I just learned today from an old friend of basic Bagna Cauda of butter, garlic and anchovies for dipping bread and veggies...I bet this version would be awesome on pasta!

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Appetizers/BagnaCauda.htm

Here are those oddly pale-colored, oddly tiny aphids that keep plaguing my Perennial Edible Hibiscus. There were no spray bottles at Dollar Tree so I'll see if I have one somewhere so I can try spraying the leaf undersides with home made neem leaf tea.

I did not think it possible for me to hate Verizon any more after that mind boggling nightmare that resulted from responding to their promotion to add TV to my bundle, but they managed to rachet it up once more. I've been waiting for my box to send them back their remote and box to no avail, so today their robot left a message saying I failed to choose a return method and threatening huge fees! So a call there OF COURSE resulted in my being on hold a very long time....I used that time to find a Verizon TV store to take it there myself....all a GREAT distance from my home, plus a friend of a friend did that in exasperation but Verizon failed to record that she physically returned it and put her through weeks of additional hell. My report to the Better Business Bureau will be a novel. I don't see how a company can be so intrinsically inept while making extremely poor customer service integral to their operations.

When Jon Butts and Debbie told me at WMNF that they grow a replicating onion that resembled clumps of scallions, I assumed that it was a form of Allium fistulosum like I grow, and that I very strongly suspect that "Eliska's Bunching Onion" is a form of. But last night at the Twilight Market at Roosevelt 2.0 Jon blew me away when he said that now and then they send up viviparous stalks topped with baby plants, just like Egyptian Multpliers and Allium canadense do!!! I bought this bundle and today will choose a dedicated place in a garden out front to plant some in and label with a miniblind strip, plus some in a container garden. I'll eat one to see how they taste. JUST as I thought I MIGHT be wrapping up my studies of multiplying onions, I all of a sudden have a new one to obsess on!

Since The St. Pete Times is no more I'm always surprised when someone e-mails me links to my old column that ran there for eight years!

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/07/29/Homes/Florida_s_faux_spinach.shtml

I think this link will let folks hear yesterday's episode of 'Sustainable Living' on Tampa's wonderful WMNF radio station.

http://www.wmnf.org/programs/sustainable-living-and-alternative-health

I spotted a few ripe seed heads on this lovely native at WMNF today after the show, snitched them. The blooms had TONS of wild bee species, including an incredibly metallic green species, all over them. I think that as I continue revamping the bed east of my driveway, it would be an ideal place to grow something this statuesque.

http://www.fnps.org/plants/plant/silphium-asteriscus