So far Cracker is showing zero signs of skin lesions due to pollen allergy after his last hair cut.....maybe he is getting his resistance like I did after my first year back from Denver in 2003. My first year back was BAD, even got my first ever sinus infection.

Blooms on two of many Louisiana Iris thriving in two ponds out front....the purple is 'Hurricane Party' and the yellow is 'Wow Factor'.

New spring growth all over my "Gray Street Grape" identified for me a few years ago by Paul Zmoda as Vitis shuttleworthii. None yet on my Mystery Muscadine sold to me years ago as 'Triumph'.

I am so glad that I remembered just how much I enjoy Bragg's apple cider vinegar on cooked greens.

I am making a big batch of fresh mustard greens cooked with a couple strips of bacon, plus butter, pink Himalayan salt and Bragg's cider vinegar for Easter Dinner with my neighbors today.

Yesterday's highly experimental planting of Ramps from West Virginia got a GREAT soaking last night then again today. I figure that by next January or February, MAYBE March, I will know if they have survived here and re-emerged.

This is an EXTREME long shot as this is not a West Virginia forest, and Ramps NEED cold (though not as cold and arid as Denver) so today I planted ten Ramps deeply in a well mulched 18 gallon Water Wise Container Garden on the north side of my home, always in some shade. I deeply water with rain water and added a tag. I will plant nothing in this container and see if somehow new growth emerge late next winter. Not holding my breath!

My friend Craig Hepworth and my old gardening student Pete Kanaris are studying and collecting large fruited, bred, named varieties of Loquats. These fruits are huge and flavorful. Both men are very knowledgeable and Pete will be a guest on WMNF's 'Sustainable Living' show. Jon Butts and Pete both invited me to join Pete on the show, but my knowledge of fruits is very limited and declined to be on. Craig is also breeding in a green house a very dwarf large fruited papaya! Travis Moorehead is leading the new Loquats festival and hopes to join about 25 of us gardeners for dinner this Friday at 7 PM at south Tampa's 'Jasmine Thai and Sushi' house at 3333 South Westshore...he is planning on bringing some loquats for a nearby friend whose not tasted one in 40 years! The pic with two loquats is from Pete, showing the usual seedling fruit compared to a named hybrid. The other pic is a cluster of named Loquats in Craig's hand.

Sourdough!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/dining/sourdough-starter-bread-baking.html?_r=0

It took me near 25 years of trying here and in Denver, but today I got my first ever "Ramps", (Allium tricoccum) these from the woods of West Virginia. Seeds have always failed for me (they NEED winter) and my efforts to grow plants to eat and grow (very unlikely in south Tampa) have always failed. I've eaten one.....wonderful flavor, like rich garlic with a touch of scallion. I will plant a few in shady parts of my yard but will not hold my breath for long term survival. So cool that my persistence paid off! John

These ended up quite nice! I ate one plain, ate another with Indian green mango chutney. I used olive oil in mine....will likely add some garlic to the rest of the dough.

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017747-meera-sodhas-naan

This plant of Malva sylvestris thriving in my front northeast bed is a seedling of MANY seedlings (that all failed here) dating all the way back to 2002 when I moved here full time from Denver. Many hundreds of seedlings stored from my Denver yard would germinate here year after year, both summer and winter, but then died quite young. Then several years ago ONE grew in a front bed, bloomed, set seeds which THEN started self sowing here in Tampa. In Denver this plant would be the LAST plant each year to succumb to many snowfalls....VERY cold hardy there both in spring and summer. Even two feet of snow would not kill it until winter really set in. For a few years at ScienceDaily I've seen articles about some plants evolving in ONE generation from RNA, vs. the usual DNA. So I wonder if that one original seedling that DID adapt to Tampa benefited from RNA evolution here it being very happy here. I love the flowers raw in salads, the leaves lightly cooked.

For nineteen years here part of my organic landscaping business THE GARDEN DOCTOR in Tampa was organic lawn care of St. Augustine lawns. I'd add a few plugs of St. Augustine strains, apply just once seeds of mixed Bermuda strains in summer, each March I'd apply a COPIOUS amount of dolomitic limestone to benefit the grass and greatly suppress weeds, and apply organic soil foods four times per year. They LOOKED like a monoculture but were not. Here are pics of one I cared for on Davis Islands for nineteen years

As the heat increases so do the blooms on my California Poppies.

I got two big pots of seeds from a 'Caribbean Red' papaya from Publix planted yesterday...I should end up with a few hundred seedlings to plant and share.

First baby lubbers of 2016 here in south Tampa today....rain might be coming Saturday, so I put a heaping teaspoon of NoloBait in a jar lid next to the brassicas to lure them. So nice that one use of NoloBait eleven years ago gave me almost total control of lubbers here. I discovered NoloBait in Denver in the 90s when the state succumbed to a huge invasion of locusts. VERY effective! I keep mine in the fridge to keep the protozoa alive as they will die quickly in a hot shed. Chinese mustard today gets a nice quick boil with sea salt, one strip of bacon, coconut oil and water, then served with Bragg's apple cider vinegar. But I ended up boiling two strips of bacon, two cloves of garlic, two drops of hot sauce and pink Himalayan salt for twenty minutes BEFORE I added the rinsed chopped mustard. It was perfect! This variety is called Wong Bok and I've been growing it for about a dozen years.

Dark cars like my black Honda show light colored pollen from the oak trees has begun to be shed....those of us, or our dogs, who are so sensitive to oak pollen, can try 'Magic 8' Herbal Tea from down town Tampa's Oceanic Market. I'm immune but my last two dogs and many people benefit from just two tea bags per week! The box shows quite a list of herbs, but surprisingly none contain compounds like ephedra which is in Mormon Tea. In a month the oak pollen in south Tampa gets so heavy I can write my name on my car by dragging a finger through the thick layer of the pale yellow dust. I don't know if this tea works for allergies in other parts of the U.S. but want to share. I was turned onto it in 2003 when I had just returned from 15 years in Colorado and had lost my immunity to oak pollen. I've been immune to it since 2004.

Hummus recipe...I've never used baking soda before to cook them!

http://www.jewlishious.com/real-israeli-hummus/

Each March I buy a nearly ripe 'Caribbean Red' papaya, let it ripen, enjoy the flesh and then plant hundreds of the seeds whose first generation VERY closely resemble 'Caribbean Red'. But those seedlings' seedlings trace back the evolution to forms best eaten green.

Yes! I found Naem (nam) at south Tampa's DoBond Market in the tofu cooler! This raw, fermented pork belly and rice dish has been made in Thailand for centuries before refrigeration so today I bought two. The owner is an older Vietnamese man with a thick accent that like the Thais, he also prefers to eat it raw from the package with a bit of the enclosed hot pepper. Like the websites, he said with affection that it has a very distinctive sour taste that he loves. It is LOADED with sodium, so I will just try one bite.