Mushrooms

Remember a while back when I was getting frustrated with my mushroom kit? Well I contacted the company, and saw a representative at the Boston Flower & Garden show and it turns out I was doing something wrong! When I opened the shipping box there was a page of instructions, that I followed to a T. However, apparently the box of the kit itself opened in ways I would not have guessed and inside that were a spray bottle and more instructions. Those instructions told me to submerge the entire bag in water for 24 hours to soak it, then start spraying.

I did that and look what happened!! One giant mushroom and a few smaller ones. We actually harvested these last weekend and had them on pizza one night. Delicious! My first harvest of the year!!!

Gardeners' Gathering

Several weeks ago (before the homework caught up with me, before I got the flu, and before I got way behind on blogging) I went to the Boston Gardeners' Gathering. It was an informal event with no registration and lots of workshops and lectures on a variety of topics, but with a focus on community gardening.

Mayor Menino was there. He handed out awards for MVG (Most Valuable Gardener), Best New Community Garden, and a few others. I was totally unaware of what an active community gardening area this was.Many area gardening groups and non-profits had information available. I might get into some things this summer, but without a car a few of the events are more than an hour away on the train and I'm lazy...

I stayed for two of the demos/lectures. The first was on canning. Since J got me the canning kit for my birthday I was hoping to learn how to do it right. I got lots of great information and we were able to get a taste of some different jams. The whole room smelled delicious! Can't wait until local berries are up so I can purchase some and try my hand at canning.
Do you can? What do you can and do you use a pressure cooker or just a water bath?

The second lecture was about using edibles in landscaping. I had hoped they might have more information about how to grow those edibles, but a lot of it was just people showing off photos of their gardens. I get the pride and wanting to share, but I'm not sure it was particularly informative.

Overall, it was a great event and I look forward to it next year!

Quick Hi

Hi! Yes, I'm still alive.
The flu took me out of commission the first half of the week and then catching up from being unable to do anything but lie in bed and be miserable has taken up the second half of my week.
I promise to update soon. Hopefully over the weekend.

Here's an update... the banana plant arrived!! Nothing like that to make a plant-crazed girl feel better.

Hint

Ok, this is a little more than a hint, but while I'm waiting for the actual plant to arrive I wanted to share how excited I am!!

Mystery

What do you think this very large pot is for? It's a 20" pot.Leave your guesses below and Monday I'll give you a hint.

April Fools

I woke up this morning, on the first day of April, expecting sunshine and birds chirping and blue skies. Mother Nature on the other hand decided to play a nasty April Fools joke.
My reaction was definitely not family-friendly, and I try to keep the blog PG (it's a blog about gardening, I'm not sure what the heck I'd put on that would take it above a G-rating actually...) so I won't share it with you. Suffice it to say I am not happy. I want Spring and I want it NOW!

Boston

I know I've been a bit absent this week - things are getting crazy with work and school. I thought I'd end the week with some photos of Boston from the walk we took downtown a few weeks ago. You'll notice the weather in these photos looks like it might be Spring. IT WAS A LIE!! A day later it snowed.