What we bought at The Natural Gardener

As I previously posted here, planning a first garden is a process. I've been reading, Amy 

Stewart's, 'From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden. It's her story of the trials and tribulations of planting her first garden, but the way she tells it, you feel like you are getting to know her and at the same time learning some valuable and humorous lessons. 

Ok, back to my garden, after you spend lots of time on your hands and knees prepping your dirt, then you get to go shopping! We went back to the Natural Gardener to buy our plants and seeds. We ended up with lots of baby tomatoes, easier and less of a pest magnet. Squirrels LOVE to munch on the big guys, as I learned a few seasons back when I shared a garden. We also got TONS of peppers, so I imagine we will be spicing it up later this summer. The rest of our selection ended up being corn, eggplant, tri-colored beans, okra, cucumbers and watermelons and a bunch of herbs. 

Vast...

Goats live at The Natural Gardener!

Laura searching out the goods

Picking out tomato varieties 

The pantaloon wearing Rooster

So big, they need a map

Laura REALLY wanted this stylish hat ;)

Boozy Bundt Cake

Mono is a good affordable vodka

Some lemon zest for fun

Voila!

In the battle of Salt vs. Sugar, SALT always wins in my book. Perhaps that is why, I'm not into making sweets. Not that this is any newsflash, but, Baking is difficult. Rachel Ray admittedly hates it and I can relate. I have never baked a pie and my previous experience with sweet treats was quick baking cookies. I'm not really a cake person and I'm definitely NOT a cupcake person. Forgive me. I think they can be super cute and fun and I love how adorable and trendy pretty baking has become, but frosting is so sugary and thick and not my style. When I first tried this cake at a friend's dinner party a couple of years ago, I was amazed at how much I actually enjoyed it, all in all its basically a simple coffee cake. It has liquor, which makes it fun :), but not overpowering. So, it's an adult dessert.
Oh, did I forget to mention...it's a called a Black Russian Cake. There are quite a few recipes, but I like this one from allrecipes.com. It's REAL easy and I feel pretty stoked that I can actually make something and be proud of it.
It's a winner and I promise you everyone LOVES this cake.

Just finished reading....'The Help'

Last April, I gifted 'The Help' to my baby sister Anni because I was looking for a birthday gift and she is an avid reader and the Amazon reviews were real good.  Cut to one year later, middle sister Laura has just finished and handed over to me. It sat on my desk for a few weeks....and then I saw the trailer for the new film to be released this August and it made me want to see the film. And we all know that the book is always better, so I opened it up. That was 5 days ago. I could not put it down. LOVE this book. So, if you haven't read it, and you like empowering stories about women, I suggest you do. 

Ane examining Lauren's work

Makeup-36, a photo by thedigitalbird on Flickr.

The lovely Lauren Phillips taught an informative makeup class at Sabia this past Saturday. Here, Ane checks out her work. It was a treat to shoot!

Makeup class images

Makeup-24, a photo by thedigitalbird on Flickr.

taught by Lauren Phillips at SABIA
model | Ane
photos | by me

DIRT

I've been told that the key to a successful garden is your soil. Now, while we (and by we, I mean, my sister, Laura) once had a thriving little ecosystem in our front yard, years of neglect and lack of an actual garden has left our soil hard and full of clumpy clay balls. Getting through that was a workout, but luckily, Austin has TONS of great gardening centers to get your dirt back into fine fighting form. I took a quick trip out to the Natural Gardener, Austin's premiere gardening center, or as they put it 'The Organic Gardening Headquarters' and picked up a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't have been able to choose, had I not had the help of my lovely neighbor, Chris. We purchased several bags of Turkey Compost, Cotton Burr and the Natural Gardener's Revitalizer Compost. I tell you, my brain was in a spin. I didn't know which was what and which ratio to get. I think we ended up with like 7 bags? Who knows. At the checkout, we also bought a bottle of the Ladybug Brand fertilizer which is supposed to be like natural badass steroids for your garden. I went home, dumped out the rich brown goodness and spread away...