BloominThyme

21 Apr 2013 No Comments

Ladd Springs

LADD SPRINGS

“Ladd Springs was one of those books that I couldn’t put down – at first because it drew me in with a ton of questions to be answered about the pasts of the characters, and a great story. Second because of how heart pounding it gets towards the ending!” ~~ Debbie Jean’s Blog

A deathbed promise and a mysterious find in the Tennessee forest bring Delaney Wilkins and Nick Harris together in a dramatic fight for the rights to Ladd Springs.

Delaney Wilkins finds herself at odds with hotel developer Nick Harris over a deathbed promise and a mysterious find in the forest. Both are after title to Ladd Springs, a mecca of natural springs, streams and trails in the eastern Tennessee mountains, a tract of land worth millions. But Ernie Ladd, current owner of the property and uncle to Delaney, is adamantly opposed to them both.

Felicity Wilkins, Delaney’s daughter, deserves to inherit her family’s legacy, but neighbor Clem Sweeney is working against her, ingratiating himself with Ernie Ladd. Clem is also harboring a secret that will make him a very wealthy man—unless the others stop him before he can bring it to fruition.

Complicating matters is Annie Owens. Ex-girlfriend to Jeremiah Ladd, Ernie’s estranged son living in Atlanta, she declares her daughter Casey is Jeremiah’s, making Casey every bit as entitled to the property as Felicity—only Annie hasn’t proven this claim. Yet.

All are fighting to get the property, but only one will walk away with the gold. Which will it be? Find out in the first installment of Ladd Springs…

While reading this novel, don’t be surprised if you get a hankering for some good old-fashioned southern cooking. Take my cornbread, for instance. Delaney Wilkins makes some of the best and her hero agrees. Try it and see what YOU think! Check out my recipe section for full details!

***This is book #1 in a series of 5

Visit my website for a complete listing of my books.

by gardenfrisk in Romantic Fiction - dig into my fertile plots and romance novels Tags: baked, BloominThyme, contemporary romance, cornbread, Dianne Venetta, gardening, Ladd Springs, recipe, sweet

16 Apr 2013 No Comments

It’s Blueberry Season!

We learn by doing. It’s an age-old saying for a reason. We read books, study the almanac, listen to the experts, but sometimes there’s no substitute for experience. The tried and true kind. Shall we say, true blue?

Blue, as in blueberry patch. My pride and joy, my dream come true… strolling amidst the morning chirps and peeps, plucking fresh blueberries for my yogurt and bran flakes. Well, you understand. This little patch of heaven has come to mean a lot to you. You work hard for these sweet, luscious, high in anti-oxidant fruits and you don’t want to lose them to the natural elements. Wind, pests, birds.

Blueberries are fairly easy to grow. Lots of sun, lots of water, a good acidic soil (think pine bark/needle mulch), a well-balanced organic fertilizer and you’ll have yourself a blueberry patch in no time. However, once you set out on this project, understand that birds are a definite problem when it comes to berries. Like you, they enjoy a plump serving of berries with their breakfast. But they’re hungry varmints and will eat you out of house and home—and garden, if you let them. But me, I count myself as smarter than the average bear (no pun intended to my friend and also fan of blueberries). I figure I can outwit these flying friends with a simple bird net. Says so right on the package: bird nest for fruit and shrubs.

Wonderful. Problem solved. All I have to do is cover my plants—all twelve of them—and I’m off and running in the blueberry race. It’s not pretty, but it is practical.

First recommendation: don’t choose a windy day to start your net project. Blueberry blossoms are extremely sensitive to the slightest tactile cling and snare easily. Translated: touch them and they pop off the vine. Bad. Very bad. No blossoms means no berries.

With a little practice, though, I became quite good at throwing and securing my net without touching my delicate blueberry blossoms and only lost a few to the endeavor. Can you really miss what you never had to start? If you’ve noticed, philosophy seems to be on overdrive in my garden.

But abstract distractions aside, I finished my task an hour later, rising with a nice deep yoga stretch for my back before I secured my last stake in the ground.

Second recommendation: don’t attempt this after several hours of weeding and tilling in the garden. Me? I’m more doer than planner. “Oh look, I still have two hours before I need to pick up the kids! What else can I slip in before my time runs out?”

That’s when I heard it. More

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: acidic, author, bees, BloominThyme, cross pollination, Dianne Venetta, how to grow blueberries, organic

09 Apr 2013 2 Comments

Southern Cornbread

After my sad post about giving up on corn, I needed something to boost my spirits, a little pick me up, if you will. And there’s no better way sometimes, than with a spot of comfort food. Southern Cornbread, anyone?

This is a recipe I devised through trial and error, not to mention the help of my daughter’s taste buds. I’ll warn you, she’s a sweet one. Sweet on the outside, sweet on the inside, plain everything in her world is sweet—including her preference in food. Which leads me to a disclaimer: this is NOT my mother’s recipe. (We don’t want to tarnish her reputation in any way, particularly “guilt by association.”)

To be completely forthright, we took her basic recipe and modified from there. Frankly, I prefer her recipe, only not oven-baked as she directed, but pan-fried, with lots of yummy butter to make it a beautiful golden brown. My apologies to my healthy friends—this recipe is anything but.

But it’s oh-so-delicious. And simple–the best part of all!

Southern Cornbread

2 cups yellow cornmeal

2 cups buttermilk

3 TBSP melted bacon drippings, extra to grease pan

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup vanilla pudding mix (optional – to add moisture)

2 TBSP sugar (optional – for the sweet tooth!) More

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: baked goods, BloominThyme, bread, cornbread, crispy, homemade, how to make cornbread, pancake, recipe, side dish, southern cooking, sweet

03 Apr 2013 2 Comments

Confessions From A Corn Field

Sort of. I have a confession to make. I have no plans to plant corn this year. *sigh* It’s proven a tough plant for me. Too tough. Which makes for a very sad day in my household because corn is delicious–especially fresh from the cob. It’s fun, because the kids can craft corn husk dolls on their way to the compost pile. It’s versatile, because we can eat it standing between the beds of our garden or hauled up to the house and boiled, roasted or grilled.

And giving up is not in my DNA. But since I’ve gone organic (the first season after my wonderful neighbors helped me start my garden), I can’t seem to feed my corn enough, de-bug it enough, de-disease it enough. I won’t say I’ve scored a zero in the endeavor, but the cobs I have harvested are few and far between. The consensus seems to be… More

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: BloominThyme, corn, corn seed, harvest, heirloom, how to grow, hybrid, kernels, organic, plants

29 Mar 2013 No Comments

Pulling Sweet Babies from the Ground

In my kids’ garden world, there’s nothing better than harvest time–unless, of course, we’re tilling. My son loves tilling and tearing through the dirt. (Doesn’t every boy? ) And we’ve waited so long for the sweet onions to mature, it’s time we get digging.

Planted back in the fall, these sweet delicacies take time to fill out and ripen to perfection, about six months or so. You’ll know when they’re ready when their tops brown over. As you can see, we didn’t wait that long. Besides, we could clearly see the rounded tops poking up through through the soil surface, these onions were calling our name…

“Hey, you–come and get me!”

Didn’t take much to distract my daughter from her chore of weeding carrots. With the recent cold snap, she’s been craving French onion soup, so we pulled a little early. Simply wedge the onion back and forth from its position and gently pull. Voila!

Your very own fresh sweet onion! Hmmm…can you smell it? VERY fragrant and oh-so-sweet when freshly harvested. While not quite round in shape, this one is plenty fine to eat. Again, we can be impatient gardeners and this is the fruit of our labor. My son prefers them raw, but my daughter likes them baked, broiled and caramelized.

If you’ve never tried growing onions yourself, give them a whirl, if only for the fact that they taste like “butta” when eaten FRESH from the ground. Try the Baked Sweet Onion recipe or perhaps the Onions Au Gratin. Both are divine…

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: baked onions, baking, BloominThyme, how long, how to harvest sweet onions, mature, organic, recipe, spring, sweet, Vidalia

15 Mar 2013 20 Comments

Lucky in Love and In the Garden

Now this can go either way. We can talk about how men resemble plants. A few of my favorites are potatoes and watermelon…

Potatoes – These fellas are generous producers, enjoyed by most everyone as they appeal to a variety of tastes. They can get easily crowded, though, so give them plenty of space. If you do, you’ll have yourself a real winner with this one. Note: be patient with the sweeter types—they need a little more time before they’re ready to hit the dinner-date table. But if you can wait, go for it. You’ll reap the gold with this gem!

Watermelon – This well-rounded fun-loving guy is always welcome at a summer barbecue and usually proves a big hit with the kids. Prone to balding, his colorful personality distracts one from notice. However, take heed. If left to his own device, this one can grow wild and get quite out of hand!

Or when it comes to love, we can simply talk plants. The green stuff. Those we love, those we love-hate. There out there, you know. And they come in all sizes and shapes and pose different challenges for different regions.

Me? I love herbs–specifically herbs that grow themselves! More

by gardenfrisk in Savory vignettes - tidbits of life discovered along the way Tags: BloominThyme, contemporary, Florida, gardening, giveaway, hop, organic, romance, St. Patrick's Day

12 Feb 2013 No Comments

A Photo Journal of My Winter Garden

It’s February in Florida and that means different things to different gardeners. Some have closed up their garden until spring, opting out of the fight with Jack Frost. Others are focused on cleaning out and preparing for spring. Me? I garden all year-long–except summer. It’s simply too hot and my garden is supposed to sustain me, not kill me. :)

You understand what I mean. So this February, my garden holds mixed blessings. My potatoes are thrilled with the warmer winter.

My sweet onions don’t mind either way… More

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: bees, BloominThyme, bok choy, bolting, broccoli, flowers, gardening, images, organic, photos, spring, wildflowers

15 Jan 2013 125 Comments

Out Of This World

And into the next—that’s what I discovered with my current garden coaching project. While poking around the peas and carrots, conversation changed from the ground to the sky. No, not the weather. The stars. And it just goes to show, you never know what’s going on over the neighbor’s fence. Incredible.

When he’s not gardening, working, or hanging out with the family! Justin is staring up into the sky, but the stuff he’s seeing? It’s not what you and I see.

This picture was not downloaded from the NASA website. It was downloaded from Justin’s new blog: J Low’s Astrophotos. He took theses photos, not NASA. I’m still in awe. More

by gardenfrisk in Savory vignettes - tidbits of life discovered along the way Tags: BloominThyme, fun, gardener, gardening, giveaway, kids, organic, stargazing, stars, weather

14 Dec 2012 59 Comments

Holiday Gifts of Love Blog Hop

Welcome to my corner of the Holiday Gifts of Love Blog Hop where you can win TONS of prizes. Check these out!

And it doesn’t stop there. Here at BloominThyme we LOVE the holidays and of course with us, it’s all about growing and cooking and getting creative. So in addition to your chance for one of the three grand prizes, you can also win this gorgeous gift box, filled with Organic Sweet Pepper and Herbs (Basil & Cilantro) Mix. More

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: baking, blog hop, BloominThyme, cranberry bread, Dianne Venetta, garden, Holiday Gifts of Love, holidays, kids, organic, recipe, romance, women