Pocket Mouse

The Snow Queen's Garden

You Grow Girl by Gayla Trail has been on my list of books to read for a while now, but I finally got around to reading it yesterday.  I finished the book, but couldn't get enough of it, so now I'm exploring the forums on the You Grow Girl website.  I found a really great list of themes for themed gardens here and a link to another list here.  I was already exciting about shopping for things to plant in the fall, but now I'm trying to think of a theme that will revolve around the snowdrops that I'm ordering tonight.

I was thinking of a theme sort of inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" (or maybe The White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia?).   Lots of white, early-blooming flowers peeking up through the snow. 

In my fantasy world where I have several acres of land, there would be a path leading through a forest to a small clearing, and that's where my snow garden would be.  Of course, there would be elaborate Edward Scissorhands-style ice sculptures, vintage crystal cake stands used as bird feeders, an icy pond, glass bell jars/cloches, antique chandelier crystals hanging on the trees, garlands of glass icicles.

But since all of that is kind of impossible and would probably look really strange in my backyard, I'll have to think of more realistic ideas!

More to come...I'm really having fun looking through all these seed catalogs online!

Salad!

As promised, here are some pictures of my very first homegrown meal:

It had dried cranberries, dried cherries, granny smith apples, sliced toffee-flavored almonds, and creamy maple dressing.  Here's the recipe I used for the dressing:

Creamy Maple Dressing

1/4 cup regular or reduced-fat sour cream
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Whisk together all of the ingredients in a small bowl until well combined.  Let stand 15 minutes before using.

My pumpkin patch

This summer I decided to plant an organic mini pumpkin patch in the side garden.  I used Burpee's Jack Be Little seeds:

This is what the pumpkin patch looks like so far:

I added the sun jars and still have to add these solar lights so the pumpkin patch with have an orange-y glow at night for autumn/Halloween.

A few other garden pictures...here's an awful picture of one of the trees I planted for Arbor Day this year.  Only two out of six grew, but I was still happy because I didn't expect any of them to survive.

This is the adorable toad house I bought on Etsy from Teresa Wooden.  I don't think there are any toads living in it yet, just spiderwebs, but I love it anyway:

This is the little square that was always mine growing up...I would weed it sometimes and stick a few seeds from fruit or vegetables in it and they would never grow.  Mostly I would play with my toys in it.  Now I guess all of the gardens are mine.  I haven't decided what to put here yet; for now I just have the toad house and my heirloom tomato.  I am about to move my alpine strawberry there too.

I'm sad that I seem to have lost the ability to take a decent photo over the past few years (the last time I was really into taking pictures was 2004; since then I've maybe taken 10 photos a year).  Mostly it's laziness and impatience...I would much rather use the automatic settings, snap a quick picture, and move on to something else than take the time to get a really good shot.  I am about to delve into the latest issue of Somerset Studio's Artful Blogging, though, so I hope that will inspire me.

AeroGarden progress!

I meant to post before-and-after photos of my AeroGarden like Rachel did, starting when they were just tiny little baby plants sprouting up under their plastic domes, but I never got around to it and now my salad greens look like this:

Needless to say, I am having salad for dinner tomorrow night.  And yes, there will most definitely be pictures of my first ever homegrown meal.

Downstairs, I am growing "English Cottage" flowers on my mini AeroGarden 3.  The seed kit includes Fantasy Petunia, Stock, and Twinkle Phlox. These are growing more slowly than the salad greens so at least I can show you some pre-flower photos and it will kind of be a before-and-after once they're blooming:

I'm kind of mad that I didn't get the Edible Flowers seed kit (with snapdragon and marigold) but I decided to get this one because it was supposed to have lavender.  I guess the lavender wasn't growing well or something because they have now replaced it with stock.

More garden photos soon...

NYBG Shop

Looking at the New York Botanical Garden's shop is making me wish that Spring would get here! 

I love this quirky multi-patterned apron:

I wish I had seen these beautiful glass-domed terrariums before I did my terrarium post:

Some colorful, cheerful-looking oil lamps:

Speaking of colorful, these children's metal watering cans would look great as garden decorations:

And finally, stuffed Frog!  They have Toad too.

Terrariums

I've been searching for the perfect terrarium and have found a few sites with really lovely ones.  I wish I could have all of these.

From H. Potter:

Table Top Gothic House Terrarium

Table Top Terrarium

From Smith & Hawken:

Lidded Terrariums

Orchid Cloche

Another site that carries terrariums is English Creek Gardens.  They also have nice collections of two of my favorite things, apothecary jars and bell jars.