u/Blue_Dragon_Boar

All outside hanging in trees/bamboo

The six types blooming so far—should be several more later.

Swedish “Princess Cake”
Because it is my wife’s favorite, it was her birthday and of course she “is a princess”. We first saw this(their version anyway) at a local IKEA cafeteria and it is served for a very short time in celebration of (I think) the birthday of a Swedish Princess).

There are multiple recipes and we used one that is probably close to traditional. Multiple layers of sponge cake topped with raspberry jam and homemade pastry cream, covered with a dome of homemade whipped cream and enclose with a layer of marzipan. You can pick how you want to do any decoration beyond that.

Too bad I don’t have a picture of a slice-it looks really yummy inside.

This is a “peanut butter” plant and some ripe fruit. Note the picture on the left has green bamboo in the background and some ornamental ginger at the bottom. Those tiny yellow flowers eventually turn into the ripe fruit on the right.

The name comes from the texture of the ripe fruit, which is similar to creamy peanut butter. The taste is sweet and sticky. This is one of those fruits you enjoy by grazing your yard- pick and eat as you are checking things out. We have only ever seen one of these for sale (at a local Tropical Garden plant sale) and stuck it at the edge of our yard. We are in South Florida but these also do well in containers.

Went to “re-home” the orchid into a new basket but ehhh it can wait a while longer.

I found an old polaroid I had taken sometime in 1982 in the kitchen of my parent’s old house. We are talking an “instamatic” not 35mm (and well before digital). It’s my first cat “Ms Kitty”(real imaginative right?). She was 1 year old and loved ping pong balls more than anything. We played “fetch” inside the house. I kid you not—she could pick them up in her mouth and bring them to me so I could throw them again. To me this was a one in a million shot.

How did Ms Kitty come to me?

She was a tiny kitten(she could sit in the palm of my hand) when she showed up on top of the front tire of my car(in my parent’s driveway). Peaked out at me. I tried to ignore this stray—opened the door to the basement garage and she flew like a rocket into the house. I caught her and put her in a cardboard box. I asked around to see if she belonged to anyone, or find any sign of her litter mates. Nope and one thing leads to another, as so many of you know….

She was with me through a lot of tough times-I was not able to find a job after college, worked minimum wage jobs when I could find anything-went back for another degree, moved half way across the country to a new job and a new life, then later going through a divorce and losing everything I had worked for up to that point- but I still had my Ms Kitty. Then, changing to a new job and a new life once again, but this time I was going to be traveling more than at home and couldn’t stand leaving her alone so often. I sent her to live with my parents in that same house where the photo was taken. Unfortunately while I was away on one of my business trips Ms Kitty suffered kidney failure—this was in 1995. My father had to take her to the vet and was with her when she was put to sleep. It broke his heart and mine too.

Even though 30 years has passed I still remember and I so wanted to share this with a few people who love their furry kids. This is the only photo I still have of Ms Kitty. It’s said you should be careful what you post to the internet because once the content is there it’s liable to effectively be there “forever”. In this case I believe it’s a good thing.

Could be from being up all night but I’m starting to get suspicious…

A friend gave us a couple of “fragments” years ago. It never bloomed for her—apparently was too heavily shaded in her yard. This picture is from several years ago. Since then all told we have probably hundreds of “linear feet” of Vanilla Orchid vines growing up multiple palms and trees in our yard. Lots of blooms every year.

Too bad there’s no natural pollinators here. I love vanilla bean but climbing a ladder early in the morning and trying to pollinate the blooms that open that am with a toothpick? Nope. It’s my understanding commercial growers train the vines to crawl along a trellis close to ground level so they have a much better chance of success.

We were shopping in a nationally well-known store which had starfruit for sale. The starfruit were all very close to the size I am holding in my hand on the left and very consistent in appearance (as I would expect).

Didn’t buy any of course. Our carambola tree produces 2 large “crops” during mid-later Summer and during the holiday season into mid-winter.

The smallest of our starfruit would be the size of what the store was selling.

Being able to grow some something like this is a little compensation for no longer being able to have home-grown tomatoes( currently living in South Florida, previously in North Carolina)