New Flowers in My Garden

I wish I had more pots to plant flowers in, actually I wish I had a small patch of land to call my own, but more pots means more care and more hassle and more pruning and more cleaning.  I barely have time for the little garden that I have. 

This time around, I decided to be brave and buy something that most probably will take over my balcony if I don't watch it; a small jasmine plant.  I just couldn't resist the smell and wanted something different this time around.  Something tall and something pretty :) It's really beautiful, and I can only hope that it survives! 

My tomato plant is already budding with flowers :) Yay!

I also spent a good couple of hours cleaning the balcony with some 20+ buckets of water.  There was so much dust and dirt everywhere (not from the planting, but from the rains and wind) and we don't have a garden hose or water outlet, so Fishi's bucket to the rescue (thank you for sharing Fishi).  Although I considered buying a really long garden hose and hooking it up to the kitchen sink...but then I would have to store the hose on my balcony that already has no space.  And then I considered borrowing my in-laws garden hose, but then I realized that I would have to bring it over here, carry it up to the second floor, put down plastic everywhere so that the hose wouldn't get my kitchen and living room dirty and then...ya, no thank you! Too much work.  So, broom, mop, old hubby's t-shirts and bare feet...here we go.  I will spare you the details, but it was messy and I was exhausted.  But, now it's so clean I could lick the floor.  I mean, not really lick, but you get the idea.  My poor neighbors down stairs didn't say anything, even with a waterfall going over their balcony.  I really should bake them some sweets and take it down there.  I would hate to be a neighbor to me. Gosh...so annoying! Kill your plants already will ya!

Billboard Gardens

Wouldn't it be lovely to drive through forests of beautiful, tall green trees, passing under arches of bent tree trunks flowing with beautiful flowers with a cool clean breeze wisping past you as you drive to work...or sit through traffic.  Sigh, distracted by my made up highway through the forest...traffic=no gardens, no fresh clean air, nada.  But, things can change (probably not that drastically), but a new project is under way to transform various billboards in Los Angeles to bamboo gardens.  I think this is AWESOOOOME!  Urban Air is on a path to transform urban billboards into what they call "an open space in the urban skyline", to bring urban sustainablity to cities around the world and add a fresh slap of nature to our crazy world.

So let's dream that some day there will be hanging gardens and fresh clean air for us to enjoy while we drive to work.

 

Happy Friday Everyone!!

Fresh Tomato Salad

My tomato's have ripened and it was time to use them for a salad :)  I decided to make a very simple and quick salad that took less that 5 minutes to make, mostly because I didn't have any lettuce, haha and was so tired from work.

Ingredients:

3 Tomatos
2 Avocado's
4 Mini Cucumbers
Dash of salt and pepper to taste
Sprinkle of lemon juice
Drizzle of Olive Oil

Leftover lasagna was on the menu for dinner.  I had frozen whatever was left over in large ziploc bags, so all I had to do was pull them out to defrost and warm them in the microwave.  I love leftovers :)

Bon Appetit! :)

New Balcony Flowers

I finally got around to taking pictures of the flowers on my balcony.   The weird thing though, is after planting some of them, they begin to wilt, even though they get enough sun and water.  Not sure why that is.   

My new tomato plants.  My older ones either had some sort of a fungus or were just really sticky and therefore attracted all sort of dust and fuzz.  They were covered in white stuff.  They had to go. 

 I love these little cone flowers (I can't remember their names), but they come in amazing colors and are so soft to the touch.

My little bee is getting too zapped by the sun and is fading.  I think it might be time to repaint this little guy. 

Fairy Garden

What a cute idea.  A little garden for the fairy's. You never know, if you have a garden, maybe one of them will come by for a visit :)

Chiot's Run

 HGTV

Back Yard Patch

This cute etsy shop has everything you need to get you started on your very first fairy's garden! :)

Tea on the balcony

My parents are visiting and we decided to take advantage of the rare and beautiful weather here in Socal.

Would you like some tea?

 My mother-in-law baked all these sweets for the new year.  Isn't she amazing?

Pothole Gardens

What if we could turn something dangerous and awful into something beautiful.  What if we turned potholes into little patches of life with beautiful flowers?  Artist Pete Dungey did just that! He planted patches of flowers to highlight "...the problem of surface imperfections on British roads."

'If we planted one of those in every hole, it would be like a forest in the road'

I know I would personally avoid those potholes now!