Digging (or excavating?) for Black Gold

I have been bummed until recently as to my lame compost pile.  Granted it was lame because I was bad about turning it (not having those awesome sphere/side barrel ones, ok, excuses excuses...)

Anyways, so this year I was bad and didn't add compost to the garden beds early on like I usually do because the bin was looking fullish of unrotted things.

After being tired of feeling like things have been slow going for the pile I decided to investigate and thought, "Maybe if I look under the pile and poke deep in?"  (I have one of those tall box shape plastic commercial compost bins.  I know, silly early mistake when I was younger to purchase).

AND OMG.  Was there compost.  Loads of delicious crumbly beautiful stuff.  BUCKETS.  6 HEAVY FULL giant kitty litter plastic square buckets ("borrowed" from someone's recycling... who I now scope out often) of amazing compost.

It was perilous digging into it like that because I started just before dusk when I couldn't see anything very well (except filthy rich compost) and with how warm compost can get and as I've seen snakes chilling in the bin before (and how I don't like to wear gloves...) I could have probably had issues if I encountered any creepy crawlies and it may have been my imagination, but I thought I did see a small tail slither by... but there were a lot of squash seedling roots that could have tricked my eyes...  I was just so giddy about the compost I kept digging and digging, elbow deep (horizontally) into the bin until my 2 main 5 ft x 15 ft beds were both given a good layer of compost before I decided to call it a night.

(side of compost bin that I was digging into to get to compost.  There was all sorts of un-composted stuff that had packed into the side, which was the reason I thought I had no compost, but I just had to dig! And dig I did.)

(essentially this pic shows poorly how I dug into the bin, underneath the pile until there was over a full foot between the floor of the bin and the actual pile above.  I probably dug more up in the center.  It was sort of interesting because though the pile looked depleted by half from above when I was done with my 6 bucketfuls, I think it slowly sank, and filtered itself out of really large chunks of unrotted material as I dug underneath the pile)
 
The next day I took pics and tried all other side of the bin to mine for more black gold when I discovered that if I dug a little upwards too more compost was there and I hauled bunches more to fill my 7 smaller 1 ft x 4ft beds that hold vines and strawberry plants!  It was so grand to see all that scrap saving work out into such huge rewards.

Now garden, let's get growing!

Most expensive spice in the world? Check! Got it.

I love a good surprise and it's beyond me how I forgot about these, but being so busy as of late I didn't notice the grassy green leaves of my bulbs until these popped out:

Oh yeah!  The gem of my flower/herb garden, saffron!  This is only  my second year growing it and I keep forgetting that these guys are autumn blooming crocuses, rather than the common spring type I am used to seeing.

This plant/herb/flower should have been part of my "You Grow Girl- 7 things Meme" entry but I guess my brain had taken a bit of a hiatus.  It's hard to remember the plants when they die so quickly!  Then again, it's sad to forget that you own a plant that produces such a costly spice...


Naturally I don't have saffron plantation here, but I do grow enough that fills this tiny jar that originally contained saffron in it, found at a TJ Maxx (gotta love that store).  I get enough saffron to make a couple to few dishes a year, and it's satisfying enough that way, though I really wish these guys would get around to making some babies! ;)

Minus a pinch, yep, that's my haul so far this year.

I experimented with planting by placing some in the south facing part of my house and another set in the herb garden more west(ish) facing.  They were planted straight in the ground with some rocks/pebbles surrounding them to deter moles and the like as well to improve drainage as this Mediterranean plant likes things relatively dry especially in the summer.

I had 2 pots which I planted a few bulbs in each only to have them rot on me.  I swear they had good drainage!  I blame... myself, I probably overwatered them somehow.  Either way, I just recall looking for them in the pot when the rest had bloomed only to find some sad papery husks.  Sort of spooky actually.

When the saffron blooms and these red stigmas used as the spice trail out, I have a slight giddy moment imagining all the delicious food in store with it, but also I'm a little peeved because there is very little time available for good harvesting.  You can't just wait around, you have to harvest right after they open or all your work is for naught because that highly aromatic scent will go away quickly or at least quicker than crocus flower begin to start looking very un-pretty, meaning very fast to a day.

Some great super easy and I personally think fantastic dishes to make with saffron (other than paella, which I still need to attempt)  are a Moroccan chicken with sweet potatoes and couscous; and some some reason I can't find the recipe but it's a combination of crush tomato sauce, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, olive oil, crusty dry stale bread, fresh garlic and saffron all mixed together until it's like a thick bolognese sauce, except vegetarian.  Serve that combo with pasta and you'll be in heaven especially if you are a fan of garlic!

Though saffron spice itself is relatively expensive, the bulbs are not too bad, about a dollar a bulb or little less. For the plant-i-tude, show of vibrant purple color, cute leaves and delicious food you can make from it, I think it's worth it!

Due to it being such a costly spice, buying it from un-qualified sources, (ok, like open air markets), is a complete caveat emptor.  Adulterated saffron is common, with people using colored threads to other flower petals/stigmas as fillers.  Also, if you see something called "poor man's saffron," stay away and just go get yourself some marigolds and use the flower petals, because that's what "poor man's saffron" is.

Note too, other than the saffron crocuses, it is highly suggested that you don't nosh on any other varieties because it is well known that many crocuses are poisonous.  Saffron has been cultivated and breed into this current state for civilizations to produce these specific stigmas.  There's no real good substitution for the real thing and why not be certain you are getting the purest, freshest thing straight from your yard?

Here are a few links as to where you can purchase saffron crocus bulbs and nifty information especially on the wikipedia page about mini-wars that occurred over saffron!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron
 http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/910891-product.html
 http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/plants/2001fa_crocus.html
 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000T9O8Z0
 
Did I mention I will totally name my first born girl Saffron?  (For those Firefly fans out there, don't laugh)

Drinks on me! Mimosas!

My rules/exceptions to growing non-edible plants are that they must be:

1) interesting/unusual flowers to attract pollinators/beneficial insects
2) landscaping plants that survive my lack of watering and care
3) low groundcovers that can act like living mulch
4) FUN plants for my amusement

The last category applying to this plant, Mimosa Pudica:


Though I like the drink (orange juice+champagne/prosecco) and find it super groovy, I enjoy mimosa plants more so (unless it's a really bad day). Mimosas are great amusement and called the sensitive plant because of this:



The first time I saw this I think I was very very young and was very very impressed by a plant that seemed to move/play dead.

It was literally probably a decade later before I encountered it again in college in a greenhouse that was left open on the Ag campus and then some 5 years later before I was very lucky to have actually acquired it from a semi-local nursery a few hours north of Memphis where they were giving them away to the children for free.

So... I'm not a child, but my "SQUEE"-ing probably convinced them that I was one at heart and they let me take 3 little mimosa plants home with me because I knew a couple other little children at heart :)

Why would they give away such a cool plant for free you might ask?

Because it freakin' self-seeds like mad! (Um, so note potential invasiveness...)

(seed pod casings... the actual seeds are planted/sprouted--->)

Some months ago I noticed my now not so tiny plant had bloomed tiny pink puffballs and formed flat bean-like seed pods, making sense as they are in the legume (nitrogen fixing bean-like) family Fabaceae. When they became brown and dry enough that the pod fell off the stem easily I opened the pods out of curiosity and decided to plant the seeds with the pessimism that it probably wouldn't work... BUT THE SEEDS SPROUTED!

Oh. My. Joy.

Mimosas are cathartic. When you are annoyed or are in need of amusement, just poke at it and it's droopy sadness (really just water loss, the plant has no feelings! That I know of at least...) makes an annoyed person feel a whole lot better!

I like to touch the leaflets little at a time, getting the closing up/plant drooping to occur slowly, or see if I am delicate enough to get only one leaf to droop at a time. My husband thinks its fun to just go "RAAH!" on it and smack the entire thing all at once, making the main stem as well as all the leaves and tiny branches go sad. (I kind of glare at him when he does that because then I have to wait a good while before the plant recovers enough to be poked again).

What do I plan to do with little mimosa seedlings? I sort of imagine a lot of little pots of the mimosas , maybe 7 of them, that I can label them singly with the days of the week Mon-Tues-Wed-Fri-Sat-Sun, and pick one each day to torment (and then recover for a week) thus not OVERLY stressing one plant out too much.

Ok, that's a little disturbing... I really won't do that, scout's honor!

Instead I'll probably just give extra away so that I can share the joy.

I found out too that mimosa plants are actually edible! Hoohah! This fills my ultimate standard of a perfect plant! Edible and Fun! Unfortunately I probably won't be using mine as food, but the fact I can SAY I can eat it is comforting.

Interesting Mimosa links:
http://www.arhomeandgarden.org/plantoftheweek/articles/Mimosa.htm
http://www.plantoftheweek.org/week147.shtml