The Botanicals Meet April friends & the Easter Bunny sneaks in.

The Botanicals Meet April friends & the Easter Bunny sneaks in.

The Gang meets April Friends
The Gang meets April Friends including the Easter Bunny

Yesterday was Earth Day – April 22, 1970, more than 20 million people across the U.S. are estimated to have participated in that first Earth Day.41 years later and  41st Earth Day Exceeds 100 Million Acts! The achievement puts Earth Day Network’s Billion Acts of Green campaign well on the road to success for delivering a billion Acts to world leaders at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to spur action against climate change. It is a fitting new chapter to Earth Day’s historic legacy of inspiring ordinary people to take action against Earth crises.

This blog, these postings, these creatures, this effort is from my heart and soul – this is my  ”commitment to educate friends and family on global warming and to hopefully buy green products such as energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).” I hope you find your passion for the Eco and Earth as well. http://botanicalbeautiesbeasties.com/main/

Gardening for beginners and the magic of gardening.

If your neighbor’s garden has you green with envy, it’s time to dig in and play dirty by planting your own garden. Celebrate the Earth, after all Earth Day is tomorrow!

“If spring has sprung and you’ve just decided to plant a garden, start with the small ready-to-go plants at the store and look forward to the joy of starting your own seeds for next season.

One of the biggest decisions you’ll make is where to plant your garden. Choose a spot with sun and shade, and away from tree roots and large bushes. Once the area is defined and the soil is fertilized and loose, you can draw lines to mark off where each item will be planted. Use the stick and string method to help you keep straight lines and an organized well-kept garden. Root vegetables grow nicely in rows; other veggies, fruits and herbs can be contained in square spaces.” mother nature network – check her out- tons of great stuff!  The above is from
www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/gardening-for-beginners

We here at The Botanical Beauties and Beasties garden are focusing on Herbs this year. We love containers for what we have is a deck, a bit of soil area, and some windows. No big yard here to grown on/in/from.

Today myself, and the Beauties, decided we would talk about the magic of gardening. Besides the little elfin like Beautie who has shown up each day this week, there is much more magic in gardens to be discovered. Being in the Boston region, I have decided to use a quote form John Quincy Adams. “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.”

I doubt he wrote this about gardens but it does epitomize the magic! When you garden, you get to use all parts of your body, brain and soul. That alone is like magic.  The body part: Obviously  it can be hard work and you may indeed you may have tried and soar muscles from the prep and the planting. The brain part: What fun to sit and dream in the winter what your garden will be, the cliché of looking at garden catalogues and seed packages! The brain makes up the plan, the brain makes up the dream of all the good things to come from your garden no matter how big or small it may be.  The soul:  Beauty of a flower, the satisfactions of your crops, the sheer simple joy of a single bloom – that’s soul food!   Need I point pout that a garden takes enormous patience and perseverance? I think not!  The piece you may be missing out on is: A garden, all the planning, the work, the caring and watching over, all that indeed can take over your mind and not only can the gardens difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish, but some of life’s other ones may too due to your new focus and creation.  Now, that’s Soul food X10!

Elf peeking out from the Herb of Rosemary

Earth Week and our theme of “Growing” continues

I was thinking what would be good Earth Week postings – and it came to me that it ought to be about being good to oneself and to the earth. As I thought I was somewhat astonished how much those two overlapped.  Eat Organic (when possible) and that is certainly kinder to the earth. Grown without pesticides– better for earth and all it’s inhabitants. Spring Clean chemical free – much better for the cleaner her/himself – and again, easier on the mother earth. You get the idea and point I am sure….  Those are kind of the middle things, the big things are more like Oil and Gas, the little things are more like turn off the lights when you are done. It ALL adds up to matter.  So why not just be good to both. Do what you can this week, and every week, to be kind to yourself and you may indeed be taking care of the Earth as well.

Well, in the thoughts of being good to myself … I could not resist: sunny days and  warmer temps means spring flowers and gardens to me.  As many gardeners will attest to – I just had to have some PANSIES so I could start looking at flowers! I planted them up in containers, although I must admit not in that cool idea of a wine crate from last week.  I reused planter boxes that I have, and will have for decades, for they are plastic. I would not buy them again, but since I have them – it is more wasteful not to use them, verses needlessly purchasing new ones and using more resources of any type. Funny thing – when I was all done – there was a little elf like/Jolie like Beautie standing on the Pots edge!  (Image  below)  I guess that means Jolie is our spokeswoman of the week.  In case you don’t remember- Jolie  lives in the meadow, and  is passionate about exploring and promoting herbals and their uses for medicinal means and for beauty. She runs a shop in Meadowville to serve both purposes. (Columbine (Aquilegia) http://botanicalbeautiesbeasties.com/individual-stories/

Don’t forget- the SEED CONTEST is still going! Guess the type, date it sprouts out of the peat pot, and day it is ready to go into the grown and you could win FREE GREETING CARDS from the Botanical Beauties and Beasties.  http://botanicalbeautiesbeasties.com/product-samples/   (BTW YES – The seeds were planted this weekend!) 

Pansies and Elf
Pansies and a little magic

 

Imagination and food – now that is always fun!

New great Restaurant in NYC  called LAUT, located in the Union Square area. The Blossoms went, well actually just Tanka went, Sakura was shopping as they were visiting NYC.  How could a girl resist!  However, Tankas meal was so good they are going back (together) soon. The reviews are amazing.  NYT states “Lurking in all the fusion in this restaurant near Union Square is some of the best Malaysian food in Manhattan.”  Address: 15 E. 17th St. (bet. B’way & 5th Ave.) Manhattan, NY 10003 (and for the local New Yorker, yes they do delivery!) (Food Photo from LAUT) Laut Website

Question? Food Porn? What?!?
Is the body  you want just a figment of your imagination? Here’s the site for you! http://www.tastespotting.com/ “Sarah Gim certainly didn’t invent food porn. But she’s perfected it.

Gim runs TasteSpotting, a virtual buffet showcasing some of the most arresting food images available online with a collection that tops 140,000 stunning photos. The majority of the 5 million clicks logged each month come from visitors who graze with their eyes and gobble up kitchen inspiration and recipes. They drool. They lose themselves in the aspiration of it all. A red beet salad adorned with chives that were sprinkled just so. A snowflake cookie with impossibly perfect pink icing. And a plump fig, torn open and lovingly captured in a photo that is so simple, so transporting that it borders on heartbreaking.” Article from the LA Times

I just picked the first image ( easter is coming up and ….) for it’s fun factor – but the site is full of  fun, funky, serious foodie images and links!  This one is from aspicyperspective.com. Recipes included!