Weeds love the rain and Cake

Oh they do, oh they do....

It's been a rainy week in South Florida. My plants looks great, my mother in law mowed my lawn (how's that for living in heaven?) and my weeds are loving every single minute of this!! They try so hard to compete for the space, I almost hate to yank them out!

Lots of people mulch. And, they say that helps with weeds maintenance and with keeping the ground moist for the roots of the plants and all. I am not against mulching, but I prefer ground cover. I love it.

It's gives my garden a richer feel. I like the look of growing things in the spaces, rather than mulch. It's just a preference. It's means nothing in the larger scale of things.

I love blue drawf. That's my absolute favorite ground cover, along with portulaca or moss rose, it's sometimes called. I have pink, yellow and orange.

A friend asked me, 'wouldn't ground cover be like weeds and try to take the nutrients from your plants?' "Well," said I, I as in the me person who doesn't really follow all the gardening rules, "it's prettier, to me; I think it's cheaper, and it seems that many ground cover plants don't have deep roots like weeds do."

But, what do I know? I feed my plants coffee grounds, banana peels and tea bags. My roses seem fine growing in between the blue drawf and the moss rose. What can I say? Maybe we are all kind of weird here...

Today I found out I will be getting some free cake! --

Here's what happened:

I decided that I wanted to make a kind of special treat for Rita and Steve, my in laws, who live next door; I mean, after all, she mowed my lawn, you know?. And they like plums and different fruits, too.

I found this recipe for a kind of muffin that had a plum inside. But , I couldn't find the kind of tin I needed to bake this muffin thing in without going out to buy one, and I didn't want to do that, unless I find time to go to the thrift shops. (I've been listening to my sister the Freegan)

I saw on the back of a pound cake recipe that you could bake the pound cake in a 9 x 5" pan as a loaf (and I have a loaf pan! Hallejulah!)

, and I got this idea that I could put the plums on the top and make it be this Plum Loaf Cake. It sort of worked, but it made a huge mess in my oven.

The cake mix, I made correctly, and the pan size was correct, but the cake just kind of 'sploded all inside my oven. It ran everywhere! (But it was good smelling and tasted great!!)

I put in the mix, and layered the plums on the top (cut them in quarter sections) and then sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. and let it bake. Like a pineapple upside down cake, the fruit doesn't stay on the top.

Anyway, I decided to call the Betty Crocker people and tell them what happened. I asked them if maybe it was because I used a glass pan. They couldn't find anything wrong in what I had done, they apologized and said they would send me a coupon for a another cake mix. I thought that was nice. But, I really wonder if it happened because I used a glass loaf pan? They said, 'no' that they don't know what went wrong. (we remeasured the pan from every angle while they had me on the phone.

Rita and Steve LOVED my Plum Loaf Cake! I'm going to make it again, only next time in something else. I'll post a photo. It's very pretty and very, very tasty.