Winter in Florida

Inspired by the amaryliss photos at Yarnstorm, here are the paperwhites that I managed to grow. I know nothing about the specific variety of flower. The bulbs came in a felt bag kit and they were a Christmas gift. I'm just pleased as punch that they worked.



While I had the camera out.....

I've been meaning to photograph this experiment too:


Pumpkin plants. This is the second go at starting the plants from seeds. The first try started OK but it took to long for me to get the plants into dirt. I started them with a trick I learned watching Sesame Street when La was little - take a glass jar, add a loosely crumpled wet paper towel, then add a few seeds on it. This works well for sprouting dried beans - you can see the roots and it's pretty neat. Turns out it works well for pumkin seeds too. Then I transplanted all of the seeds that didn't sprout and young shoots to an old Lunchables container that I punched a few drainage holes in the bottom. And last week or so, I transplanted them into old margarine tubs.

Then looking around the yard, I found:

1. A young pineapple. We have a lot of pineapple plants in the back yard, either started from grocery store pineapple tops or from the babies of those plants. Not sure if these are good eating or not. I think you have to pick it at just the right time in order for it to be delightful and you probably have to be more regular in your irrigation, too.



2. This is our golden raintree. Really, it's kind of a pest - making too many babies and shading most of the whole back yard. Mostly I wanted to show off the sky.


3. Bougainvilla blooms. Whe have a giant sized bougainvilla in the back yard - it's kind of untamed. We haven't had a really good freeze to prune it back for us in a few years, it seems.

Knit-wise, I'm working on a baby-sized version of Thorpe to send to the Afghans for Afghans newborn campaign. I'm at a tricky part of figuring out how to center the front with respect to the crown darts.