Plastic Free July Beach Clean Up at Tom Renick Park July 6th

Aquarian Bath will run a “Two Hands” clean up at Tom Renick Park, A1A Ormond by the Sea, Ormond Beach, Florida 32176 on Monday July 6, 2015 at 5:30 P.M. for Plastic Free July 2015. To join the clean up, arrive at Tom Renick Park by 5:30 PM. All you need are some gardening gloves. Get a raffle ticket when you start at 5:30. After the beach clean up we will have a look at what we found, take a photo, talk about what the Plastic Free July event is all about, and plastic alternatives. The raffle drawing will be at 6:30 for one $50 prize and five $10 prizes from AquarianBath.com. Participants can get an extra raffle ticket by bringing a bag of trash they picked up from the roadside on the way to this beach event. You can RSVP to the facebook event page if you like.

Plastic Free July is aimed at raising awareness of the amount of single-use plastic in our everyday lives. You would be amazed how much tiny plastic material can be found along the edge of the beach, and it is not healthy for birds and ocean health.

A “Two Hands” clean up takes the spirit of huge national and international clean up days and brings it back to the individual. The concept is using your two hands for thirty minutes to clean up your world.

Around 20,000 people across the world have completed a two hands clean up which initiated in Fremantle, Western Australia.

To join the Plastic Free July challenge visit www.plasticfreejuly.org.

Photos from the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse

 We spent yesterday at the Ponce Inlet lighthouse for the annual homeschool day. This 175 feet hand-built lighthouse is the tallest in Florida. It was first lit in 1887 after many difficulties with the construction, including the death of its engineer Orville E. Babcock who drown in the first attempt to transport bricks into the inlet by boat. Two other boats hauling bricks subsequently sunk as well. This historical site is open to the public.  It is both a museum and an active lighthouse. Here are some photos we took.

My littlest is not afraid of heights or climbing towers.

A spectacular view of the ocean and Ponce inlet. 

The preserved buildings contain artifacts that were used in early life at the lighthouse.

This little soap cage was used for sudsing up water for washing laundry and dishes.

The glass bottles and metal tools and containers really give a good idea about kitchens before the invention of plastics.

Here is a collection of old time medicines, one of which was Choroform liniment!  Eek!  

This was the medicine chest provided to the Light House keepers by the Coast Guard which contained the medicines listed above.

There were also herbal medicines on site.

Popular herbal medicines from the 1800's.  Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound and Atwoods Jaundice Bitters.

One building contains a stunning collection of Fresnel lenses from other lighthouses.  

Below is my favorite lens from an Australian lighthouse. It reminds me of a big insect.

Hope you liked the photos. What fun lighthouses have you visited?

Best Photos from Leu Gardens in Orlando

I have been meaning to go to Leu Gardens in Orlando for a long time. Monday we finally had a good opportunity, since we also had to make a trip to Sky Craft for hardware parts for a SolarNetone project, and the first Monday of the month is also free at Leu Gardens. We took pictures until the battery died on the phone, but here are some of my favorites.  The pohots are either of my favorite garden displays or just the best photos from the batch that I took. I hope you enjoy them, and find they inspire you to go visit. The photos that I saw online previously didn't really give me a good idea of what I would find there, for example a small but unique Bonsai Garden, a Butterfly garden, a Citrus grove, a vegetable garden, a rose garden, and flower clock. I posted other photos of roses and bamboo at my Aquarian Bath twitter and personal google+ accounts.

Photos from Ravine Gardens State Park

We had an awesome Sunday hiking around Ravine Gardens State park in Palatka.  This park was build in the 1930's.  There are 2 suspension bridges and coquina rocks and other stone paths throughout the park.  We hiked around for a bit over an hour and saw lots of beautiful plants and animals.  Hope you like the photos. 

This snake was catching fish at the bottom of the ravine. 

Golden silk spiders are found throughout the hiking trails.

Beauty Berry Bush

Butterfly with Spanish Needle Flowers

Scenery from Washington Oaks Garden

We recently enjoyed a trip to Washington Oaks Gardens.  The roses smelled wonderful.  

There was a lovely collection of colors and shapes, yellows, whites, pinks, and reds.

An the beautiful blue Salvias caught my eye.  

On our next visit we may bring the fishing poles along.

Bean Tee Pee Success

One goal for this gardening season was a bean tee pee.  My husband and friends and I built this from PVC and netting that was lying around the Bonner Center community garden.  I usually grow bush beans, so this was a first.  Many different types of pole beans were planted.  The first (I think) were Kentucky Wonder pole beans, most of which froze.  I later planted Violetta pole beans and a few other pole beans from a local Daytona gardener and artist Daniel Fisher.  I squeezed in one cucumber plant also.

This is what I wanted to see, kids shaded from the hot Florida sun picking beans.   Inside the tee-pee there is also Thyme and Mint.  The mint looks so healthy, you can tell it has been getting a lot of water.

It's a super harvest so far and no pests to be found.   I'm sure there was a lot of watering help from friends at the community garden.  My bush beans at home don't look half as good!  There were also 2 cucumbers hiding in there too that we took home.  Moira who has always refused store bought cucumbers, was happy to taste a fresh cuke.  

Almost time for Fall Garden Seed Saving

My fall garden is winding down, and I am looking forward to saving seeds from what I planted back in October.  Above is Matador Spinach.  It tastes wonderful, but it got a bit yellowed around the leaf edges.  Next year I will try planting it in a more shady spot.  

I dedicated an entire raised bed to this Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce.  This one was a real winner.  

This is my second year growing this Yugoslavian heirloom red lettuce.  It is extremely tasty.  

This is sword leaf lettuce.  The flavor is a bit stronger than the Romaine or the Yugoslavian lettuces, but I really like the leaf shape.   The Sword leaf lettuce and Yugoslavian lettuce were having a hard time in the full sun until I threw up the shade cloth behind them a couple weeks ago.  

Lutz Salad beets.  Nice texture and color in the leaves for salad.  The leaf miners have absolutely no interest in these which is a bonus.

My Lacinato Kale from 2 Octobers ago still hasn't flowered.  I wonder if it will flower for me this year.  

I thought I planted corn salad in this spot, but I guess this is a purple Pak Choi.  I have no idea where I got these seeds.  All the purple Pak Choi I have seen online is Hybrid, so I am thinking to yank these for the compost and put a tomato in their place.  

This is the 3rd year I've grown seed saved from a brocoli Moira planted with her homeschool group.  I left the largest brocoli head for our baby sitter and the girls when I went out of town last month, but  no one harvested it so it had bolted by the time I came home.  That's ok because there will be lots of seeds to share from this plant.

Still harvesting Calendula....

...and I'm hoping to get at least a few chamomile flowers before it gets much hotter here.  It's been a very warm winter.

Here's a bit of what's on deck for my spring and summer garden...

Turk's Turban Squash Red and White Mini 

I always have to keep at least one Perilla plant going in my garden, though they would like to completely take over.

Black Krim Tomatos are waiting for space in the raised bed.  I also have Ceylon Tomatoes and Costoluto Genovese Tomatoes about this size at home.

The plants are growing fast and so are the chickens.  I will post more pictures of our teen aged hens to share soon.