I’ve made no secret of the fact I’ve been battling an addiction. I used to hide it, but it’s better to be open and honest about these things.
My high? Miracle-Gro Bloom Booster.
I love the stuff. Hit your garden with a hose-end sprayerful and WHOA! Flowers! It’s a giddy, 48-hour rush of floraspectacular.
But, oh, the big let-down bites. Those blooms fade. The droops set in. And all you can think about is your next hit. It’s a sad, sad way to live.
It took my yellowing yellow pear tomato plant to help me really (maybe) change my ways. The fruits are supposed to turn yellow, not the leaves, so I asked Marina D’Abreau at the Hillsborough Extension Service what might be the culprit.
There were many possibilities, but the most likely was lack of nitrogen. Being an organic veggie garden, it hadn’t gotten Bloom Booster — or any fertilizer. I was hoping it wouldn’t notice.
I know stinky fish emulsion is a recommended organic fertilizer (which explains why I wanted to skate by with compost). So off I went to Green Thumb nursery to pick up some. There, co-owner Steve Rey said — emphatically — that it’s the best fertilizer for all plants, unless you have a specific problem or deficiency to address. He even shared his personal fish emulsion testimonial about a post-transplant ligustrum yanked from mortal malaise after all else had failed.
The smell, he said, isn’t so bad. “Think of a dock in the Keys, where maybe some fish guts have been sitting around for a couple days.”
That sounded nice. I could even hear the gulls calling.
I bought a gallon jug and spent a good couple of hours diluting it by the pail full — two tablespoons per gallon of water — and splashing it all over the backyard.
I can say now, Steve was wrong. At least about the smell. Think fat flies, not seagulls. You won’t have to imagine them, either.
And the odor will waft through your house for hours, causing your husband to periodically sniff his armpits. (That’s actually pretty entertaining.)
I’m hoping fish emulsion proves to be the wonder fertilizer everyone says it is. It takes some effort. And there’s the smell. I expect a payoff.
If the only buzz I get is big black flies, it’s straight back to the Miracle-Crack for me.
Helen Ellis Memorial hospital, Tarpon Springs
Saturday, November 7th
Smoking Cessation: 10am-12noon
Weight Loss 1-3pm
Manatee Memorial Hospital, Bradenton
Smoking Cessation: Thursday, November 19th 6:30-8:30pm
Weight Control: Wednesday, November 18th 6:30-8:30pm
University Community Hospital, Tampa
Weight Control: Monday, November 30th 6:30-8:30pm
I’ll be right up front about this—I don’t smell so good right now. The nice autumn chill we forecast for our first Dirty Dirty Tour today didn’t quite materialize. But since so many people who read The Dirt in The Tribune promised to make the plunge on-line, I figured I’d better get some pictures up post-haste.
(It may be that “plunge” sounded really good about noon today, when I swear, it must have been 95 degrees!)
It was hot. Really hot. But Florida gardeners are made of pretty tough stuff. They smiled through it all, so happy to be surrounded by acres and acres of pansies, snapdragons, petunias—and lots of other plants that will be heading to North Florida, no doubt, until we get a cold snap here.
FOD Janice Vogt said, “I want to be buried here!” (Preferably on a cooler day.)
We were at Riverview Flower Farms, where owner Rick Brown pulled out all the stops to show almost 200 gardeners a good time. (Big thank yous also to growers Kevin and Jeff, and Rick’s wife, Sydney Park Brown. What a great bunch of hosts. OK, we’re all pausing now and clapping. Can ya hear it?)
We divided into three groups. One group made paper pots (a good way to recycle your Tribune—no, it doesn’t work with the other paper.) We planted them with dwarf sunflowers and milkweeds, with lots of coaching from Sydney. (Raise your hand if you’re a Master Gardener she trained when she was the Hillsborough Extension agent.)
“Make a hole twice the diameter of the seed and 1/4 inch deep,” (or something like that) Sydney, left, tells Linda.
Dennis and Julie team up to make their paper pots. It’s really easy. Watch a step-by-step video on Farmer Rick’s blog.
One of our younger garderners, Alex, fills up his seed pots with help from his mom. (This little guy, Alex, was such a trooper. I expect big flowers from him in the future!)
We divided into three groups. While the first group planted seed pots, the other two groups took tours. Everyone labeled their trays and lined them up for carry-home later. (Jeri and Gladys, if you’re reading this, you forgot your trays! You can probably buy your plants at Home Depot in a month or so! I’m sure Rick appreciates getting a little work done gratis.)
I don’t have pictures from the tours—Kim took the tours, and my notebook! so she’ll have more on that here and in the Nov. 8 Tribune. Since I’d already gotten to visit, I stayed in the Tribune-paper-pots area. I did manage to take a few morel random photos, so here they are.
JD Smoak and his grandson, Aedin Cram, 3. These two were part of a family who won the prize for most generations on a Dirty Dirty Tour. Great-grandma Beverly Raley, grandpa JD, mom (and her sis) Amanda Cram and Jazmin Stonebraker, and little Aedin. Four generations!
There’s a little dispute about whether these were Halloween costumes or a way for Doris Prokopi to keep tabs on hubby Bill, but hey, the oufits were all about form, color and pattern. And that’s what we like, right?
Crowd shot!!
And one more
Many, many thanks to our FODs - Janis, Janna and Chip for showing up and just being great people. I adore you all. (Susan, you too! We know you would’ve been there today if you could have!) I’m honored to know you.
I’m also looking forward to meeting some new folks here. Janet, Mona, Beverly, Allan—looking for you! I also really hope we hear from Eric who’s 14, really cool, and probably knows a heck of a lot more than I do about gardening.
And once more, pause, one-two-three—clap-clap, hoot-holler for Farmer Rick! Thank you!
Here at The Dirt, we never cease to be amazed by the plants that choke when you give them your full attention and the ones that thrive when you least expect it.
Exhibit K: Back in July, I wrote about holding up my blue pea pod vine with a teepee made up of clippings from an overgrown dracaena. Here’s the photo I posted:
Apparently, the dracaena branches didn’t get the memo that they’re not a plant anymore but a prop. Recently they began sprouting. Three months later, here’s what the teepee looks like:
Clearly, the dracaena cuttings aren’t in competition with the vine – which is blooming like crazy right now. But it will be interesting to see what happens next.
The good news is, it obviously doesn’t take much effort to get a dracaena cutting going. The branches aren’t deeply buried in soil – they’re barely propped up against the sides of the pot!
Dru Trahan, a member of the Temple Terrace Garden Club, sent a fun email recently:
“About a year ago, a fellow garden club member asked me to help create an educational brochure of trees for Temple Terrace,” she wrote. “YAWN!”
Dru loves taking pictures, but she’d never even thought of focusing on trees. “Not really something that made me jump out of bed in the morning, grab my camera and head out the door.”
But she agreed to the project, and now she looks at the world in a whole new way.
“I’m much wiser and more appreciative of the value and beauty that trees add to our community,” she wrote. “I now see beautiful trees all over, just begging me to photograph them.”
As part of the project, the club sponsored a Trees of Temple Terrace photo contest. They got 32 submissions and had two winners in each of three categories:
Most Representative of Temple Terrace Category: Lani Czyzewski- First Place; Al Latina- Second Place (below is his photo of cypress trees)
Most Showy Flowering Tree Category: Elia Wilkinson- First Place (a chickasaw plum tree, shot in September, below), and Susan Schubert- Second Place
Most Creative/ Artistic Category: Dru Trahan - First Place (yay!!—that’s her photo of a sand oak canopy at the top of the post); Jane Adamson - Second Place (“Reflections on the River”, below)
You can see all of the winners this month at the Temple Terrace Public Library.
Kimberli Cummings
4807 Bayshore Blvd
Tampa, FL 33611-2843
(813) 443-5134
Even if you’re not a professional makeup artist, you can create some Halloween looks using your own makeup and some creative application techniques. For the ghostly white skin, you’ll probably have to buy some cake makeup from the neighborhood store; not many women have that color in their makup collection. You could also use grey for a similarly ghoulish effect.
Just remember: It’s Halloween, so even if you mess up it will just look like part of your costume.
You’ll be a graveyard smash with this monster mash of extreme makeup looks created by Fran Fernandez, owner of Artistic Hair and Makeup in South Tampa, at 3201 S. Dale Mabry Ave. Suite 108.
Sunday Nov 1st 4:00 to 6:30
Call April at 727-642-7590 for tickets
Deborah Mendez
813-920-7550
http://www.calmingcollars.com
A year ago tonight (figuratively, not literally), I was sitting at Tropicana Field about to watch the Tampa Bay Rays in their first World Series game.
Where did the time go? Seriously. Other than the painful process of watching the Rays not live up to expectations in 2009, it went by in a blink.
Unburdened by enthusiastic homerism for my favorite team, I can concentrate tonight on hating both the Phillies (who beat the Rays last year in an all-too-brief Series) and the Yankees (What’s not to hate?). It’s a Sophie’s Choice to pick which one to despise.
Searching for something upon which I can focus positive baseball attention, I had to dip all the way down to the minor leagues.
I’m a big fan of the minors. Nothing beats the joy of sitting in an intimate park watching players at an early stage of their career.
There’s also a fair amount of hilarity to be had from the in-game promotions.
Once about 15 years ago, I attended a double-header in Port St. Lucie. The intermission between games was used to conduct a mascot kickball game.
You read that right.
These weren’t professional mascots, however. Sure, the St. Lucie Mets’ bull Blue was there. He was quasi-professional. But the rest of the field was filled with a Burger King hamburger and fries, an IHOP pancake, a walking milkshake and a high school bear mascot.
My favorite, though, was a Wonder bread mascot known by the name - I kid you not - “Pinch-a-Loaf.”
My favorite moment came Pinch kicked an inside-the-park home run. As he rounded third base, though, centrifugal force took a toll on him and pushed him into running at a somewhat top-heavy 45-degree angle. He finished with a dedicated slide that soiled his otherwise pristine costume. I was so smitten, I had to have a photo taken with him.
So, I know from mascots.
That said, I’ve developed a few favorites over the years whose image I’ve collected on hats and shirts:
1. Montgomery Biscuits
The Class AA affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays moved to Montgomery from Orlando in 2004, where the team was unimaginatively named the Rays.
Where to start with this mascot? Maybe the crossed googly eyes, which pre-date the pile of money you could be saving if you switched to Geico. Maybe it’s the shoes attached to a biscuit body that lacks leg appendages. My guess would be that the pad of butter as a tongue is what gives this inspired logo its charm.
Most times, the Biscuit has a clenched fist, but he/she’s also been depicted giving the thumbs up signal. Gotta like a cross-eyed foodstuff with a positive attitude.
The team’s nickname was selected after a contest to name the team. The team’s Wikipedia entry says Biscuits was selected in part to the potential marketing and pun possibilities. As in, “Hey, Butter, Butter, Butter.”
Heh, heh. Ugh.
Awesome Fact: During games biscuits are shot from an air cannon into the stands.
2. Hickory Crawdads
The Class A pride of Hickory, N.C., are an affiliate of the Texas Rangers. The mascot’s full name: Conrad. Personally, I’d rather die of shame than be a crustacean named Conrad, but that’s just me. The only way to redeem his masculinty would be if he were to slide into a pot of boiling water after every home run, a la the way Bernie the Brewer slides into beer in Milwaukee.
The logo on the left? Ultra cool. I’d pay cash money to see a crawdad throw a slurve with his claw.
The logo on the right? Looks like Conrad’s too drunk to hold himself upright. That one needs to go back to the drawing board.
Awesome Fact: The Crawdads in 2008 hosted a human sumo hamburger race.
What is that? This is that:
3. Jamestown Jammers
Ah yes, the angry grapes. Watch out, opponents, they might stain you!
The Jammers are a Short-Season Class A affiliate of the Florida Marlins based in Jamestown, N.Y., which plays in the Penn League.
Since 1939, the town has been home to a succession of mascots including the Falcons, Jaguars and the Expos. The current incarnation was founded in 1994 after the team in Niagara Falls moved to Jamestown. Fans voted for the “Jammers” name, besting also-rans the Furniture Makers, Jimmies, Lakers, Lucys, Muskies and Steamers. Ew.
A Tasmanian Devil-type character named J.J. Jammer served as the mascot until 2006, when the cartoon grape logo was chosen as a reflection of grape-growing in Chautauqua County, where the team plays. Later that year, the team announced its new mascot would be Bubba Grape, the Baseball Ape.
Which, of course, makes no sense whatsover. Which. of course, is what makes it great.
Quasi-awesome Fact: Former Jammers players include Yorman Bazardo. There is no significance to this fact, other than he had a cool name.
Baseball Food Mascot Runners-up:
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