The Dirt

It must go back to the afternoons my sisters, brother and I spent poring over Sears and Penney's catalogues, laboring for hours to decide on the One True Toy we wanted.

When Mom came home from work, we'd charge her at the door, excited to show her what she could buy for us.

We were astounded - repeatedly, which says nothing good about our intellect - by her response.

She'd roll her eloquent eyes. They said, "Are you kids totally, freaking nuts?"

So I never got the EZ Bake Oven (no hard feelings, Mom). And I still want toys.

The other day, I got a really cool new one to test. The EasyBloom Plant Sensor requires a computer, but no geek-level knowledge. It promises to analyze the light, temperature, humidity, soil moisture and drainage in any given spot in your yard (or the first three indoors). It combines that data with year-round climate and weather information for your ZIP code, then gives you the optimum plants for the spot.

Kim calls it cheating. I call it fun!

Buy the kit ($59.95 at amazon.com and burpee.com, among other sites), then download the program and register yourself on your computer. Stick your USB flower (too cute!) in your computer to soak up the ZIP information.

Next, attach the soil sensor prongs to the flower, stick the contraption into the dirt and turn it on. Leave it for 24 hours. When the time's up, stick the flower back in your computer.

I put my sensor in a sunny spot that's been a bit of a dead zone. After I stuck my data-engorged flower back in the computer, I got several opportunities to refine its selections. Did I want blooms of a certain color? Plants of a certain height?

I narrowed it down to perennials with pink or orange blooms, 12 to 18 inches tall, happy in sandy soil.

I got three choices: dahlias, amaryllis and African daisies. Click on the plant and you get its full dossier, which is helpful, but didn't convince me that dahlias would grow in my dead zone. I can't even pronounce dahlia.

I do know amaryllis, and I don't think it likes me. That leaves the African daisy, which is a possibility. Anything that grows in Africa ought to like my backyard.

Now I'm on the lookout for one. I'll keep you posted on my successes (thinking positive!) at The Dirt online.

Penny Carnathan