Ok, the yummy orange paste tomato I tested last year for Organic Gardening magazine is available at North Haven Gardens right now, in limited quantities. This is a tasty paste tomato, similar to a Roma, but with lemon yellow flesh and a light sweet flavor. It's heat tolerant, compact with good fruiting. Can't wait to make some golden spagetti sauce this year...

The three ornamental peaches I planted last year are all popping. They are each a double flowering variety called 'Peppermint'. Blooms appear in shades of hot pink and white/pink stripes. They are the fascination of my 1 1/2 year old neighbor, Madeline. And the other neighbor, Lonnie...who is not so much 1 1/2 but who nonetheless gets all giggly like a little girl when new things are blooming in my garden. Delights for kids and not so much kids alike! Purrrty.

Hey Carolyn...I know, I'm way overdue with the finished photos of the patio and walkways. I still have more pots etc. that I want to put out on the patio, but here is the start...

I grew a wonderful Mustard Green in the garden this past fall through winter and it's still going strong. It's called 'Southern Giant Curled' and you can procure the seed from Botanical Interest. I'd direct seeded it out into the garden and it's been as happy as could be all winter long. But I sort of forgot about harvesting much of it. I mixed some of it into a fresh salad the other day and was reminded about how tasty it is! Sweet tasting leaves followed by just the right amount of spicy mustard flavor. This variety is very slow to bolt and the plants in my garden haven't even thought about blooming yet. It's a pretty plant to boot...

It's almost tomato planting time here in Tejas...I'll post some photos of my 7-week old seedlings soon. They'll be going out into the garden in about 2-weeks or so. If you don't have space in the veggie garden, or maybe haven't gotten around to building those new veggie boxes yet, don't fret. You know those nice sunny ornamental beds you have up in the front yard? That's prime real estate baby!

Grab yourself some pretty painted tomato cages this spring (to color coordinate of course with your decor...) and slap those tomato plants down in the front yard. Working some veggies into the ornamental garden can help you take advantage of precious sunlight but still look pretty at the same time.

In this photo from my front yard, 'Celebrity' tomatos in blue cages are planted amongst pretty purple angelonia, ornamental peppers, roses, marigolds, creeping thyme and daylilies. The blue tomato cages look fab with my blue bottle tree...

http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=39102@ktvt.dayport.com

What I've spent the last week doing on multiple stations....plant your veggies people!!! lol

Just in case those of you living in Texas don't realize how much you can grow here in the winter, all winter, this is what my dinner plate looked like last night. Straight from the garden to the plate. YUM. I dedicate this plate to Rod and Julie Dreher...as I think this is what they'll be eating for the next month!

Even on chilly winter days when your toes feel like ice cubes...well, my toes always feel like ice cubes. After a bit of an ice-storm here, the sunshine is back but it's still too cold for me to venture outside. Maybe in a couple of hours. I'm on vacation right now so I'm taking advantage of my free morning to relax, have some coffee, start some seeds and record things in my garden journal. Which I'm TERRIBLE about doing by the way.That's what happens when you're a professional horticulturist...you do all the things you tell your students/clients NOT to do! lol.  Actually, it's one of the reasons I started this garden blog. Not because I wanted to showcase any brilliant garden writing, have a million people view my garden, or any such pursuit. I started it so my friend Carolyn and I could keep up with each others gardens and so I could keep better track of what I did and when.

So right now I'm starting more seeds of the varieties I test for Organic Gardening Magazine, I can't divulge the variety names for the test plants (names have been blotted out for your own protection!), but there is an assortment of tomatoes, spinach, celery, squash and more. The test spinach has already gone out into the garden, along with the cutting celery and lettuce. In addition to the test plants, I'm also getting some seeds going for some of my other standard favorites. Tomatillos purple and green, Tomato 'Aunt Ruby's German Green', 'Green Zebra', 'Marvel Striped' and a few others.

I keep all my seeds in plastic buckets with lids so I can tote them around. Seeds packets are sitting in piles around me at the moment...oops, just dumped a bunch of okra seeds all over the floor...those will go directly into the garden in April. Still trying to decide what else I'll start indoors right now...