Hawaii Intermission/Gardening Joy

Okay, Hawaii Day 3 is where it starts to get pretty crazy so it's taking me extra time to make a post for several reasons.

First of all, I'm now dealing with sorting through three cameras' worth of pictures since Jen joined us on the third day.  

Second of all, we took A LOT of video on that day and I'm still working on how best to share those.  

Third of all, you won't regret the wait because there are some pretty sweet ninja moves involved in the video.  

Fourth of all, my computer is being a Slow Joe and I need to clean up the hard drive before it will allow me import any more of my pictures (I am currently using Kelly's computer, which is a Fast Fran)

Fifth of all, I'm getting distracted by my garden and that is all I want to post about right now so let's just take a little Hawaii break.

Before we left for our trip, we made a frantic effort to dig up the entire garden and remove rocks and grass and lay leaf grow and pine fine and plant seeds so that we could start growing things in our absence.  Since most days we were starting at dusk, I didn't have much time or light to take a lot of pictures - sorry.  But here are a few:

Here's Adrienne starting in her corner.

Here's me starting in my corner:

Playing in dirt is fun, but digging up a 400 sq yard garden with a hand shovel results in a lot of hand cramps and spasms for several days.

We found a lot of worms, which were good signs of healthy dirt!

I really really like playing in dirt.

After one night, this is only as far as we got.

It took another couple days to dig the whole thing, another day or so to pick out rocks and roots and clumps of grass.  Another day to empty bags of compost and arrange rows and try out our best garden designs.  We were finally ready for seeds!  It was so dark when we had finished up our last dirt efforts that we planted the seeds in the dark.

I thought for sure our garden was in trouble.  We were leaving for Hawaii the next day and we left our little patch in the hands of a fellow farmer to water while we were gone.  But we had planted in the dark and in haste, not really knowing what we were doing, and I was bracing myself for fact that we might have a garden of nothing but dirt when we came home.

Well, we came home and a couple weeks went by of us saying, "It rained again today, I guess we don't have to go to the garden to water it."  So after three weeks of not seeing our garden, we decided to go check it out today, despite the fact that it was overcast with high chance of rain.

What I saw when we got there nearly made me cry.  There was a thriving, green, happy garden.

We planted gladiolas and wildflowers in the middle of the garden.  I can't believe how big my gladiolas have gotten!  I don't want them to grow up fast - I didn't even get to take pictures of them when they were babies.

And here are the carrots and onions.  Growing up side by side with very little fighting.

And here's the corn.  They are there, I promise, they are just a little shy.

And here's a whole bunch of other stuff.  Some people call them the showoffs of the garden, some people call them the super stars, I prefer to call them the zucchini, the yellow squash, the spaghetti squash, the cucumbers, and the water melon.

They were all there, safe and sound and untouched by the bunny massacre that had wreaked havoc on all the surrounding gardens while we were gone.

I like to look at this picture.  I'm just one proud garden mama ready to bust a photosynthesis gut.

However, looking at this picture also makes me realize I should never take a picture of the garden from this angle again.  Our garden looks much more like just a patch of dirt compared to the blue ribbon gardens behind it.

Tomorrow we're going to plant some tomatoes and peppers and clean up our little patch of dirt and make it prettier.  

Garden Shop

One of my favorite things about gardening is having an excuse to go to the garden shop.

It seems to have the reverence of a library and the creativity of a fabric store all rolled into one.  Well, those and an overpriced restaurant.

I have a "thing" for cacti.  And by thing, I mean a deep, abiding, eternal attraction.  But $12.99?  Really?  I think you can get that same cactus at the grocery store for $1.99.

This is what some people call the orchid section.  I like to call it the expensive section.

This orchid is truly blue.  It is also truly $89.99

I want to buy trees like Lizzy wants to meet Justin Beiber, badly.

But some things will just have to wait until I'm a millionaire. (Sadly, Lizzy, you may have to wait to do that for your dream as well).

Why am I in love with all the expensive things?

I guess the plain stuff is pretty too.

Or maybe I could settle for a combination of both?

I like it when they make their tools look as pretty as the flowers.

But it's these tools that make me drool and covet.  I dare you to look at these tools and not drool and not covet.  If you can look at this picture and not do either, I will give you a prize.

If you passed my dare, your prize is that you get to look at this next picture.  Carpe Diem!  Also, Covet Diem, because that is what I'm doing again when I see this sign.

After awhile, I tried to stop looking at garden accessories and inaccessible price range products.

This is mint.  I love the smell.  I love the feel.  I love the look - it reminds me of stuff they grow at Disneyland.

I stuck my finger in this one, it didn't bite.

My secret dream is to one day have the job of naming plants.  So that I could just look at a plant and say:  That looks a little like lava and nothing like a rose, I think I'll call it lava rose.

I think someone couldn't agree on a name for this one.  How else can one plant have a name like Full Sun Candytuft Purity?

I think they had to add the word "golden" to make "creeping" sound less creepy.

Alison and Morgan.  You are the closest one in the family to having the next fourth child.  And by the official, unspoken rules of The Fourth Child Club, the child will technically be mine.  Therefore, I insist you name her Lithodora.  We can call her Dora the Explorer Four-a, for short.

Beautiful, to me, is a green flower.  They are fulfilling their purpose while remaining loyal to the leaves that gave them strength to grow.

Do you want to know what is not beautiful?  Wearing shoes made out of thin white material in a wet, puddley garden shop.

I always thought the popular rainbow garden balls were slightly tacky, but I'm beginning to understand their appeal.  Look at the way it captures the light of the sunset.  It's like you can hold the entire sky in your hand.

PS Let's play a game of I Spy.  The first one to find my reflection in the rainbow ball wins a prize.

The prize may or may not be that you get to name your next child Lithodora.

This Land is My Land

"Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything." ~Gerald O'Hara, Gone With the Wind

This is my land.  Well, technically it's not MY land.  It's mine and my roommates' land.  And technically it's only our land for 7 months.  And technically, not all of this is our land.

But this beauty, this Plot #38, is all ours (for 7 months).

All 400 square feet of it.  We rented a community plot to garden in all summer!  

Just look at all that dirt.  It's a vision waiting to be planted.

And this is a vision of me, as Scarlett O'Hara, 

saying "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

I've never felt closer to the land in all my life.