An Herbal Affair

Nearly every year for the past 20 years, we've gone to the Herbal Affair in Sand Springs, Ok, just outside Tulsa. It's a great little community of about 20,000 and each year, they host one of the best herb festivals in America. Back when they began, I was still hosting Herb Day in May here at the farm. Five ladies came from Sand Springs, including Sandi Byerly and Ruth Leib, checking out how I ran my festival and looking for ideas. They saw a couple of things they wanted to use and said they hoped I didn't mind that they were starting a festival around the same time as mine. I didn't, and in fact, I believe that was my last year out of 7 years of hosting Herb Day in May. It was growing too fast, getting too big. Valet parking was always one of the services we provided, not because we were exclusive, but because there was so little room to park, and little level ground, that it was safer and easier to have volunteers park cars for what was back then, mostly a women's attended event.

The Sand Springs "city fathers," as the first group of organizers called them, let them have 1/3 of the town triangle for their "little festival." That first year they drew about 3,000 people and it got the city father's attention. The next year the Chamber of Commerce, the mayor, the Boy Scouts and several civic groups and churches got behind them and the festival has continued to grow ever since. I don't think we've missed but one year in the 20 and so it was a pleasure to be asked to speak this year at the 20th anniversary (on "Herbal Home Remedies That Work").
They annual have about 25,000 people for the event, always held the 3rd Saturday in April. This year, with drizzling rain and dark clouds, the attendance was down slightly, but the vendors all seemed to have great sales. I know our sales were only down a tiny bit over last year.

The Herbal Affair is unique because they hold tight to the overall theme of herbs. From the Peppermint Lane tent where you can drop off your kids and know they are safe and entertained with games, to the Basil Street Stage which has entertainment all day long. Bluegrass, jazz, country, children's ballet, jig dancing and sometimes Native American traditional dancing, all are held on that stage in the center of it all. And it's a great big family event, no longer just the garden club set. Master Gardeners, young couples who are starting their first garden, kids of all ages, everyone comes to the Herbal Affair.

Everything has to be herbal, the food, including a tent of Amish cooks with their chicken and noodles and (my favorite) homemade chicken salad sandwiches and pineapple coconut pie. The Boy Scouts sell root beer out of canoes filled with ice. Mr. Tomato Man sells nothing but heirloom tomatoes (actually it's his daughter now as he's deceased, but people still flock to the booth for their annual heirloom tomatoes, still $2 each). Homemade soaps, with our friend Gayl Bousman of Evening Shade Farm, games, dog sitting, plant sitting, garden antiques, garden art, everything relating to the garden can be found there. It's where I always buy a lot of my herbs for the garden, it's where I've found the garden sculptures we have in the lavender bed and it's like an annual homecoming, seeing friends and customers we only see once a year. It's a great place for buying interesting new plants for everyone.

The festival covers not only the downtown city triangle, but goes for several blocks to the north and east. They offer free trolley service from the parking lots and to my knowledge, don't charge a fee for entry. Their money comes from booth fees, which are reasonable, table rentals and tax revenus (sales tax in Sand Springs is 9.4%). All of the money goes toward the youth organizations and youth projects for the city. It's also a big day for dogs as half the people seem to bring theirs. Some in baby carriages, some tucked into their coats, others on leashes, but it's a dog's day out, too.

The red buds are still in bloom here! That's a full month of blooming. I don't ever remember red buds in bloom this long. We've enjoyed the blooms in salads and now the little "pea pods" will be coming where the blossoms were and we'll have those steamed a time or two before they get too tough. They taste a lot like sugar snap peas, just not as sweet. But think of it, FREE FOOD just growing on trees!

We're still having morels, too, in fact, we've eaten them the past 2 nights with our visitors. Paul and Erinna Chen, Josh's niece and husband, and their daughters Pikea, 4, and Vega, 8, are here visiting their Grandmother Barbara, from Rochester, NY. Paul has been great working in the garden, spreading gravel in the pathways and around the Herb Shop porch. He cut the old red bud down, along with trimming another one and cutting down the nearly dead crab apple tree. He likes outdoor work and they have a garden back home. The children have enjoyed gathering eggs, watching the new goat kids bounce off of things and just generally enjoying the farm.

I'm waiting for the ground to dry a bit more so I can get the asparagus bed finished, and the asparagus planted. It's heeled in, in another bed temporarily. With a little rock work and some mortar in the joints, it will be a working raised bed again.

I'm off to Otis, Indiana, near Michigan City, to speak at the LaPorte Master Gardeners conference this coming weekend. It will be interesting to go north, up near the Great Lakes, where spring hasn't quite awakened yet. Maybe that's why we're hearing loons here in the mornings. I often hear their call when I'm in the hot tub. The loons have moved south, to get at spring a few weeks earlier. I'm betting that morels, red buds, dogwoods and other spring plants aren't in season yet up north. It will be interesting to see and reminds me of a fantasy I've had over the years, of starting as far south as morel mushrooms grow, and following spring northward with the morel season. Wouldn't that be fun?

Morel Mushrooms - A World Class Delicacy

There are some specific things I look forward to each year. Baked turkey at Christmas; lilacs in bloom in April; the first tomato, the first sweet corn, the first dogwood to bloom, and....morel mushrooms. They are without a doubt, a world class delicacy, up there with truffles, the best Italian cheese, a fine wine and birthday cake when you're 4 years old.

If you have grown up with morels, you know never to ask someone where they found theirs. You know, too, that when someone asks you to hunt with you, or for you to show them where to hunt, as lots of readers did some years back when Gourmet magazine came to the farm to write an article about one of my meals, which included morels, then you know that person doesn't have a clue. One never shares their morel hunting grounds, not until just before they're ready for that last great morel hunt in the sky. Those secret morel hunting places are guarded and passed down from generation to generation. "Where'd ya find your morels?" is a phrase only spoken by an outlander, an outsider, someone who just doesn't have understand the secrecy and mystery involved in morel hunting.

Josh spent early Easter morning out in the pouring rain, in the woods, hunting over one of his favorite morel grounds and came back home with a big ole bag full of morels including some fairly large ones. And, knowing full well, I will be battling gout by tomorrow as penance for my eating, I fixed a batch and indulged myself for tonight's supper. Two things will give me gout with near absolute certainty: a plateful of morel mushrooms, or biscuits and gravy (gout is from the build up of uric acid and relates to kidney function). So I have my prednisone at hand for the middle of the night when my foot will likely feel an elephant stomped on it, but for this eveing, I et a mess o' morels and enjoyed every last crumb.

My recipe for cooking morels is my own concoction and it works for freezing morels as well as cooking them. People who've tasted it, including those fine folks from Gourmet magazine, say it's the best tasting morels they've eaten. I don't fry many things, but morels are best fried to a golden brown, crispy state and eaten immediately.

First split the mushrooms in half and soak in salt water if you need to, to chase out any ants. Drain. Get a little bowl of buttermilk ready. And put a sleeve of saltine crackers in the food processor and process to fine crumbs, then pour those into a zipper baggie. Drop the morels into the buttermilk, then drop into the baggie of cracker crumbs and shake to completely coat the mushrooms. Lay them out on a cutting board. (At this point you could lay them on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for overnight, then bag up in zip bags. They're just like fresh for about 3 months in the freezer and can be taken out and immediately fried).

Heat a pan of cooking oil to hot (peanut or canola oil works best for this; olive oil doesn't do well heated that hot. The oil needs to be hot, not smoking, just good and hot, about 360 degrees. Hot enough that when you drop the mushrooms in, they sizzle and simmer, not losing the breading, but not cooking so fast they burn, either. Drop the mushrooms in, 3 or 4 at a time. It should take about 2 minutes to cook the mushrooms, turning once. Drain and keep hot and cook up the rest. Sometimes I dust the mushrooms with crumbled dried dillweed, but usually, just a tiny salting is all they get. They're crispy on the outside, so tender and sweet on the inside and there just aren't many foods as good. Nothing whatsoever, in the springtime, looks like a morel mushroom, either. Or tastes as good.

I was out photographing some of our plants this week. First, the pawpaws are in bloom. If you look at the photo of the flower, notice in the upper right hand corner, the pollinator is waiting for me to finish interrupting so he can complete his visit to the flowers. Pawpaw's flowers don't have a lot of smell, but to a fly or some wasps, they evidently do. In the fall, where those flowers were, will be a 6 or 8 ounce green potato-looking pawpaw fruit that will taste like a combination of vanilla pudding and banana. That's probably why they're called Ozarks bananas (or Indiana bananas, depending on where you are at the time).

Pawpaws normally grow in the shade in deep woods, in moist valleys and draws between the hills but when I was a kid, my grandmother, who lived in Nevada, MO, in West-Central Missouri, had a next door neighbor with a pawpaw tree in her front yard. It was in full sun and looked a lot like a magnolia tree in shape and leaf size. She had no interest in the fruit so my Grandma and I would go pick pawpaws from under the tree in the fall of the year.

Also in bloom is the wild ginger (Asarum canadense). I'd thought the flowers look an awfully lot like pawpaw blossoms but up close, they don't at all. Just a similar color. I like to go digging wild ginger right before Christmas and clean the roots, then candy them. Wild ginger isn't as hot as Asian ginger but has the same fresh, pleasant gingery taste.

From Triplets to Trilliums

All the dire warnings about frigid temperatures for last night, and probable death to the newly pollinated fruit on the trees and such, the severe cold didn't come to pass. Being near the lake moderates our temperatures often, and it helped last night. It got down to freezing, but not below (18-20 degrees was predicted).

But death did come. Yesterday I took this photo of Allium's triplets, born two days before and they all appeared well. Allium accepted them all without hesitation, and all were seen nursing. But this morning Josh found the dark colored one (on the right), nearly dead. Evidently the male of the trio, the more aggressive one, had been pushing her away and she wasn't getting enough milk. During the night she was just too weak and was cold this morning. Josh brought her inside to warm her and got some milk down her, but being so weak and so young, she didn't survive. Now Allium is left with one little female and one male kid. It's sad but it's life on the farm. We've had 7 new kids born in less than a week and one nanny still expecting.

The trilliums are beginning to bloom in the garden and in the woods, too. I saw some in the woods last week with white blossoms (Trillium pusillum var. ozarkanum), also known as "wake robins," but mine in the garden is the purple trillium (Trillium recurvatum). You'll find them growing in the woods along with dog tooth violets (Erythronium albidum) and may apples (Podophyllum pelatum). American Indians used trillium, which was also known as "birth root," for treating menstrual disorders and Iroquois women reportedly ate the leaves of trout lily to prevent conception, both according to the Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants. Most people now just look upon these early spring plants as interesting to grow.

I made my annual trek into Arkansas to rake up pine needles for the herb beds. Pine needles provide enough mulch to keep weeds at bay and yet don't hold excess moisture like straw or wood mulch does. Herbs don't need much moisture on their roots and too much even gives problems on some herbs.

Every year I give all the herb beds a good dusting of lime, then lay down several inches of pine needles. They only last one season, but it's the best mulch I've found for herbs. You can also buy baled pine straw from agricultural supply stores, in small bales like you see here.

Part of my annual pilgrimage into the wilds of Arkansas, besides getting pine needles, is stopping at Perennials, Etc. in Garfield, AR. Steve & Susan Davisson always have interesting and unusual plants. Susan showed me this unusual Japanese may apple that is growing in her woodland garden near the nursery. Unlike our native may apples, which bloom white, this one has red blossoms and spotted leaves. Very unusual and it almost looks mossy. I wonder what the apples taste like? May apple jelly is an old time favorite for Ozarks families.



Also while at Perennials, Etc. I spotted this pair of carrots and decided they would do well at Long Creek Herb Farm. I think the artist dubbed the pair, "Bunny Bait," but I'm just calling them the Carrot Pair.


Steve had attached these giant lips, nose and eyes to the tree growing beside the Japanese may apple. It's good to know other people see faces in trees, besides me.

It's a Wild New World

No, that's not a fuzzy photo with spots; what you see are golf ball sized snow clumps falling in a brief snowstorm. The ground was too warm for anything to stick, but for about 30 minutes, it looked like millions of cotton balls falling from the sky. Fortunately the clumps were light and fluffy. It was an odd snow and didn't last long, and it never did get down to freezing here. The red buds are still fluffy and pink and still providing tasty additions to our salads. (Red Bud is in the legume family, the flowers and young pods are both good to eat). The pods, when about an inch long, can be steamed like snap pea pods. Strip the strings off the edges, steam and toss them with a tiny bit of butter and salt. The flowers can be simply picked from the tree and scattered liberally across any salad.

The view from the deck above the garden, looking down, makes the whole garden look ethereal and other worldly. The snow seemed to add a frosty edge to the otherwise extra-green spring colors.

The brief flurries didn't bother the celandine poppies from being in full bloom the following day. Celandine (Chelidonium majus) is assumed by many people to be a native plant but it is, instead, an immigrant from Europe that has escaped and made itself at home in the woods. It was historically used as a folk remedy for treating warts, corns, ringworm and other skin ailments. According to Dr. Jim Duke and Steven Foster, in the Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, the juice is highly toxic, irritating and allergenic and is not recommended for use. I like it just for the bright yellow flowers and its funny habit of throwing its seed in all directions if you brush against the ripening pods.

Probably the new goat kid should have been named Celandine since she was born the same day as the poppy bloomed. But her mother's name is Althea, so I dubbed her offspring, "Zebrina" for the plant in our garden, Althea Zebrina, which grows at the south edge, near the fence. And, not one, but 2 goat kids were born yesterday, both doing well, nursing and walking, and waking up to the new world. Photos to follow, of course.

In the same bed with the celandine poppies is a patch of native ferns and the fiddleheads are just coming up. These are a treat in the spring. I flash steam them (drop them into boiling water for about 1 minute, then immediately dunk into ice and water for 2 minutes), then I add them to salads. Or simmer the fiddles briefly in butter and serve on top of grilled salmon. You can also saute briefly in butter, then make an omelette, dropping in the fiddleheads and a sprinkling of cheese just before folding over and serving. Fiddlehead ferns are one of the secret spring vegetables of us wild foods forager types. And Emeril Lagasse, on the Food Network, has a recipe for Fiddlehead and Morel Mushroom Ragout. Our morels aren't out yet, but will be popping up in just a few days.

This patch of tulips are at the perfect stage for stuffing. I like to make chicken salad in the springtime and serve it stuffed into individual tulip flowers. Take out the stamen first, break off the stem just below the flower and fill with chicken or seafood salad. Eat the whole thing; it's an elegant and impressive dish to serve to dinner guests. They'll feel so naughty, eating those beautiful flowers.

Did you know that not all tulips smell alike? Compare a deep purple tulip's fragrance to red, pink and yellow. Purple and dark red have the best fragrance, white and light pink have the least. Funny what you can learn by sticking your nose into open flowers.

It's Faux, Faux, Sweet!

This innocent looking little stevia plant is like the Arabian story about the camel. First, the camel puts his nose under the tent and no one notices because it's so small. Then he places just one foot under the tent and no one notices, still. Then he puts in his shoulder. Everyone is used to seeing the leg, so no one in the tent pays any attention to the shoulder. Then it's an entire half of the camel and eventually, over time, the entire camel has made its way into the tent. Stevia's like that, it has worked its way into our lives over a couple of decades, very quietly.

Stevia, originally from South America, has been around in people's gardens for a long time. I've grown it for 15 years or more, mostly out of curiosity. There were stories circulating about stevia being used to treat hypoglycemia. According to the story, the only legitimate way to get stevia extract for many years was in the form of a face plaster from France. It came in 2 parts, special clay, and a vial of stevia extract. Those who used it said they bought the facial pack from the pharmacy, threw away the clay and used drops of the stevia which seemed to help with the hypoglycemia. Government regulators did not recognize stevia as a sugar substitute. But this year Coca Cola introduced a new extract, Truvia, which is going into their beverages as an "herbal supplement." And with all the publicity, everyone is wanting to grow their own stevia this year.

It's easy to grow in any ordinary garden soil. You simply dry the leaves and crumble them up in things you want sweet. In this form it's not good in cooking, only in foods that have already been cooked. So far, I'm not much impressed with the flavor but I'm still experimenting with it. I like it much better fresh rather than dried.

Taylor Miller, the blogger guru at Ogden Publishing, has gnomes in his pockets. Probably gnomes on his walls and a few loitering around in his garden, too. He posted a photo this week of a group of people, including him and President Obama. His posting told of an interview he conducted with one of the reporters who was at the groundbreaking ceremony of the new vegetable and herb garden at the White House, was quite interesting. I suggested we drive up to D.C. and make a presentation of (1) a gnome for the new Presidential household garden (which I have tentatively dubbed, "Gene-Gnome") and, (2) a lifetime subscription to The Herb Companion magazine, which is where Taylor's blog resides. Most months you'll find my Down to Earth column in the magazine but since I wrote the article on Mints this issue, I'm left missing in the columns dept. But check out Taylor's blog on The Herb Companion website. Here's a picture of Gene-Gnome, too.

The campaign to establish a real garden at the White House was conducted by a wide variety of plant organizations with letter writing, email sign-ups, petitions and more. Once people learned that Mrs. Obama actually cared where her food came from and that she supports locally grown food as opposed to imported food that costs more to ship than it pays the farmer to grow. Lots of us gardener types got really excited about the possibility of a First Family in the White House who pays attention to real food.

Chef Alice Waters, the sometimes outspoken and often controversial California foods activist and owner of Chez Panisse restaurant has been a supporter of the Slow Food movement worldwide and internationally known for her projects to put healthy food in schools, made a big push to the First Family for the placement of a garden, as well. (Alice and I were both among the delegates to the first International Slow Foods Conference in Turin, Italy, in 2004). And why shouldn't there be a vegetable garden at the White House. Historically there was, a long time ago. And during the World Wars, Victory Gardens thrived there.

Last summer, when salmonella scares on lettuce, spinach and jalapeno peppers made us all aware of how important protecting our food safety has become. Having had a kidney transplant just 3 years ago, I'm very aware of the food I eat and how important it is for the food to be safe and healthy. You could call it homeland security, with a small "H," or simply call it eating healthy food you've grown yourself, but the bottom line is, this new family in the White House will have food on their table that was plucked from the soil just hours before, rather than food that's full of preservatives and possibly harvested halfway around the globe, days, even weeks, before.

You can read the details about getting tickets to tour the new garden here and go see for yourself. Happy gardening!

Here are some National Food Holidays coming up in case you need something to celebrate: March 31 - National Clams on the Half Shell Day (now there's a reasonably interesting way to get sick!); April 2, National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day (I guess it could be re-named, "Salmonella & Jelly Day"...ok, that's not actually fair), National Egg Salad Week, April 12-18 (Josh's mother celebrated early this year and made egg salad sandwiches for our picnic in the woods yesterday), and last, for April is National Pretzel Day on April 26. You can find more odd and unusual food holidays to celebrate if you look under "my favorite blogs" list to the right and click on Bizarre Food Holidays.

And another bit of news in case you missed it:

Buying organic may be hazardous to your health!

TULSA, Okla. — One of the most deadly spiders in the world has been found in the produce section of a Tulsa grocery store. An employee of Whole Foods Market found the Brazilian Wandering Spider Sunday in bananas from Honduras and managed to catch it in a container.

The spider was given to University of Tulsa Animal Facilities director Terry Childs who said this type of spider kills more people than any other.Childs said a bite will kill a person in about 25 minutes and while there is an antidote he doesn't know of any in the Tulsa area. Spiders often are found in imported produce, and a manager at Whole Foods says the store regularly checks its goods and that's how the spider was found. Won't that make you think twice the next time you grab a bunch of bananas for the shopping cart!

Lime Balm Peeks Up Through the Leaves

This week I tilled up last year's leek bed to make room for parsnips and noticed the lime balm (Melissa officianalis 'Lime') was peeking up through the leaves. A visitor to the garden, years ago, brought this lime flavored lemon balm. It stays primarily in that same bed, which is 4 ft. x 6 ft. The other end has a clump of Blue Eye Spring mint, which is agreeable to having that small space. Of course every year I have to pull out the mint roots or it would take over the whole bed. The leeks didn't mind, nor the garlic the year before, nor the potatoes before that.

Want to know more about lemon balm? Check this article written by Jeanine Davis, the Extension Hort Specialist at North Carolina Extension Svc. I met Jeanine some years ago when I was a speaker at the NC Herb Assoc, a great organization of herb growers.

So just what's lemon balm, or in this case, lime balm good for? Pie, cake, cookies, tea, just to name a few uses, and it's a very beneficial medicinal plant, too. Owners of orchards, back in previous centuries planted lemon balm between the fruit trees to attract bees, and as you know, bees are required to pollinate the trees. Lemon balm, it seems, is a favorite plant for bees' nectar collection. Of course if you're growing lemon balm for your own use, it's best to keep it pruned instead of letting it bloom and go to seed. Once the plant starts blooming, the flavor of the leaves turn from "Ohhh, that's lemony!" to, "Blescch, that tastes like soap, why would anyone eat that?" Just a few weeks makes a big difference in flavors. Just like basil (or most herbs), if you leave lemon balm, or lime balm alone and don't give it regular pruning and use only the old leaves, you will not like the plant one bit. If you'd like my recipe for Lemon Balm Cake, using either lemon balm or lime balm, here's the link: Jim Long's Recipes: Lemon Balm-Blueberry Cake and if you'd like to find lemon or lime balm to grow, you can find it by going to my website, click on "Looking for Plants?" button and then go to the Richters Herbs link. There are also more links to plant sellers we recommend highly there, as well.

Our long time friend, Nellie Neal, who has a great garden radio talk show, the GardenMama, in Jackson, MS just added Horticultural Projects Manager at Bass Pecan Company to her impressive resume. I have no idea what a Hort. Projects Manager does, but if it has to do with plants, Nellie knows how. At age 7 she planted eggplant seed and when the plants were big enough to transplant, Nellie sold the plants to her neighbors. In college at Louisiana State Univ. while other students were doing wild and crazy things, Nellie was growing 90 tomato plants in her front yard. We were very happy to have her visit us here last summer. And it was fun to be on her radio show. She helps gardeners find answers to their questions about growing organically, in Zones 8, 9 & 10 and is The gardening guru of the South.

One of our customers has a camel dairy business in California and sent a photo of one of their camels, Goldie, and her new baby, Aziz. The Oasis Camel Dairy has 18 camels, which they milk and use to make a very rich, wonderful herbal soap. The husband and wife team of Gil Riegler and Nancy Kobert have been raising camels at the farm for over 20 years and use them in therapeutic therapy programs for the physically challenged. Camels are sensitive, patient and highly intelligent and seem to thrive on their arid California farm. They offer lavender, Rosemary Mint, Gold-Frankincense-and-Myrrh, Orange Blossom and Milk and Honey soaps.

The garden is coming along, beds are being cleaned and every day something new blooms. Yeah spring!

Gremlins in the Spicebush

Poindexter, our resident gremlin, doesn't say much but the dirt on his fingernails tells the story. He's been digging in the flower beds again. I never know just where I'll find him when I'm in the garden but today he's resting in a bed of naked ladies (also known as hardy amaryllis, which has foliage that comes up in early spring, then dies down; along about August, clusters of naked stemmed, pink flowers pop up out of the ground like dancing showgirls of the '40s). He was under the spicebush (Lindera benzoin) a bit earlier, doing who knows what.

Gremlins, in case you don't know, aren't like fairies, elves or gnomes. Fairies were the little wee spirits who hide in the daytime but come out at night and fluff up the hollyhocks and comb the ferns and teach the ladybugs how to protect the garden plants. Gnomes, on the other hand, don't do a whole lot beyond stand guard. Elves, well, we don't have elves here, they all reside in England as far as folk tales go. But gremlins, they're the mischievous little fellows who dig holes in the garden and blame it on Molly, the dog. Or hide tools, which is their favorite game to play. Ever wonder where the trowel went that you know you just laid down, second ago and now can't see anywhere? Gremlins. And so I have no idea what Poindexter was doing under the spicebush, but I'm guessing I'll find my pruners there later on.

If you don't know spicebush, it's native from east Texas up to Ohio and into Pennsylvania. A great medicinal plant if you have a cold, we use it primarily for it's culinary puproses. It's an excellent plant in poultry, beef or pork dishes, and makes an excellent marinade for tofu. The berries, leaves and twigs are all used. It flowers now, sometimes even earlier in February in the Ozarks, and is pollinated by a little fly, although bees can sometimes be found on it if the weather is warm enough. The fragrance isn't strong at all, but it is one of the sweet fragrances of early spring in the Ozarks. I learned to use this native plant from my friend, Billy Joe Tatum, many years ago and learned its value in seasoning wild game. This is one of the few shade-loving herbs. Growing to about the size of a lilac bush, the plant can be found in the wild in deep forest shade, in moist or lightly damp places, although it will also grow at the edges of fields.

I visited our friends, Olee and Sharon Jobe at Spring Fever Greenhouse this week. They'd just gotten a shipment of 60,000 plant plugs a few days back and were busy transplanting, seeding and generally getting ready for spring. All those seed flat with no plants in them don't look like much now (except a whole lot of work filling the little plastic pots, in trays and getting them ready), but in a few weeks the greenhouses will be bursting at the seams with little garden plants that are being readied for their spring customers.

I'm hearing repeatedly from seed and wholesale agricultural suppliers that there seem to be more people gardening this year than in a very long time. Lots of neighborhood co-ops of people who have gone together to buy seed and supplies and are planning community gardens for the first time this year. Lots of people who are struggling to make ends meet have realized you can but a couple of tomato plants and grow your own tomatoes, with very little effort, for about $4, which is much cheaper than buying tomatoes at the grocery store. Lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, all easy crops, are giving the seed, and hopefully the plant companies, a bumper sales year. Most plant businesses need it because last year was disappointing for sales.

The old mule out front is known far and wide by people who travel past Spring Fever near Ozark, MO. Sharon always decorates the mule with fun things, like the St. Pat's hat here, and in the summer, the wagon behind the mule is overflowing with blooming flowers and later, with gourds or pumpkins. Sharon is a very talented painter and used the side of the shed where their gift shop is housed to paint this welcoming lady with doorway and flowers.

We've had more bird feeders around the deck this year and kept them filled so that Josh's mother, Barbara, can enjoy the birds. Unfortunately the squirrels have seen the "free, all you can eat buffet" sign and have been coming in increasingly larger numbers. We have 2 squirrel proof feeders, one that shocks, one that closes when a squirrel climbs on. That doesn't stop them from trying to gnaw through, tear down or otherwise destroy the feeders. Today I took new steps to deter the little fluffy tailed rats. I got out my stash of bottle rockets and exploding Roman candles. It doesn't hurt them, but it does scare the daylights out of them, and that's what I want. Go back to the woods, there's plenty to eat out there. If they stay around, they'll be attacking the tomatoes and that will be a worse problem than eating the bird seed.