Last week I was listening to a podcast from Margaret at awaytogarden.com where she talks to the Associate Director of Gardens and Grounds at the Jefferson Foundation. Did you know that Monticello has an online gift shop? Where you can order seeds and other garden things? I’ve got a few things from them on the way. I also bought seeds from Baker Creek. This is a small problem because I don’t actually have any garden space yet. Although I’m hoping to get at least one, hopefully two raised beds in ASAP. March, maybe April? Still some time left to plan and dream before I can actually do anything.

I got a few houseplants to add to my living room slash greenhouse. What I have learned through this effort is that something like 98% of houseplants are toxic to cats. I suspect there are varying levels of toxicity and a lot of them would actually be okay with minor amounts of munching, but since I have the list, might as well use it. Knowledge is power, or something. So far I have a fiddleleaf fig (which *is* listed as toxic, but it’s on the kitchen island where the cats don’t go), a rubber plant, a lemon tree, a peperomia (birthday gift from my sister years ago), a Norfolk Island pine (which I’m hoping will function as my Christmas tree someday), a parlor palm (which has gotten chewed quite a bit), and a purple passion vine, which I had to put in a cat-free zone because it’s little and apparently very tasty. I also have five adult African violets and five baby African violets (which I actually think are at least ten plants…. I need to be more aggressive when separating them) that I propagated from the adults. I also have the world’s oldest pothos, which my cats *have* chewed on and suffered no ill effects. It’s a beginning.