Surprise Birthday Gift Cake (And Yes, A Little More Purple...)

I LOVE creating cakes that will be a BIG surprise for the recipient.

The Garden: From Seeds to Starter Plants

This year we started getting our 2010 garden ready back in mid-February.  We decided to start some of the plants from the seed stage and grow them large enough to be planted in our garden a couple of months later.  By following a chart that lists the planting dates for our area, we were able to plant several types of vegetables as early as February.  There are several types of plants that we can still start from the seed stage now and have them ready to plant when we get our garden planted by the end of May.

Although there are several ways you could organize your planting process, I will share what has worked well for us.  We call it our Planting Map.

Morning walk

This morning when I looked out the window, this bright beauty caught my eye and so I grabbed my camera and took a little walk around our backyard to discover other flowers that had bloomed overnight.

Oriental poppy...

The first peony in bloom...

A strawberry that looks almost ready and will probably be picked later today...

One of the two strawberry raised beds....

The lettuce raised bed...

Guess where our salad from dinner last night came from?

I love how even lettuce is so pretty--just like a flower...

A view from our back porch area, yes we love to feed the birds...

Dark purple Irises....

Isn't it gorgeous?

The rain chain & floating water plants...

The first Heirloom Rose in bloom...

Purple clematis growing up the trellis...

The grapevine...

New grape leaves growing daily...


And the tall, elegant Lupines that still have the morning dew on the leaves...

Living in the Pacific Northwest, we have so many types of plants that grow well here and I feel blessed that I can look out my kitchen window and enjoy so much beauty around me.

"Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling."
~ Walt Whtiman