Living Homegrown

Apparently, some movie stars garden in the nude.

I have lived in Los Angeles my whole life. I have grown up seeing celebrities in grocery stores, swap meets, little league games, restaurants. Many of my friends and relatives work "in the industry" and I have even had a few celebrity neighbors.

So I really thought I had heard it all when it came to strange things celebrities do.  

Until this...

In an interview with Health Magazine, Alicia Silverstone details how she enjoys gardening in the buff.

Obviously, she doesn't grow a lot of roses...or cactus, for that matter. Or perhaps she doesn't really garden that much at all. 

But I still wonder...How much make-up do you think they use to cover up those gardening scratches and sunburns on her private parts?

National Honey Bee Awareness Day

Did you know that today is

National Honey Bee Awareness Day?

Me neither!

But I am jumping on the bandwagon as fast as I can. As gardeners, we all know how important bees are. They are indispensable!

And then there is the whole Bee Crisis going on right now, so bees need our help even more than usual.

Even Haagen-Dazs is getting in on the act. If you haven't seen it already, you must watch this video...

Visit THIS link for more information so that we can all participate more actively next year. In the meantime, here are some tips on how we can Help Save The Bees!

* Support local beekeepers! Buy  locally produced honey and bee products.

* Don't use pesticides or chemicals in the garden that can harm bees. Even when you treat with "safe" sprays, be careful not to impact your visiting bees.

* Plant bee-friendly plants with native and nectar producing flowers.

* If you live in an area that allows it, consider raising bees yourself or letting a beekeeper maintain beehives on your property. If you are curious about how people illegally keep bees, check out this story on National Geographic channel. (Shhhhh...I won't tell anyone!)

Bring Your Own Towels...An Outdoor Shower

Check out this stunning outdoor shower! It belongs to my twitter friend Robin. (Robin blogs about gardening and chickens on her BumbleBee Blog and at Gardening Examiner.)

Isn't it awesome? I have always wanted an outdoor shower and Robin did a great job with hers. For more information, here is her post all about it.

I think all she needs now is an outdoor sink!

This "repurposed" sink is sitting in the yard of Ruth Dobsevage, who wrote about her sink gardening adventure on the Fine Gardening website. I like it...in a "I feel trashy" sort of way!

Garden Blogger Bloom Day - August 09

Here we are at another addition of Garden Blogger Bloom Day (the brain child of Carol over at May Dream Gardens). Can you believe it is August already?

Here are few snippets of what is blooming in my part of the country...

I planted a ton of burgundy and rust colored sunflowers this year. All the seeds came from Renee's Garden Seeds and all look spectacular.

I have some nice combinations in the garden right now...like this lemon scented geranium combined with heliotrope. Very pretty....

And look at what I found on one flower....

And can you believe this climbing cup & saucer vine is STILL blooming? I wrote about it HERE in September and it has not stopped yet! That is one full year of solid blooms! What a show off.

And then we did a little harvesting today...

I think I planted my pumpkins too early because they are already turning orange. We had to harvest this week!!!

Grow Your Salad Right in the Colander!

What could be more appropriate than growing lettuce right in a kitchen colander?

I found this great salad garden by Kerry Michaels over at About.com.

It really is a simple process to recreate a similar "Salad-in-a-colander". Kerry Michaels gives all the details in the post. It is easy-peasy.

All you need is a a colander, some window screen and some seeds. I see old colanders all the time at garage sales. Time to pick up a few!

And wouldn't this be cute as a hanging pot?

Having A Good "Hair" Day

Charlotte is growing!

You might remember Charlotte from my post here (Meet Charlotte) and here (Charlotte's Video). She is a Golden Laced Polish chicken. I get a lot of questions about how she is doing, so I thought I would post a new photo for you. As you can see, she has quite a "hair-do" now.

She is not big enough to lay eggs yet. (Perhaps in a few more months.)

Can't wait!

And by the way....This is a GOOD hair day!

Revisiting The Educational Garden at Local School

I have been meaning to post about this since the beginning of summer!

Remember that educational garden project I was working on? (We installed an educational garden at a local elementary school. It will be used for all the core curriculum classwork including science, math, language arts, etc.)

Well, you only got to see the "BEFORE" garden photos...

And now I wanted to show you some of the "AFTER" garden photos...

Are You Missing A "Cat"???

OK...It is Friday and I am feeling a little silly...

Believe it or not, this funny poster is showing up all over a Seattle neighborhood. My gardening friends Robin Haglund and Bob Albert saw it and photographed it. I wonder if anyone fell for it.

I blocked out part of the phone number before posting it here. Robin said that some poor Seattle woman is getting all the phone calls. She apparently DID find a cat...a real cat...and this poster is re-using her phone number.

So how is this related to gardening?????

We had a similar visitor last year in our train garden.

I have a G-Scale train track running through my herb garden and one day I discovered a baby opossum wondering around the track in the early morning light. He seemed way too young to be without his mother. He was tiny!

We named our little visitor Willard and he lived in one of our train out-buildings for about five days before moving on. (At least we hope that is what happened and not that he was eaten by someone!)

It was really cute how he moved in to the miniature stable and acted like it was built just for him/her.

I guess our garden really is a wildlife habitat after all!!

Entire Village Grows Their Own Food!

Talk about a community garden!!

Here is an interesting story about an entire village in the United Kingdom that has come together to grow their own food. Started in 2003, their goal is to be as self sufficient as possible. Of the 164 families that live in the village, 101 have signed up for the project.

Every week they sell their extra produce, chickens, pigs and honey. The result? They are making a nice profit and only go to the grocery store for things like "loo paper and deodorant".

Their most popular veggie at market? Carrots!

Thanks to the Shibaguyz for the heads up on this project.