The Holiday Haulers, a group I founded, was honored by the County of Santa Barbara for outstanding contribution to the Foodbank. We worked hard for this! click here for details
Thanks to all my haulers!

Montecito Landscape Honored with Best of Santa Barbara Award!

What a treat to open my email and find that Montecito Landscape won Best of Santa Barbara Award 2012! This represents lots of hard work and lots of great customers. For more info click here

Thinking outside the box

Each year Leana and I try to come up with something different for our holiday wrapping. I usually use plain brown wrapping paper and create something with herbs and plants from the garden. This year we used brown paper and garden twine. Then I snipped Bay Laurel and a handful of Lavender. The tag is a leaf from a sweet gum tree down the street. And, we made tiny sachets and stuffed them with dried Lavender buds and dried crushed Bay Laurel leaves.
I think it makes a lovely alternative to the "usual", don't you?
Fill your garden with joy!

Gifts from the Garden Part 2

We were bubbling over with ideas for gifts from the garden on Friday.
Here are a few more herb blend ideas:
Asian style herb blend: Fennel seed, star anise, ginger, black pepper, cinnamon.
Spanish style: Smoked Paprika, Sweet Paprika, Pepper, Cumin, Lemon zest.
Latin style: Cumin, Oregano, Pepper, Chili powder, (you could even add a touch of Cinnamon & Cocoa powder).
Indian style: Tumeric, Cumin, Cardamon, Coriander, dry mustard and Cayenne.
The possibilities are endless, but this should be enough to
get you started on creating your own.  Have fun with the jars. I think you could use old jam jars, go to antique shops and find old jars. Here are some jars I had in my cupboard. 

More spice jar ideas from Crate and Barrel

Gifts from the Garden

We talked about gifts from the garden on Friday's show and here's one of our ideas:

Make your own customized herb blends.

Herbs de Provence is a favorite. I use thyme, fennel seed, lavender, tarragon, marjoram and bay. Savory is another herb you can add. I just don't happen to have any in my garden at the moment. Dry the herbs and blend to your own taste.
Package in little jars, like left over jam jars. Or go all out and buy cool containers.

Make this into a seasoning salt by adding sea salt!

One more reason to plant lots of herbs in your garden.
Fill your garden with joy!

Garden Gossip Friday December 2nd-Gifts from the Garden and Chef MD, Dr. John La Puma

Great show today with Dr. John La Puma (author of Chef MD's Big Book of Culinary Medicine). Dr. La Puma gave us some tips on how to enjoy the holidays without packing on extra pounds and how to bring your cholesterol down without harmful drugs (cholesterol drug Lipitor went generic this week).
We've got gift ideas from your garden and of course there is the Montecito Landscape/Garden Gossip photo calendar give-away. No one had the correct guess for name that plant, so we'll continue that next week. Listen to rebroadcast Saturday at 11am on newspress.com or download past episodes from www.montecitolandscape.com

Don't Plant a Pest

Last week on Garden Gossip, Invasive plant specialist, David Chang, gave us some great info on what to plant and what not to plant in our landscapes. Certainly we all know that Pampas Grass is not a friend in our gardens, but did you know that Fountain Grass is another invasive species that we need to avoid? These plants "jump the fence" and invade native environments, causing a real threat to our biodiversity. There are plenty of viable alternatives to the invasive species, find out more by visiting the California Invasive Plant Council website. www.cal-ipc.org
You can listen to the show here Garden Gossip Radio Show