This is a variety of Swiss Chard called Bright Lights. It’s pretty as a bouquet, with some pink stems, white stems, and here you can see the yellow and the red. Chard is so easy to grow from seeds or starts, and in climates like Seattle, actually winters over sometimes.

Chard and garlic are made for each other. Lightly steam the cut-up chard (I cut up the stems separately and start them first so they cook just a bit longer), then dump all into plenty of hot olive oil that has a whole lot of lightly browned sliced garlic in it. Cook a little more and then serve. A Sicilian way is to mix in steamed potatoes. Yum!

For more ruby visions of all kinds, visit Ruby Tuesday.

Flowers, flowers, flowers. I can’t understand why some Seattlites say that Seattle only does Spring well, in the garden. Hogwash. There are so many lovelies blooming! Here’s a sweet begonia, about four inches across. I took the hanging basket in over the winter, and here it is again. How easy is that?

It’s a close-up, so fits the Macro Monday meme, and the splash of yellow qualifies it for Mellow Yellow Monday. Both excellent and exciting memes, filled with creativity. Visit or better yet, participate!

You can’t really call them green beans when they look like this. The yellow ones are called wax beans and the package on the purple ones says they will be green when cooked. We’ll see. They sure taste great just like this.

Here’s a tip: When storing, make sure they are in a plastic bag but DRY (wash just before eating or cooking). Peas like it moist in storage but beans, surprisingly, do not. That avoids the disappointing rust yuckiness. Also, you think you will remember which you picked when, but you won’t. Mark the bag with the date!

Home gardens are the ultimate in local, fresh, and hopefully organic food. And a package of seeds is so cheap, plus the seeds last many years if stored in a dry place. So grow your own! And for more GREEN ideas, visit Think Green Thursday.

UPDATE: I cooked them tonight, steamed the way I always do, and sure enough, the purple ones became green. Check it out! Top one is after cooking a bit and stirring, bottom one a bit firm but tender. No purple! They were yummy.

I wish it was easier to find out the name of flowers you don’t know. This one is an oldie; my mom grew it when I was a kid in Queens, New York, in her beautiful garden. It grows well up here in Seattle and reseeds itself. It’s two or three feet tall, and kind of hard to photograph, with deep, brilliant magenta flowers and silvery foliage. I figure magenta is a kind of pink, so I’m including it for Pink Saturday.

Does anyone know the name? I’d be so grateful.

Everyone loves to grow tomatoes but not everyone knows how to make sure there are lots of tomatoes on the vines. With bees experiencing serious decline for unknown reasons (although I seem to see more this year than last year in my own garden), pollination can be a problem.

The solution? You! Assisted flower sex is the answer, and you get tomatoes for your trouble. Unless you are a farmer with acres of tomatoes, for a few backyard plants you can make a big difference in yield by going around your plants with a child’s little paintbrush, or even a cotton swab, and brushing each little yellow flower in turn. Do this every few days to catch as many flowers as possible, and you will be amazed at the results. And it’s fun!

Visit Think Green Thursday for more takes on the meaning of green.

Oh, let’s try a new meme. After all, there are plenty of yellow flowers in the garden, so why not? The name of this one is Broadway. Pop on over to Mellow Yellow Monday for more kinds of yellow seen by people with cameras around the planet.

And since it’s a close up, let’s check out Macro Monday as well. Two for one!

The little plants I showed you a week or so ago are going gangbusters. Sweetpeas like to be picked, you know, so I must pick bouquets with fragrance like no other to enchant me and give away. What else can I do?

Here’s how to raise great sweetpeas: 1) You must nick the seed with nail scissors, then soak overnight in a dish of water before planting. The seeds are big and pretty easy to handle and it really doesn’t take long. You will see that the nicked ones swell and are ready to go and the ones that didn’t get the outside casing pierced sit there, small and hard.

2) Plant as directed, indoors in early spring if you want.

3) When planting outdoors, put them in a place where heat will not be a problem if possible. An eastern exposure like these have helps. But the big thing is, sweetpeas love manure. When planting, dig a double handful of bagged steer manure into the soil around each one. Then wait patiently for heaven in a flower to appear.

For more floriferous photos, visit Flowers For Today. Everyone likes flowers!

And hello to the Color Carnival crew. We all love bright colors; such a happy feeling.

I am so happy to see the sweetpeas finally taking off. I planted them from seed myself, and that always adds to the gardening enjoyment, I find. And sweetpeas love to be picked! You can only enhance and prolong the blooming period by picking them as they come into flower. Of course, I always leave a few.

For more flowers around the world, visit Today’s Flower.

I looked this up in Dave’s Garden, one of my fave garden sites, and they say it is Sea Thrift, Sea Pink, Common Thrift, Armeria maritima, but I call them Pinks. They were blooming their heads off last week, and what better post for Pink Saturday? Click for the incredible world of pink visions.

These are also called digitalis, and I love them. They bloom in shade or, up here in Seattle, in sun also; they reseed, and they are so showy! These are from seedlings I brought from the other house. They bloom the second year, like most perennials started from seed, but if you know in advance, that’s fine, as their leaves make a lovely rosette pattern all by themselves. Actually the foliage looks a bit more gray-green than in this photo, but I just liked the photo the way the camera saw it.

For more photos from around the world, visit Today’s Flower in Brazil.