My heart sank as we approached Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens Sunday morning. Traffic was intense, cars were parked at all wild angles occupying every inch of the verges of the approach road to the event, and Coral Gables cops were making some extra money working the detail to try and keep order for the annual Ramble Garden Festival. I am not much of a one for crowds, but my wife and I had been forced to scratch a long desired trip to the Dry Tortugas, thanks to strong north winds sweeping the Keys. "I don't get seasick," my wife remarked to friends who had planned to go with us. "But I don't like sharing a three hour, rough water boat ride with a few dozen strangers do suffer from it." So we cast around for an alternative and remembered The Ramble which takes place on the grounds of the magnificent Fairchild Gardens in Coral Gables:
The Ramble is a gathering of plant growers of every type, tents of herbs, flowers, orchids, vegetable plants and you name it they were selling them.
The grounds of the Fairchild Tropical gardens lend themselves to this kind of thing as they are filled with all sorts of nooks and crannies overflowing with greenery and in each one lurked a specialised person with knowledge to give away, a plant to sell or a conversation to offer for the asking:
My wife is a member of the Fairchild Garden so we for in for free which is pretty cool as this is a special event and with a quick flash of her annual pass we were at liberty to wander at our leisure. At the entrance to the event itself someone had parked an early 20th century water organ, a hurdy gurdy mounted on vintage Renault truck and it was the source of the marching band we could hear from the parking lot:
There were food stands lining the approaches to the plant areas and we wandered in some bemusement.
Farmers markets were in their infancy when we left California and they have burgeoned everywhere- everywhere except Key West of course! Thus every time we see one we stop and take a look when we find them on the road. The Fairchild Gardens put on a magnificent spread for our edification, we small town hicks: 
Some stuff was more familiar to Key West resident:
And I have all the coconuts I need, thanks:
And even though I like a guacamole dip as much as the next habitue of Mexican cuisine, I was a bit taken aback to see a woman up to her elbows in the stuff, mashing industriously all afternoon:
My wife likes to cook so she was ready to check out some flavors and spices that were offered in new combinations or in a format not always easy to find at home:
There was also a food court offering everything from hot dogs to crepes by way of jerk and Asian cooking. 
We went for the one that doesn't ever rear its head in the Keys, as far as I know:
There used to be an Ethiopian restaurant in Tampa when I lived there for a very brief while, and mostly what I recall eating was gloppy sauces well spiced with no cutlery and a spongy sour tortilla type of bread for a spoon. We were offered plastic forks, even though I carry my own metal cutlery as I dislike plastic eating irons, but the food was as I remembered it more or less:
The weather was mildly sunny,mostly hazy and overcast with thin cloud cover and we found it quite pleasant to wander in the 80 degree temperatures (27C). For some it was bright enough to warrant shade:
I bought some garden tools which appeared to offer the benefit of folding up small when not in use and also of being built of materials likely to last a long while, a multi function steel rake and coconut frond pruner with a ten foot reach operated by a solid rod which should be easier to use than my spring operated contraption. I also got a rather powerful set of pruning shears that operate by ratchet action and are remarkably easy to use. All for $120, so we didn't get away scot free. My wife found the most elaborate hair pin for $20:
It's quite a hobby it turns out, turning wood on a lathe: 
They had a large tent filled with decorative bowls and the like with prices ranging from several hundred to over a thousand bucks. 
We quite liked one lightweight fruit bowl thing which carried a tag of $650 which seemed like it would have been nice in another more munificent era when our house was, say, actually worth money....This I could afford though, or at least a piece of it:
At $3 a pound Jak fruit was a bargain. I thought though, my wife gave me an old fashioned look when I asked for six bucks to take home a piece:
The seeds are encased in a lychee-like pod which is all held together by the toughest fibers you're likely to encounter inside something edible. After dinner I tore apart the fiber and we scarfed the lychee things inside. I really enjoyed it. She tried to.
"Oooh!" One of my wife's friends said over the cell phone as I drove the convertible home."If you'd have said you were going to Fairchild I'd have come too!" Everyone should feel the same way.
