Yearly Archives: 2010

Plant Cam

Posted on November 22, 2010 by | 1 comment

Christmas Gifts for Gardeners

Plant Cam the website shows plant cam, bird cam and project cam. I received a free Plant Cam from the makers so that I can evaluate it and write about my experience. I’m staking out Plant Cam to several locations so I can literally see the daffodils and tulips bloom from beginning to end this spring.

Sturdy, weather proof

weather proof timelapse camera,

The time lapse photos blend into a seamless movie of spring in my front yard!
Read the Blog

Find it here: Store Locator

Buy online: Timelapse PlantCam

Price $79.95

More good news: There are tips for movies and e-mailing photos on the website.

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Posted in Gifts, Herbs in the garden, My Gardens, My Homeplace, Oh Grow Up!, Ozarks Travel Examiner

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The best Christmas Gift U CAN Give

Posted on November 22, 2010 by | 1 comment

Christmas Gifts for Gardeners

The perfect Christmas Gift for the gardener in your life is the new U CAN

The U CAN does it all.

This watering can combines several useful functions and it is well balanced, easy to carry and easy to hold.

If you are thinking of wrapping up this as a Christmas Gift, consider simply decorating the colorful can with a pair of garden gloves, and a flower or two.

Keeps fertilizer handy – liquid, water soluble or dry.  Whenever measurements are needed, use the built-in spoon or meausuring cup. ( An optional liquid pump dispenser is sold separately.) The sprinkler head has a gentle flow perfect for newly planted seed.

Choose the unique all-in-one watering can to use with any kind of fertilizer, wet or dry.

Home and Garden Center stores that may have The U CAN available now or for Spring 2011.

Price: $29.95

More good news: Made in the USA with recycled plastic.

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Posted in Gifts, My Gardens, My Homeplace, Oh Grow Up!, Product reviews

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The Garden Bistro – a review

Posted on November 20, 2010 by | Comments Off on The Garden Bistro – a review
The best of fresh food, dinner and lunch

The Garden Bistro in Eureka Springs, Arkansas

I get to Eureka Springs, Arkansas once or twice a year, it seems as though new restaurants come and go as quickly as I do. Or, as Dorthy said, “My! People come and go so quickly here!”

My point is, there was a decent restaurant in this location the last time I was in Eureka Springs­, but now there is a different great restaurant at 119 North Main. The good news: everything I had at the Garden Bistro was good. Bad news, I only “discovered” The Garden Bistro on my last day in Eureka Springs.

Chef Lana Campbell brings garden-fresh dining to Eureka Springs via the local farmers markets. The menu is seasonal. Meaning the menu in spring is different than the menu in fall, all based on what is fresh and local. The Garden Bistro serves the best of locally grown and produced fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs and meats.
Diners at the next table allowed me to share their opinions and photograph their food. They were pleased with their entrees, none of us had dessert. Portions are very generous.

Strawberry Lavender Soup

My fellow diners started with a fried green tomato appetiser followed by a dinner salad. I started my meal with a fabulous strawberry lavender soup*. Campbell also makes the bread. The heavy yeasty rolls are rich enough that I did not not even want butter.

My entre choice was a pecan encrusted salmon. It was a generous portion of perfectly cooked and beautifully served salmon. Side dishes are served family style, and include a vegetable and starch.

Herb & pecan encrusted salmon, hot bread, green beans, baked potato

There is a new restaurant in town every time I come to Eureka Springs. I hope The Garden Bistro makes it. It will become a favorite, like Ermilios and Mud Street Cafe.

Getting there:
119 North Main, Eureka Springs, AR 72632 Contact:Phone:(479) 253-1281.Website: not yet
Hours:Tea Room style lunches from 11 am – 2 pm Thursday through Monday.
Casual fine dining dinners from 5 pm – 9 pm every Thursday through Monday.
Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays

The recipe for Strawberry Lavender Soup from The Garden Bistro in Eureka Springs Arkansas is on my Herb Companion Garden Blog

The restaurant review for The Garden Bistro in Eureka Springs Arkansas is on my Blog, Oh Grow Up!

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Posted in Eat Here, Herbs in the kitchen, Oh Grow Up!, Ozarks Travel Examiner, Product reviews, Recipes

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Micro Greens for Holiday Meals

Posted on November 13, 2010 by | Comments Off on Micro Greens for Holiday Meals

or, Vegetable Intervention 101

I am not going to reinvent the wheel. This is a great idea. It’s not mine.

By mid winter, I’m ready to impale sweet potatoes with toothpicks and it takes all my strength to keep from buying chia pets in bulk. I want to grow Something. Anything. So this winter, I will be prepaired, thanks to Botanical Interests, Inc.

This is a great idea from a respected source for the best quality seed a gardener can buy. Read this, Micro Greens for Holiday Meals and save yourself from suspended vegetation.  In fact, let’s just make a pledge: NO MORE Avacado Piercing.

How about an ity bity salad?

I’m ordering Micro Greens Mild Mix now.  This mix includes: Beet Bulls Blood, Pak Choy, Cabbage Red Ace, Kohlrabi, and Swiss Chard Lucullus.

This would be great on a turkey sandwich.

And, maybe even Micro Greens Spicy Mix which contains: Sawtooth Mustard, Peppergrass Cress, Cabbage Red Acre, Mustard Red Giant, and Radish China Rose.

Yes, this is way better than sprouts.

Thanks, Botanical Interests!

BTW, the very best way to sprout an avacado seed, is to bury it in your vermicompost and forgetaboutit. One day you will open the lid of the vermicomposter to feed the worms, and there it will be! A sprouted avacado, ready to pot. Just one more reason to compost indoors.

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Posted in Ozarks Travel Examiner

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Get a Gator Grabber

Posted on November 13, 2010 by | Comments Off on Get a Gator Grabber
Great for picking up pinecones and black walnuts

Great for picking up pinecones and black walnuts.

Gator Grabber is a back-saving tool that is useful well beyond fall leaf cleanup. After I tried it, I asked the neighbor to give it a try. We both agreed that using Gator Grabber was handy and timesaving.

If you have balance problems or just don’t want to bend over 150 times to pick up all the pinecones in your yard, consider the Gator Grabber. I also use it to pick up a gazillion black walnuts.

Buy these ergonomic grip garden tools online or use the store locator to find a retailer. Gator Grabber is made by the folks that make the tools with Large “O”-shaped handles in “can’t-lose-in-the-garden” green.

Back-saving Gator Grabber great for repetitive jobs.

I have the Radius Trowel with that comfortable curve providing more leverage with less wrist stress. These aluminum blade tools are both light weight and very sturdy. I’ve been using this trowel for two years. It’s the kind of tool a gardener only has to buy once. Well, maybe twice, if you have a tool borrowing spouse.

Visit their website

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Posted in My Gardens, My Homeplace, Oh Grow Up!

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“Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire” by Margot Berwin

Posted on October 29, 2010 by | 2 comments

In late spring, I volunteered to review “Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire”, a first novel by Margot Berwin. I can count the books I’ve reviewd on one hand, so I thought this early work of Margot Berwin, would be a great “summer read.”

Hot House Flower

The book was free, as was my review. The paperback, “Hot House Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire,” by Margot Berwin, is published by Random House and retails for $14.95. I expected this to be a lightweight summer read and was looking forward to “discovering” a new garden writer.

I, being a slow reader, usually get the benefit of early reviews from my speed reading garden blogging friends. I think many folks took this book too seriously and were disappointed. I was expecting a light and lively summer read and that is what I got.

Corpse plant

I was waiting for Hot House Flower to blossom into a full fledged romance novel, a genre seldom on my reading list. Thankfully, it was not. There was just enough travel and horticulture information to keep me turning pages.

Margot, you had me when you wrote the words Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Our protagonist, Lila, is learning about these nine plants of desire throughout the book. Each chapter starts with a little introduction to one of the nine plants and a hint about whats coming next.


I am glad “Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire” found it’s way to my reading stack. This is a romp through the jungle and there is even a bit of beach time, some totally unbelievable horticultural anticts and even a bit of magic and mystery.

This ain’t no botanical encyclopedia. My garden blogging friends would still be quibbling over the details of this book, if they hadn’t figured out it’s supposed to be fun and fictional light reading.


Heck, Margo took Lila and me to a place I’ve only dreamed. She even started out in a place I too would have wanted to trade in for tropics. She may not be that stong female heroine we are all looking for. She can’t turn all the raining monkey poop in to compost as she drives by, for example.

I received this book as a TLC Book Tour, a virtual book tour site. Virtual book tours are a promotional tool for authors to connect with readers via well-read book blogs and specialty blogs.

Realism? You want realism, well my friends, tune into reality tv. Accuracy? You want accuracy? Join the Royal Horticultural Society or stop by Martha’s on the way home.

You rarely find this kind of fun and imagination in contemporary (adult) literature. You don’t have to learn anything, just read. Relax. What could be more fun?

In garden terms think of an informal cottage garden, a little messy but delightful, never the less. After reading “Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire”, I wonder whats next for Margot Berwin.

  • Title: Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
  • Author: Margot Berwin
  • Release date: June 1, 2010
  • Publisher: Vintage
  • Pages: 304
  • Genre: Adult fiction

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Posted in Herbs in the garden, Herbs in the kitchen, Oh Grow Up!, Product reviews

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Black Krim

Posted on October 28, 2010 by | Comments Off on Black Krim
Black Krim

Black Krim with a slightly salty tomato flavor

So you thought I was done talking about tomatoes for the year.

But no. There are more heirloom tomato surprises from zone 6 in Southeast Missouri.

Called black tomatoes, Black Krim produces a medium size (10 to 12 ozs.), dark browish-red tomatoes. This heirloom is growing in popularity and being discovered by black tomato converts every year. It has just a hint of saltiness, and rich, comomplex flavor.

Black Krim gets darker in hot weather, which may shed some light to neighbor Bill’s very colorful cooler season Black Krim Tomatoes.

Here is a bit of a surprise. (I pulled up all the tomatoes in my garden 3 weeks ago.)

Patsybell,

This tomato plant you gave me this spring has just now sprung into action. All summer it produced a few tomatoes that would ripen and rot at the bottom of the fruit
while the top was still green.

When October got here – lots of fruit, ripening evenly and the very best tasting tomato of the year. Should I save some seed from them?

Hope you can see these pictures.

Thank you,
Neighbor Bill

Black Krims are a generous sandwich sized slices.

Black Krim plants were sent to me for trial from Hort Couture®,

Hort Couture® is only available through independent garden centers and retailers- you won’t see these plants in the mass markets. While the plants arrived healthy, I shared one plant with my neighbor, Bill, The head tomato grower in our neighborhood. These tomatoes have a very tasty smoky/rich flavor that was a regular and consistant indeterminate that only sucummed to late blight as did all the tomatoes in my garden.

Grown in the heat of summer, my Black Krim had brownish shoulders and red purplish skin and flesh.  The color was not as distinct this summer. I used the black heirloom tomatoes in fresh salsa the summer. The Black Krim just seems to add another level of flavor to salsa.

two late season Black Krims

Two late season Black Krims

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Posted in Herb Everything, Herbs in the garden, Herbs in the kitchen, My Gardens, My Homeplace, Oh Grow Up!, Ozarks Travel Examiner, Product reviews

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Happy Halloween

Posted on October 26, 2010 by | Comments Off on Happy Halloween

Bargain seed for next year.

This is an FYI. I’m just passing this information along.

Renee's Giant Pumpkin, "Wyatt's Wonder"

Happy Holloween! Plan ahead for next year’s garden – order your pumpkin seeds now at a 20% discount at Renee’s Garden at www.reneesgarden.com

Time: October 15, 2010 at 6pm to October 31, 2010 at 7pm

Location: Renee’s Garden Seed Event

All Pumpkins 20% off at Renee’s Garden

Great pumpkins come in all sizes

Order pumpkin seed now. It will keep till next planting season. Store in dry dark area. I put seed in a plastic zipper bag and then put the  plastic bag in the desk drawer.

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Posted in Herbs in the kitchen, My Gardens, My Homeplace, Oh Grow Up!, Recipes

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Toasty Pumpkins Seeds

Posted on October 25, 2010 by | Comments Off on Toasty Pumpkins Seeds

Save some seed for planting and use some for healthy snacks.

Photo by Brook Ashley

Saving seed from pumpkins and squashes

An easy seed to save, and you’ve got time. Most winter squashes will keep for months. When you do get around to eating these hardy winters wariors, save some seed before you cook the squash. Rinse the seed, let then dry, flat and in a single layer between a paper towels.

If you do have bumper crops of pumpkins and squash, save seed from your brightest and firmest of your collection.  Save the rest for of the seeds for toasting. You might just discover an inexpensive, homegrown and homemade treat to use for garnishing winter soups and breads. Stir Pumpkin seed and sunflower seeds into holday party mix,

Small sweet pumpkins selected for punkin soup. The seeds make a great garnish,

Ingredients:

One pumpkin
Salt
Vegitable oil

Toasty pumpkin seeds

Scoop the pulp and seeds from inside the pumpkin. Seperate the stringy pulp from the seeds. Compost the pulpy core. Rinse the seeds.

To make salted pumkin seeds:

Bring 4 cups of water with a Tablespoon of salt to boil. Add seeds. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Strain seeds and spread out in a single layer to dry on cotton towels or paper towels. Skip this step if you do not want salted seeds.

To make seasoned pumpkin seeds:

Heat oven to 375. Spray pan with any good vegetable oil. Spread seeds onto cookie sheet in a single layer. Spay lightly with oil. If you want spicy seeds, add seasoning now.

(Try a light sprinkle of chili seasoning mix, butter flavored popcorn salt, or onion salt. If you use a seasoned salt, skip the boiling-in-salt-water-step.)

Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown (about 15 to 20 minutes). If you would like seededs darker, put back in oven, checking often until they are as brown as you like. Watch carefully, the time between browned and burned is but an instant.

Remove the tray of pumpkin seed and cool on an a rack. Let the seeds completely cool. Eat the seeds whole. If you have all the time in the world, crack open the pumpkin seeds and eat only the inner seed. I like te eat the whole seed.

Chop and use as garnish in soups and other dishes that could use a little crunch. Store in an air tight zipper bag in the frig.

If you do have any left over, roasted or raw seeds, share them with the birds.

20% off on ALL pumpkin seed ar Renee’s Garden.

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Posted in Herbs in the garden, Herbs in the kitchen, My Gardens, My Homeplace, Oh Grow Up!, Recipes

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Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (GBBD) October 2010

Posted on October 16, 2010 by | Comments Off on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (GBBD) October 2010

The Drive-By Garden is really Veterans Memorial Garden

Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers share what is currently blooming in the garden.

I am not home to share my garden with you. But I am in the Ozarks. In Branson MO USA there is a garden that most of us can only see as we drive by. Parking is hard to find. But yesterday (GBBD), I found a parking spot and walked up to the Veterans Memorial Garden.

Ben Kimel is the garden keeper. He keeps the garden blooming and colorful early spring to late fall.

You can't read this sign as you drive through the intersection.

The garden is a pie slice shape on a steep Ozarks terrain.

There is always something in bloom, like these daylilies.

There is whimsical garden art like this giraffe

a patriotic butterfly

perennials and annuals are mixed with shrubs and a few roses.

I will have more details and information about this bright, bold garden and the garden keeper very soon.

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Posted in Ozarks Travel Examiner