gardening in January

While gardening doesn't usually start creeping into my thoughts, dreams, and to-do lists till February or March, this year we were in for a surprise treat.

A dear friend bought us the Wee Enchanted Garden for a Christmas gift. Actually the gift was for my daughters, but I quickly confiscated it and became the gardening foreman.

The kit is adorable, rustic, and very user-friendly. You can paint the dish, rocks, toadstools, and even the cottage. You place them in the dish over the sparkly dirt (I've never seen such clean dirt in all my life). You scatter the seeds.

You sprinkle some water and, in a few days, this appears:

And here is the garden after two weeks (or is it three weeks? darn, and I was going to be so scientific about this):

You have to really look to catch of glimpse of our cheerful gnome, Dirty Feet.