are going to town, the ginormous sycamore in the front yard is leafing out; even the crepe myrtles and they usually wait until May.

Oddly enough, the cyclamen that usually bloom in December and January put in a late appearance this month. They look real happy, though.

Sadly, I think my beloved japanese maple has gone to sing with the choir invisible. It got badly sunburned a few years ago in a heat wave and has been looking more pathetic every spring since. It shows no sign of leafing out.

Farmers are already planting corn and beans. They take a risk doing so as it can still get cold and even snow yet in our climate. Crop insurance doesn't take effect until April 15. Sorry about your maple. The Japanese maple tends to be short-lived here.

Just ahead of the storm that dumped 1 1/2" Of rain on us Sunday, I finished prepping the beds and got 12 bush beans, 6 tomatoes, 2eggplants with1red pepper for companionship, strawberries in the bean plot and three violas in the rose bed. Good start, but that's just the right hand corner of the garden. Still 2/3 of it left to prep and plant.

But the thing I'm most looking forward to this year is beginning what I hope will be a lifelong relationship with dahlias. I bought $75 worth of tubers for pots and to plant around the edges of the veggie garden. I was so in love with my one beautiful plant from last year I had to try again. Any dahlia advice* will be gratefully received.

How the repair work coming, realist?


*. The best advice so far? Don't plant black dahlias.

I got my heirloom tomato seedlings in the ground over the weekend. 2 Green Zebras, 2 Amish Paste, 2 yellow tomato (don't remember which one I chose), and 2 orange tomato (again I can't remember which I chose). I'm hoping the Amish Paste do well, I'm looking forward to some home-canned tomato sauce again this year. And our favorite summertime dinner - spaghetti with a "sauce" consisting of fresh chopped tomatoes, fresh chopped basil, fresh garlic pan-fried in a little olive oil, a spash of white wine, and some fresh parmesan cheese - yum!

What I need now is 2 orange bell pepper (or yellow bell pepper) seedlings. I have just enough room in my teeny garden for 2 more plants, and I"ve been cooking with orange and yellow peppers lately. I hate the taste of green or red peppers, but I'm really growing to like the yellow and orange ones. Mr. K. is happy too, he likes to add them to his ramen soup along with onions and/or mushrooms (that was his breakfast this morning). Unfortunately Home Depot did not have them this weekend, any L.A./San Fernando valley peeps have a good source?

If you can get to The La Canada Farmers Market on Saturday before 1 pm, Two Dog Organic Nursery is there with lots of seedlings. I saw yellow and orange last Sat. when I got my tomatoes and eggplants and red pepper. It's on Foothill near Verdugo blvd.

If you come to La Canada, PM me.

It's not... yet.

Hopefully to begin this coming weekend.

Darn, I don't think I can make that - I do volunteer work at a theatre in Hollywood from noon to 3 or 4 on Saturdays. Maybe if I got up really early I could swing by, grab some seedlings, swing home, then head in the opposite direction to be at the theatre on time. Hmmm......maybe.

Noon

25 degrees

5 feet of snow still in yard

Gardening 2012 looking unlikely.

We're 6-8 weeks away from even thinking about putting a tomato outside in the ground, but, channeling my inner Euell Gibbons, I picked some dandelion greens and sauteed them for dinner last night and then made a salad for lunch. The best-tasting is the smaller leaves. The bigger the leaf, the more bitter.

I've never tried dandelion greens, but I crave spinach and collard all the time. Would I like them? I'm not even that opposed to bitter, but I'm not sure how bitter you mean.

Be careful. I always heard that Euell Gibbons died from Dutch Elm disease.

I didn't think the smaller leaves, 4" long, less than 1" across, were bitter at all. Sort of arugula-ish. I ate them by themselves but they'd be awesome in a mixed greens salad, too. Don't worry, no lawn chemicals on them yet, but I did wash them well in case a possum peed on 'em.

I grew up eating them. Make sure you cut them before they bud. The best ones are very young plants with smaller taproots. Theyre not so bitter. Spring onions are great with them. Great diurectic effect. Mix in mesclun or arugula with Dijonaise dressing.

Oh. I thought he choked on a grapenut.

WTF is it? Massive numbers of stink bugs in my house, and massive numbers of lady bugs also in my house that won’t or can’t eat all the massive numbers of fucking aphids that that are eating all my roses outside that even Malathion won’t kill. I even tried scooping up a shit load of lady bugs out of the house (instead of vacuuming them all up) and dumping them on the roses outside. I think they all flew back into the house.

In the last three days I’ve killed 4 hornet queens, two Europeans, (really big fuckers) one I beat to death with my shoe, and one I killed with a combo of Raid and a shoe. Two bald faced hornet queens, one beaten to death with a big stick and one smushed with a spade. And now my kitchen is full of flying ants! Are we in for deep bug shit this year or what?

I’m starting to have bug nightmares over here! Is it just me?

Welcome to global climate change my friend. We are already looking for dead birds in our yard. They will need to be tested for West Nile. Really early for Illinois.

I guess I'll let Ms. Daisy win the creepy-crawly invasion contest. My one, very early, Black Widow spider in the garage has been trumped by the stink-bug invasion, and I have to buy lady bugs when the aphids appear.

I let the birds, bats, toads, frogs and snakes tend to those critters.