Planting Seeds with Precision

We were so happy to be able to "plant" seeds on a rainy day for a JMG Chapter One activity. Extending the math lesson was a wonderful bonus.

Junior Master Gardener Program Online Options

Wow, could a Title for a blog post be any more boring? The subject is not. We always have one or two children who miss a Gardening Club meeting due to illness, family having a new baby, and other things. While I try to help keep them up to speed by emailing projects, or mailing worksheets ... the JMG KidZone has another option for selected topics. Sometimes we don't have enough bugs, or can't find them in time for the lesson, so having a pictured set online is VERY helpful.

JMG Chapter One

The first chapter is on Plants, and several of the activities could be expanded into valuable lessons, but the requirment is to complete one Group activity and one Individual activity for each subsection. A complete list of these for the entire program is here at the JMG website under Helpful Tools.

My first brilliant idea that was very non-brilliant was for the Power Seeds, I was going to mail all of the kids an introduction letter, and a baggy with plaster of Paris and two bean seeds to see how much energy is stored in seeds. It was a very cool experiment.


Of course, as powerful as the experiment is, sending fine white powder through the post is a BAD IDEA! (Think Anthrax scare in South Florida, and so many other cases that weren't covered by media. So I simply handed out the bags at the meeting and let the kids feel how rock hard the plaster of Paris was with the Bean plant growing in it. This photo is just after they sprouted, they are now 4 inches tall. The kids were impressed!

History & Gardening

After telling everyone this was my year of saying "no", I picked up a few extra things to do. Like teaching a History class, and a gardening class.

We had great success with Classical Conversations history verse CD, so we are continuing with that series. Our group is all boys from age 5 to age 10. The second class had two of the boys doing pushups during the songs. (Oh my ....)

Gardening is no less active. We are using the Junior Master Gardener Program from 4-H, and the kids seem to love it. I think we could have stretched this into a two year program easily. Originally I had thought this was a no-brainer for me to help out my homeschooling community, and while I am teaching my kiddos, I will just add a few more. Unfortunately, the prep work for our group is done with my children, so attending the class is really unnecessary for them. So, really I am just doing this for our little community. If you can't have Win - Win, just a Win is good.

The Garden Growing

After hearing reports of less bees, I was snapping pictures of the one I saw on my Fennel flower heads.
Chickens need bigger nests because they are bigger birds, but the eggs look so cute in them.
Eggplant Flowering. Waiting for those eggplants!
Little buggers are all over my tomatoes!
My cannas are just blowing up all over the place! I have given away a few already.

Gardening in Florida Spring - Late Start

So close ... and yet so far ...

Our hens would LOVE to be in the garden, but we don't love to have them there. Our seedlings were carelessly left unguarded and so our garden was started a little later than ideal. But it is so lovely to see all the growing things.
Carrots are planted by young hands.

Baby Lemons

Tomatos are my favorite.

Flower and Garden Festival Butterfly House

Well, this is actually just outside the Butterfly House, for Winnie the Pooh topiaries, but I just loved the color.

Amarillis is Blooming

My striped amarillis always blooms before my solid red ones.
Naval oranges are blooming up a storm, and the scent is heavenly all over the garden.

The Lavendar Lantana is back with new green foliage. They need to be kept trimmed to be managable in this bed.

Dogwood Blossoms Gone, Allergy Season on High

The Flowering Dogwood has leafed out this week, I hope that I captured some blossoms in photos since the show is only a few weeks long, but is breathtaking. (Our neighbors also have dogwoods in their front lawn and it just multiplies the effect).

Fruits are growing and look pretty even without the ripe gold color.

This here is an allergy nightmare set for next week. Ugg. I don't know why a certain magazine mentioned they were the South's lilacs, as they smell awful, attract bugs and cause havoc with my eyes!

Blooming in Northeast Florida - Camilla, Azalea, Dogwoods

Flowering Dogwood is a it's height, not a green tint anywhere in those bracts .... all snowy white right now. Cornus - Cornus florida


Coral Bells - Rhododendron (Azalea) - Kurume Hybrid


Camellia reticulata


Selection of Camellia japonica


Single Camellia japonica


Flowering Dogwood against the sky

Citrus Shopping on Sundays

We found a lovely little citrus nusery and on the weekend took the kids to experience it. It was beautiful and anyone in the south should spend at least one afternoon just smelling orange blossoms.

The proprietors were three older men, all different characters supported by Honey, the sweetest dog ever. They have have coloring sheets, Woodpeckers and juicers.

We found finding the information on citrus was fun, easy, enjoyable and wandering was magical.
The only difficult task was paying ... there was always another story, another variety, another rare bird that flew by. Paying meant we had to leave,and neither the customers nor the owners were pushing that along.

I recommend stopping by to slowly walk through this little grove of The Flying Dragon Citrus Nursery
.

Vintage Educational Coloring Books

Love these vintage educational coloring books. There are also reprints out there too. These are just so much better than the cutsey character waste of paper that you commonly find.

The drawings are .... gasp .... realistic and show details about the animal you will recognize in pictures, or if lucky enough, in person.

Thrift Store Desk

This would have been my desk if I didn't already have a refinished table for the chickies to do school work on. Isn't it sweet? It was so tempting to buy, I had to take a picture of it to sooth the shopping beastie inside that was shouting at me just to buy it anyway .....

My Turn, My Turn ... Leading Some Little Flowers

I was able to lead the girls' club this month. We made little bright fabric drawstring pouches with tea bags and get well notes inside. The girls were quite excited to choose from various fabrics and try their hands at sewing.

The Works of Mercy we listed on sheets improved immensly by two fanastic images from The Graphics Fairy. Here is the blue label and the pink cherubs.

Heavenly Bamboo

Okay, this photo is of the very top of a 8 foot Nandina domestica. Isn't it gorgeous? Obviously evergreen as it's up and kickin!

Blooming in Northeast Florida

My lavendar Trailing Lantana (L. montevidensis/ L. sellowiana) is holding on through several freezes. It seems that the foliage has become a dark purple color. As much as I do not like Lantana (from childhood) I find this little jewel boldly standing in my garden struck a chord adn it's currently my favorite plant. Of course, it is also the only bloom to be found.

Luckily for lantana, the plant has several things going for it in our area. It loves full sun, needs moderate water (good for those of us that don't turn on sprinkles unless it's for a playdate) and is evergreen until heavy freezes. It is one of those great butterfly attractors, and little girls seem to be drawn to the little clusters of flowers which pull off easily for confetti. The fruit is noted as poisonous if ingested. I also find that any scratches from lantanta branches my my skin itch a bit.