A general feeling of – “Hell ya, let’s plant!” is in the air…

And then there’s Garden Apothecary – another full-time job on its own. I’m redesigning recipes to include more organic botanicals – like Cardamom, Cassia, Cacao, Lotus and Blue Tansy. I’m starting to sell at the local farmers market, to an array of stores in LA, and figuring out just how many products can fit on a pallet for over-sees shipping – all while creating these small-batch blends by hand. Needless to say it’s been exhausting and wonderful all at the same time. The little down time I have, I’ve tried to spend in the garden. Some evenings it’s just to get out and water. Others I can re-pot propagation plants, fertilize, water and weed – all before the sun completely goes down. And then when I’m really zonked from the work day, I sit on my driveway like a hobo and just stare at the garden. I count pollinators, count weeds, count buds on my rose bushes. It’s a pitiful site really, but I love it.A good way to end a busy work day…

I also love to glam it up in the garden. Sometimes – when I’ve had a real shit-tastic day, I put all the fun jewelery I have on, pour some vino, turn on a podcast, and do some gardening. I feel like it takes the drudgery out of weeding when you can add some sparkles to it. And really – if you’ve never listened to a podcast while gardening – you must try! The gardening Zens you out, while the podcast gets your mind to open up to something new, melting away your work day.

Here’s a list of the podcasts I love to garden to:

RadioLab

Relic Radio

Felder’s Show

Pretty much any one of these from the NPR’s

PICTURES by Rob Co.

I think I covered all the bases with these links, and you’ll find something awesome for yo mama!

#1 Gift: Sunset Edible Garden Cookbook

I love this cookbook! It’s a perfect go-to book for quick and super yummy recipes – along with harvesting and planting tips. Below is a pic (Cucumber Collins) of one of the many drink recipes… I thought it would be a super cute gift to give the book, along with a few plants from your favorite recipe.

The fine folks over at Sunset were kind enough to offer another { giveaway }! Hooray!

The first 5 who comment and let us know their Mother’s Day plans – wins a Sunset Edible Garden Cookbook!

If you don’t win the giveaway, you can always find the book online or most book stores.

Thanks Sunset!

#2 Gift: Garden Apothecary bath & Beauty products.

Well, duh! Of course I’m going to pimp offer my gorgeously green goodies for Mother’s Day!

I won’t go on forever, but this trio of Lav, Peppermint, and Rose scrub is a steal at $50. for all three!

Ok, we have a cooking gift down, beauty gift down… let’s get into a hard-core gardening gift!

#3 Gift: Habitat Design, custom landscape design!

How cool is this?! Habitat Design offers a custom designed landscape plan for the D.I.Y. gardener! This is perfect for the person who wants to be “hands on” in creating their landscape design. The ladies over at Habitat are awesome and experienced and just plain fun to work with!

#4 Gift: Pitcher Plants, by Rob Co!

How sick are these pitchers!? Rob is a super talented pitcher plant grower here in the Bay Area – and he has a limited selection for sale! For the best in unique pitchers you won’t find many other places – check out Rob’s blog. FYI – the pic shown is a Select Phil Faulisi clone of Sarracenia leucophylla “Purple Lips” x flava var. ornata.

#5 Gift: When all else fails, give food!

You can’t go wrong with yummy home-made treats – even if they are home-made in another person’s home!

Check these goodies out!

It has consisted of getting up early to walk around the cemetery  for about an hour (there’s an old-ass cemetery right by my house that you can walk around… decent little work out if you keep going and keep up a good pace up the hill. The first thing I thought about this morning was exercise, since before falling asleep last night, I ate half a bag of sea-salt caramel popcorn, two chocolate truffles and a slice of olallieberry pie with vanilla ice cream on top. I disgust myself just typing this…).

I got home and immediately started gardening. I love that early morning energy you get on days that you don’t have shit to do. Answer the phone and respond to emails? Nope. Be on time to some appointment? Nope. Get dressed enough to look respectable around town? Nope. I swear it’s the only time you get real energy, when you don’t have to do anything.

After an hour or so of supermarket sweep dead-heading, weeding, watering, and checking my terra cotta pots for snails (that promptly got fed to the chickens), I brushed a few off a small, broken terra cotta pot and planted a 4″ violet in it. The crack in the pot got a bit longer as I was shoving the little guy in there, but I was too lazy to search for a more stable container. I sprinkle some compost on top, watered it in and put it in a spot I’d notice – when it inevitably breaks apart in the future.  Lazy gardening at its finest! Once my big morning gardening project was complete and my first-thing-in-the-morning-energy faded into laziness, I got back into pajamas and surfed the web on the couch.

Wanna see what I found?

I love how simple and functional these are.

Gorgeous house but I don’t think I’d like to live there. How would you landscape or have a garden? It’s too much… too pristine. Any thoughts?

Do you LOVE cactus? No really… do you love them?

Now this is my kind of jewelry!

I love bugs. Period.

Oh. Was that not clear? I LOVE BUGS!

What kind of vine do think would look best on this house? Ivy? A cool rose?

What are you up to today?

little violet ready for planting

The past 6 months I’ve been frantically planting in my front garden, and you can tell. It’s beautiful, but completely schizophrenic. I planted California poppies when they were just coming out in the nursery, more roses when it was bare-root time, a bunch of iris and lily bulbs from the SF garden show and a menagerie of salvias, boronia, cerinthe and euphorbia left over from jobs. I’ve desperately layered organic fertilizers and compost, as to avoid the terrible growing season like we had last year. My efforts paid off, but I don’t have an inch left to plant in for the summer. Everything is full, lush and blooming – or about to bloom, with hundreds of tiny buds on the tips of each healthy plant. The California poppies are all in full flower, with an array of bright yellow cups on top of every single thin stem. The orange shrubs are in flower, too… the sweet fragrance it slight, since the other plants are so crowded around them.  And I have one, lone black iris taking it’s sweet time to open up.But when it does, he’ll match the line of stout black pansies that have lined my pathway.

What are you up to on this lovely Earth Day? What is blooming riot in your garden?

The kitchen was freezing cold as usual, and just as I was debating on hurrying out to do a bit of gardening before the rain came – the rain came. I tossed my felcos and gloves back on the table and lit the stove for some tea, no pajama gardening for me this morning. Whoosh went the flame under my copper tea kettle, quickly boiling my tea water.

I love rainy mornings like this – it gives me a chance to just watch the garden, rather than work in it. Sometimes you don’t even have time to notice what you’ve done, when you are constantly doing.

Bobbi Bankston from { Poppy & Pearl } gave me one of her gorgeously simple mason jar tumblers to try… and this morning was perfect for a huge jar of hot green tea! The tea was from Red Blossom in SF, procured from a trip Matt and I took to China Town the other weekend. We stopped in and had a fascinating lesson on tea leaves, and a tasting (of about 7 types) to go with it. We vibrated out of there with a big bag of different types of green, oolong and flowering tea (I didn’t get any sleep that night!).

Bobbi was kind enough to answer some questions for me the other week… here’s our mini interview:

1. When is your favorite time to use your tumblers?

I’d have to say camping in the mountains with friends at a little place called Kennedy Meadows. My friends and I have been spending summer vacations there since we were young and now we go with our husbands and kids… it’s so special! Every year my boys and I hike up to “the meadow” for a picnic… Aspens and snow capped mountains make for a picture perfect setting. 

            Sangria- my all time favorite drink. The thing I love about Sangria is that you can’t mess it up! 

3. What is your favorite plant to grow and why?

 

My tomato plants because they always look like they are on steroids! I love it! My three boys love picking them and it’s always rewarding to share the extras with neighbors and friends. 

 

Need a tumbler of your own?

Bobbi is generously offering a { giveaway } to you fine readers… the first { 2 people } to add your favorite drink & the recipe to the comment section – wins!

Have a lovely rainy day! xo xo Jenn

 

PICS by Rob Co.

a breakfast to celebrate the new Sunset Garden book

Last week was a whirlwind of fabulous garden-y events! The one that topped the list was a brunch for me and a small gaggle of other garden writers, hosted by the Sunset garden editors, at the Sunset HQ, in Menlo Park. Thank you to Kitty Morgan, Kathy Brenzel, Julie Chai and Johanna Silver for hosting all of us garden dorks and providing us with a lovely tour of the grounds.

sitting down with garden writers and the editors of Sunset

Brunch was a mix of Swiss chard and sausage frittata, golden potatoes, strawberry salad and an { amazing } chocolate-zucchini rum cake! This is how I will consume my zucchinis from now on! It was a perfect start to the tour… chatting with other garden bloggers, sipping a lovely herb tea and berry agua fresca and eating yummy food!

chocolate-zucchini cake { yum }

Among some of the { many } inspiring things to view at Sunset gardens, is the chicken coop and compost area… the outdoor kitchen garden is beautiful, too. Complete with a huge fire-pit, edible landscaping and gorgeous espalier fig trees! The recycled glass counter top (below) was handsome and expansive, and I could imagine entertaining 100 people or more, with room for all the accoutrements!

recycled glass counter in outdoor kitchen... Gen passing by from North Coast Gardening

perfectly blooming tulips... scattered in pots all around the gardens

Blooming tulips peppered the grounds… I was so jealous, seeing each pot perfectly planted, as mine are usually dig up by some critter! (Or I forget to fridge them… or I plant them late… or I store them in a bucket some where and forget about them… or…)

little hen...

Matt enjoying the fountain garden... with gorgeous upright rosemary!

The gardens were lovely to stroll, but I really loved seeing all the magazine covers displayed in offices. The front hall way has a beautiful display of the vintage magazine covers as well… enlarged and framed, showing each of their own unique colors and themes for that particular month. This was a real treat to see… some of the images I have never even seen before!

lovely back garden... drought tolerant perennials under oak trees.

how much do you love the orange circular trellis?

Matt chatting with the Garden Wise Guy

newly planted viola from All-America Selections: 'Skippy XL Plum-Gold' F1

Sunset has so much to celebrate this year!

Not only is their new Garden Book published (as well as a gorgeous cook book – Edible Garden Cookbook), but they are releasing a new line of exclusive Sunset Western Garden Collection plants! These plants will be available in May 2012, at your local garden center. I can’t wait to purchase some myself to pepper throughout my garden…

I spent the weekend thumbing through the new book and found that the sections I loved the most were the “Demystifying Plant Names” and “Pronunciation Guide”. How many times have you pronounced a plant name – then was corrected by someone – and felt like a total dork? This will cure your plant-name-dork-disease!

Sunset was generous enough to provide a giveaway to you fine

viewers… the first 5 readers who email me their mailing

addresses will win a brand new Sunset Garden Book!

Good luck and happy reading!

Update:

{ Wow! That was fast! We have the winners: Roya, Janis, Rob, Darlene, Jennifer! }

Damn its been a busy week! First my pumpkin seeds came in from mail order, the chickens are finally producing eggs at the same time (3 eggs per day), Interior Therapy (with that kook Jeff Lewis) is finally on, and I found a Julia Child chocolate cake recipe that would put you in a coma (from either the amount of butter used or the amount of awesomeness in it!)!

Along with life’s normal, chocolate-baking-seed-collecting-reality-tv-show-watching madness… I worked my butt off to make up for all of the rain from last week – many of my plants were really needing to get into the ground and settled. The rain last week delayed all of my planting projects, and the dry weather was an excellent reprieve. Last night Matt and I went to a fabulous event to raise funds for the HEAL Program in HMB, and this morning we attended (with delight!) a Sunset garden tour with other garden writers (more on that later!). In between all of the shenanigans, it’s the week of the SF Flower & Garden Show – or as I like to call it, “Insanity Week.”

In short, I’m exhausted and inspired.

Apryll and I strolled the show bright and early Wednesday morning, admiring booth after booth of garden lovelies…

Need a pink pair of garden gloves? It’s there.

Want some chocolate covered marshmallow logs? Booth 23-something. 4 for $15.

Need a cart of succulents and a corn dog at 10:30am? All at your finger tips at the SF Flower & Garden Show!

Awesome flower lights at the show… they bloom – open and close! (If you were intoxicated, it would be a real entertainment piece!)

A ridiculous cluster of the good, the bad and the ugly! But that’s what garden shows like this are all about… tons of diversity!

Plumeria from a sweet little booth. It was completely decked out in an “Island” theme… coconut shell necklaces, tropical plants and lovely flower jewelry. I splurged on two Plumeria “sticks”… one in yellow and one in white. Who knows if they will grow, but I’m willing to try it!

The dolls over at Habitat Design! I stopped by for a quick chat and they were working away like little bees… the booth was awesome! Tons of fabulous garden-inspired creations from their artisans. Apryll’s fav was a silverware chandelier! Mine was a darling terrarium…

This isn’t the image of my Vanilla Plantifolia (Once I saw it, I turned to Apryll and said, “Fuck!”. I knew I was going home with yet ANOTHER plant!) but it’s a gorgeous orchid from one of the many orchid suppliers at the garden show. If you are an orchid enthusiast – run, don’t walk! And bring the credit card!

Dee over at Harley Farms (out of Pescadero…) had GORGEOUS copper garden tools. This might have been the best thing I saw at the show… although the plant selection was a close second. She had shovels, edgers, trowels and cultivators… I was drooling over all of them. Ah, if only I could justify $150. per tool… Another day. Another credit limit.

(Sorry for the crap-tastic image quality… my camera was not happy with the inconsistent light)

Oh but the dahlia selection! I bought about 4 types… sticking with mostly dark purples. To be honest, I love dahlias for their weird tubers more than anything else.

And the seed selection was wonderful this year… an abundance heirloom varieties!

So, if you haven’t gone to the show yet – head on over. It’s open from now until Sunday.

If you have gone… what was your fav?

Here in Half Moon Bay, the clouds are subsiding to sun and it’s noticeably warmer than it has been in days. On this Spring morning my pansies are in full bloom, as are my primroses and anemone. My roses are just bursting with tender foliage and my California poppies are all at full attention  – with hundreds of blooms pointed up, ready to open when the weather allows.

I love this time of year – and today is a perfect day to to do some Spring-time intentions (or Spring-time cleaning!). This can be for yourself and your garden.

What is left over from the Winter and weighing you down?

What are some intentions or plans you’d like to have for yourself and for your garden this season?

What can you do to make yourself and your garden a bit tidier this month?

My favorite place to { intend } is in my bath tub (what a surprise, right?). I love grabbing any flower petals that I can find outside (or fragrant leaves) and filling the tub with hot water. It’s a lovely place to r e l a x, clear your mind and then imagine what you would like to intent this Spring.

(Pics by the fabulous Rob Co.)

Here on the CA coast, we are having a lovely rainy week (much needed!) and I thought some fun web surfing would be in order… check out the links below – and if you like ‘em, tell me which you like in the comment section.

Enjoy the day xo xo xo

Spice up you potted plants by top dressing with mosaic tiles!

I’m always searching for unique artifacts for my house… this would look awesome over a bed or living room couch.

I would totally rock these in the garden (or out, of course!).

Super fun leather flower for your hair….

Lovely hand-bound notebook… perfect for logging your garden planting.

Super 80′s! How awesome are these seed-bombs? Would you plant them?

OK, OK… I know this doesn’t really have much to do with the garden – but how gorgeous is this?!

How fun is this old book?

I’m loving these for a garden walkway…

Which do you love?