Cabbages for as Far as the Eyes Can See

It's supposed to be warm in Florida. Two days ago, in south FL, it was 90 degrees. Tonight, in Panama City, 40 degrees. I know, if you live in the cold, frigid north, that sounds warm. Not if you thought it would be warm down here. Even the local Floridians are complaining loudly that this is not Florida weather.

The past 3 nights we've stayed in motels that promised they had high speed internet. Each night it either didn't exist, or it would be on for 3 minutes then off for 5, not long enough to post to FaceBook or here. And so I've not been able to keep up with postings the past 2 days.

After a day at the best thrift shop in Florida, the Women's Center in Sarasota, we headed down to the town of Imokolee to the rare plant nursery I'd visited last January. We  picked up some black pepper plants, one variety from Thailand, a Piper nigrum, that's a bush pepper. The other variety, also a Piper nigrum, is from Guatamala and is the typical vine. Black pepper, if you aren't familiar with it, is a modest vine that grows up the trunks of trees. The berries grow in clusters along a stem and are harvested when ripe. Pepper berries become peppercorns when they're dried. And since pepper plants quit blooming and producing when the temperature drops below 40 degrees, I just went to the car and brought the pepper plants inside for the night.

We also picked up a miracle fruit plant, something I've been wanting to get for quite awhile (and which I wrote about here last January). The fruit is amazing in that it switches your taste buds from sweet to sour, or the reverse. If you eat a lemon, then taste miracle fruit and it's so sweet you can hardly stand it. Or, eat a bit of sugar, then eat a miracle fruit berry and it's incredibly sour. And it happens instantaneously.

We stopped at the Seminole Casino in Imokolee for about an hour, eating dinner and gambling away ten dollars. From there we drove up to West Palm Beach where I've given lectures before at the West Palm Herb Society festivals. The Mounts Botanical Garden is an admirable collection of rare fruits and herbs, along with a good sampling of Florida native trees and shrubs. It's part of the Univ. of FL University Extension system.

One of the things I found interesting at the botanical garden is the hedge that surrounds the herb garden. Can you guess what it is? I walked past it 3 times before I noticed what the plants are. Imagine, if you will, a hedge 16 ft. tall, of allspice! You may recall the photo in a posting here a couple of months ago, of the 1 gallon allspice plants I have on our sun porch. Well, this is what fully mature allspice trees look like, trimmed into a hedge. Allspice berries come from this, the same spice you likely have in your spice cabinet. And the leaves are used in cooking, as well.

I took this photo of a mature cinnamon tree, as well. In places like Sri Lanka and India, where a lot of cinnamon is grown, it's trimmed back each year. When the new, sturdy sprouts grow back and are big enough, the bark is split and peeled off and dried, and that's the source of stick cinnamon. My cinnamon plants are still about 12 inches tall so I won't be harvesting my own cinnamon any time soon.

And if you wonder where your cabbage comes from (besides the grocery store) there are hundreds of acres of cabbage in this part of the state. It's cabbage harvest time now, and we've seen lots of trucks loaded to the top and over, with fresh-cut cabbages. We even had to dodge a huge head of cabbage in the middle of the intersection!

Heading homeward to a frozen garden. Stay warm!

The View from My Computer Window

(Remember, you can click on any photo to make it larger to view).

It's like waiting for a red light to change when you're in a hurry. It's time for the snow to MELT. Ok, now it really will. Ok, really, now it's going to melt today. It has hung around for 4 days now. I know I have no reason to complain, Peggy Anne, at Bailey's Nursery in Minnesota, said they have 3 ft. of snow and she was walking across the lake, on snowshoes, no less, to have coffee with her sister on Sunday. Brrrrrrr. No thanks. A wimpy 1 inch of snow that hangs on for 4 days is waaaay to much winter as far as I'm concerned. The weatherman, lying guy he often is, promises us 70 degrees by Saturday. We'll see.

Above is the view I see from my upstairs window, looking down at the Herb Shop, bell tower and guest house, all in the garden. Ok, now the snow will melt, any minute now. Or else I'm going back to Florida again.

I clicked a photo of the jonquils as they were bowed down under the little bit of snow. And a pic of the poppies that are up and growing in the pathways of the garden. Somehow, no matter how careful I am when I harvest poppy seed, a few escape and come up in the pathways. And once they're there, I let them bloom because they really don't do well when they are transplanted.

I'm posting a couple of photos of allspice and bay rum plants. Anyone interested in ordering them from the nursery? If so, I'll post prices and information. They also have cinnamon plants and lemon bay rum for sale, very nice plants, great people do deal with. Here's how to grow allspice. And the same for bay rum.

That's Billy Hopkins from the nursery, holding the Allspice seedling which they can mail to you.

Then below, the green "twig" I'm holding is cinnamon. That's the part you cut and slice the bark from, then dry it. That's where cinnamon comes from, whether it's stick cinnamon (just the dried bark) or ground cinnamon, which is the dried bark, ground fine. Cinnamon plants grow fine as a houseplant, as does allspice and bay rum. All very fragrant and useful in medicine and culinary uses. Bay rum is easily made into a lotion for skin rashes (you may know the fragrance from after shave lotions; it's in there, not just because it smells fresh and spicy, but because it is very soothing to the skin, as well). Here's a link to making your own bay rum cologne.

Pirates loved cinnamon, or was it bay rum? Probably it was just rum flavored with cinnamon and bay. That's me, sticking my face through a pirate cutout, proving I was a tourist. He's kind of a chubby old pirate. But hey, all that rum I guess.

I just last week sent away a start of a mint I've been cultivating for almost 30 years, to VJ Billings at Mountain Valley Growers. We've tentatively named it, "Blue Eye Springs" since that's where I found it growing (near a spring outside Blue Eye, MO) all those years ago. It's a very productive spearmint that stays green most of the winter and is always the first mint up in the spring and the last one to quit in the fall. She said she will have it for sale in about a year.