J'ai besoin de la France

Today's blog is a little self-indulgent--that's what happens when one has too much time on one's hands.

I am patiently waiting for the phase of the moon to change so that I can plant more beets and transplant flowers, more broccoli seedlings, and sage cuttings. In my idle hours, I went to the grocery store and found these beautiful sunflowers marked down. Rambling around the yard, I picked a few things that were blooming, which included Spanish bluebells and vinca major, dogwood, azaleas, a Gerber daisy, and a rosebud.

After arranging them, I noticed I had paired the sunflowers with bluebells and vinca, and this reminded me of traveling to Provence in the south of France where sunflowers adorned linens and lavender bloomed profusely along the roads, especially going into the Luberon out of Apt. I smiled.

And I remembered what I tell my traveling friend Glenna: bring a little of France into your everyday life. So I did. I reveled in my flowers, and tonight I will enjoy a leisurely meal with my husband and a glass (or two) of good wine as I wait for the moon to cooperate with my itchy green thumb!

For the other arrangement, I used the flowers I had enjoyed last week to fill my teapot. I use this teapot only in the spring for the azaleas and dogwoods, daffodils and Spanish bluebells. I waited too late for the daffodils. As I was arranging last week's sunflowers, the petals began to fall off. I ripped them off two of the flower heads and noticed something: They reminded me of Van Gogh's sunflowers. My memory may be poor, but I believe some of the flowers may have been painted without the yellow petals. Either way, they are beautiful.

Well, this is a food blog, so I suppose I should end on a food note! In the garden, I have five potato plants sprouting leaves and two rows of beet seedlings have pushed their way through the soil. I've never grown either before, and I'm so excited to see them growing.

Leave me a comment. Tell me what you're doing to bring a special memory into your home. Or, maybe you're planting something new in the garden. I'd like to hear about it.

C'est tout!

Rooting in the Garden

Thinking I hadn't ordered seed potatoes in time--and too eager to wait for their arrival anyway--I cut up four small red organic potatoes that I bought from Earth Fare last month. If my information was correct, an organic potato from the grocery store can sprout and grow into potatoes in the garden, but a run-of-the-mill spud from the store cannot. We shall see.

Unfortunately, I don't know what variety they are; they are simply small red potatoes. I do know, however, they are not one of the three deemed worthy of McDonald's french fries. Follow the link to read more about McDonald's and its influence on potato growers. The site where I obtained the info says it cannot be redistributed or rewritten. After reading the article, I am puzzled. One of the favorite varieties of McDonald's is costly to produce and not very environmentally friendly. Why, oh why, then, are McFries so inexpensive? I think it has something to do with the way our government hands out subsidies. You can go to McDonald's and get a value meal for cheap that is filled with high fructose corn syrup, fat, and many calories. The movies King Corn and Food, Inc., can tell you about the corn, and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, which I mentioned in an earlier post in January, can tell you about the real costs of your happy meal. Fast Food Nation was recently listed in the Audubon Magazine as one of the top ten books on sustainable food. See other choices by following the link.

Well, enough about potatoes. While I was hard at work planting potatoes, beet seeds, green onion seeds, and carrot seeds, Anthony was rolled up like a pupa in his hammock reading. I'm just giving him a hard time. He was actually decimating the backyard, making it less jungle-ish.

Even though I only planted seeds yesterday, I felt as though garden were fuller despite the vast coffee-colored soil and dots of greenery here and there. I think I was "fuller" from the good gardening vibes and dose of vitamin D from being in the sunshine.