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

A Dynasty is Over: Great Wall of Spinach cut down

The weather being colder and I, in anticipation of sweet, sweet sugar snap peas and snow peas decided it was time for the malabar spinach to go.


(Well, most of it)

I am experimenting (aka 'being lazy') and seeing what will happen to the spinach after the frost/during the winter and on (if it doesn't get too gross as the plant is almost succulent-like).

I am curious if the spinach will self seed itself for next year as I dropped plenty of berries/seeds on my first seed collecting harvest.

My malabar spinach, the red stem, "Rubra" variety, was quite lovely to behold much of the summer and once it started to seed and the weather become not so pretty, its color change was akin to those "love it or hate it" situations where you enjoy a plethora of yellow-pink-orange-ish colors with the fading green leaves and hot pink stems, or you think it sort of look like vomit.

Either way, it didn't look too palatable.

The twine trellised vines were pretty easy to take off all together, and while I'll go through and save some more seeds from the piles of malabar spinach vines, I am trying to figure out a good way to potentially compost them or if I probably ought to solarize the lot because I am nervous about utterly self seeding my compost pile with it.

The seeds shouldn't survive the winter, but in a compost pile, things do surprisingly well, and we know how warm it can get in there...

Ugh, now I need to re-string the fence again for peas, luckily it'll be a while yet before they need the support much if at all!

So, goodbye sweet faux-spinach! Next year, if things work out, I may try to see if you are freezeable!

Carving hopes will NOT be squashed this year!

Bah. Humbug. And it's not even Christmas yet.

But it's October, the Halloween season and I got no pumpkins.

I'm bitter because I REALLY wanted to grow my own pumpkins this year for pie, for seeds and most of all to make JACK-O-LANTERNS, but the squash borers decided to sink those plans, grrr.

Pumpkins can get expensive, especially the really big ones I can extravagant on and though I noted some moderately good size ones for $4/apiece I had been so intent from the start of spring/early summer to have grown my own pumpkins, even wishing to get some of those GINORMOUS pumpkin seeds and attempt to make myself a little pumpkin house in the backyard.

Husband wasn't too keen on that one.

Two years ago I bought pumpkins and I was quite pleased with my efforts:


Last year, due to finances, I skipped out on the pumpkins and made crummy brown paper bag lantern cutouts with tea candles illuminating them and they were BLAH as well as wonderfully dangerous I found.

(I realized midway that the cheap polyester costumes that kids get nowadays and in addition to clumsiness on everyone's part were not a good combo. I would like to assure everyone reading that NO ONE caught on fire that night!)

So... I want to do pumpkins again.

Granted I saw these "craft pumpkin" things on sale at craft stores, where it appears you can cut and shape and save for every year, and though I am sure it is cost effective in the long run, I like the whole Native American feeling of using the whole thing when I have a real pumpkin.

Because with a "faux-kin" I'd be constantly channeling my Jack Sparrow and thinking, "But, where's the pumpkin pie?!" (don't you dare tell me to use the stuff in the can!)

Plus there's nothing like cumin and sea salt dusted roasted pumpkin seeds, mmmm, that's autumn for ya.

Crazy self seeded vine "topiary"

A long, long time ago I got a cheap green metal pole to hang my hummingbird feeder on.

I was peeved at the boring-ness of the pole and decided I would grow things up it. I found this great seed from Botanical Interests called Cardinal Climber (pretty basic) that said it would attract hummingbirds and so I sowed it.

Nothing happened and I went, "Blah." So I sowed some reliable Grandpa Ott seed I had saved for a while and it came up merrily... and then some time soon afterward Cardinal Climber decided it wanted to join in on the action (maybe it's like a competitive younger sibling).

And now I have this:
(pardon the pics sort of suck because I was too lazy and took them through my dirty kitchen window)

It's self seeded (and crossed with itself as you can tell by the random pink and white cardinal flowers). Of course the morning glory re-seeded too and now they've taken over the pole and the hummingbird feeder a bit too.

Lat year, to the chagrin of my husband, I attached a twine to the pole and to the nearest gutter so the vines could climb up it, which they did, and then decided to make a roof attack upon us.

It was kind of neat seeing the vines take over and nearly eat the house while framing our window, but the reality was it that was beginning to clog the gutters above... which is no good, so by autumn's end we had to tear it down and no twine attachment to the roof this year on my part.

(click on the pic to see more detail)

The nifty part is though that these vines want to EXTEND and do so at nearly a 90 degree angle as it's trying to reach out and find something to grab. When the wind blows, the vines look like they're fingers of some sort of scary green Cousin It trying to get a hold of you!

Oh, there's a hyacinth bean vine too somewhere in there, but he's sort of shy and we don't talk about him much :) (Hyacinth beans are edible too :)

But I don't even like pink!

I've never liked pink, too prissy for my tastes. It always reminded me of princesses and I never was the princess type (usually wanted to be Robin Hood, the Prince, or Super Mario---- maybe it was the weapons...?)

ANYWAYS, I've brought a little pink in my life finally, but only if it's combined with some sort of purple-burgundy-black on the plant.

It all started with the Haight-Ashbury Hibiscus:


Striking me with its interesting splashes of hot pink here and there (and NOT the MJ looking leaves...)

...and then I found Pink Fountains Gaura, with it's burgundy-black foliage and pink flowers... (the foliage is blacker with heat, and as it's been cool, so yeah, pretty blah green now). I thought it would go well with Haight-Ashbury... and now Park seed has this lovely.

*girly squeee* pink flowers with purple-black foliage AND edible fruit eventually?!? WANT SO BAD. Geez, when did I start accessorizing my garden more than myself?

BUT... it's a tree/shrub... and I have noooooooooo room. *le sigh*

Someday that farm will happen...

Just got hit in the head by a forecasted temperature drop!

Oy! It's almost October! So, why am I surprised by the upcoming temperature drop that's BELOW 50 degrees?

Because I am dumb and have acclimated myself to the idea of an endless summer!

How is it that we so easily forget that things get cold again? (shut up you guys in the deep south/California :)

That temperature changes gradually, but one day/night just hits us and we notice, "whoa, the weather really is changing!"

I mean, dude, I've been planting/planting for my cold-weather gardening, why am I so weirded out about this?

Aiiee! I just saw some geese flying south! It's like they're carrying the warm weather with them! Come back you warm weather thieves! Maybe if I lasso a few and house them in my yard the warm weather will stay there ;)

To the market, to the market, jiggity gi

So happy that our area has a farmer's market!

Unfortunately I have a tendency to talk shop and my husband begins rolling his eyes because despite liking to talk shop with the other growers, I typically don't purchase most of their generic vegetable wares because, well I grow it already...

Here and there though there are the people who have more time/patience/experience/land than I do to grow special items like these:


When I first saw them I thought they were little plums/prunes, but that would be weird to have this season.

They had a pungent, sweet, even a bit spicy aroma and some were splitting a little so I could see their pale green-white flesh. Flies were landing all over the place on them, most likely attracted to their sweet scent and the vendor had to wave them off.

Inquiring further I was told by the Asian vendor that they were Muscadine grapes, and while waving off another swarm of flies landing on them, she told me to go ahead and sample one.

Hmmm, these grapes were quite possibly not washed and flies have been landing on them. It felt like some sort of Asian person challenge because really, being steeped in Chinese culture, you HAVE to sample the wares if you're REALLY Chinese, and make sure the fruit is gooood.

So, I got my Chinese ON, daintily waved away a few more flies (trying not to remember that I recently read a fly carries 100,000 bacteria on their back alone), fogged up a grape with my breath and wiped it off before popping it in my mouth.

OMIGOSH. The flesh slips right off the thick skin and you get the whole grape in your mouth before even chewing on the actual skin. Flavor Tsunami. It was sweet and a little tangy, but rich and PEPPERY. I was blown away.

It feels like I'm eating something truly wild, like an exotic animal--- except this is legal :P

Muscadines had always been in my mind this Southern old-timey fruit I had heard of and simply poo-poohed as "just a grape." Boy, am I dumb. I bought a little basket of them despite their expensiveness, I had to share with my husband (and gobble more later myself if he didn't like them :)
(as it turns out, his thoughts about the grapes: "I'm not sure, kind of tangy," whatever that means).

Aren't they beautiful? They look like a bunch of little starry bubble galaxies touching.

This is what a garnet would taste like if you could eat it!
I may need to "accidently" toss these somewhere in the garden...
Sadly muscadines are dioecious, meaning that they have separate male and female plants, so it just adds to the toughness of growing these :/

Also at the farmer's market were CHESTNUTS!

(Makes me feel like zombie when eating them, brains! BRAINS!)

If the whole roasted chestnuts thing is only recognizable to you in song, then go out and buy yourself some FRESH ones, because the ones at the grocery store are dry, shriveled, moldy things compared to these babies, and for $3/basket it was a good deal.

Here is a good link to learn how to cook chestnuts.



Just a note, make sure you cut through the shell deeply enough because a 'sploded chestnut is not only not pretty and a mess to clean up, but it's embarrassing to be caught licking roasted chestnut bits and powder off the stove and counter.

Lambs ears- Useful and a good pet substitute

I have a soft spot for this easy, potentially invasive generic plant:


It's so FUZZY!

and xeri-scaperific!

As a little kid I had read that it was used as bandages during wars and would often play doctor/medic on the little boy neighbors I played He-man/She-ra with, dressing their wounds with lambs ears (so we stick fought a little hard :/)

I learned recently too that it makes an apple-y fruity flavored tea and along with bandages, can be used like the ultimate biodegradable wash towel (albeit small, but still useable).

More likely this would be a great cotton ball substitute and I wouldn't have to worry about the oddness of a bleached cosmetic product.

Maybe, maybe... though I have always wanted to grow my own cotton for fun...

Very Important Question: Foreign Green Onions becoming naturalized?

How long does it take for green onions grown in Mexico and then purchased at my local grocery store, but then all the green parts are cut off for cooking and the white root part placed in water to grow, THEN placed in my garden be considered LOCAL and grown in Memphis? (yeah, that was a bit roundabout)

Is it when all the cells to regenerate and officially turn themselves over before they can be considered actually grown here or at least, re-grown here?

Does it get dual-garden-ship?

FUN EXPERIMENT (I've done this before, but killed the green onions off recently):
(1) Get some grocery store green onions
(2) Cut off the parts you need minus about 2 inches of white area w/rooty area
(3) Place rooty/white parts in a glass of water, with the white part at least half inch exposed
(4) Watch with wonder at the quickness green onions grow!!!

Point being, as long as (and it is highly possible that your green onions from the store are the variety that don't go bulbous/bunch, you can keep cutting and going back rather than pulling green onions all the time unless you are a white rooty bits fanatic.

I don't like buying the garden growing sets at the store because I find them expensive and usually more than I need for typically non-green onion eaters such as my husband and I.

Death of an Agricultural Scientist: Questions of farming, ecology and ethics

You may have heard recently of the death of Norman Borlaug.

If yes, great! If not, really read the hyperlink on him above.

Those who use their noggin to have help the world avoid mass hunger I salute. Even if industrial farming must come to a poor nation, and chemicals and pesticides that us lucky folks in more wealthy countries can afford to eschew because we have plenty of calories to spare or because food is not a scarcity for us; food that may have traces of these chemicals is much better than no food at all.

Many might question, as I remember it was talked of in an old political science class I took, the ethics of teaching industrial farming and/or providing food to other nations.

Questions like population control come to mind (such as, if a famine occurred, then nature is simply providing checks and balances that the population is re-balanced to the amount of food available.

Others might say that the environmental impact of industrialized farming is not worth the effects and that it would do more harm than good.

I feel that it is reasonable to use the inexpensive commercial option to produce food quickly in order to avoid famine in a country and teach that country's people skills to maintain their farms, EVENTUALLY moving on to or converting the farms to organic methods.

Of course, people, being people might get used to the idea of commercialized farming and not be willing to change to more sustainable methods. A risk I'd be worried of that could lead a country to end up just like the USA's farming situation.

Perhaps, the "organic" matter (though potentially pesticide/herbicide/other various chemical adulterated) from these start-up commercial farms could be used to add back to the soil of places where nutrients have been depleted or needed to be built up with organic matter in the process (bringing up the question as to when that soil becomes truly again "organic" to our sub-par government standard).

Rather than importing all of our extra food products from wealthier countries, teaching people how to farm a crop successfully and continuing the tradition all the while slowly moving towards sustainability with this knowledge from the start is a good beginning to decreasing world hunger (teach a man to fish and all).

Additionally raising crops that are more tolerant or native of these environments and is only smart, as well using farm animals indigenous/more adapted to the country to provide a livelihood and fertilizer for farms to help them become fully sustainable.

(That reminds me of something like The Heifer Foundation which provides and teaches people how to maintain animals for food and business means eventually enabling those people to become self sufficient. I really like this organization because I figure if I can't have a goat at least I can buy one for someone.)

Borlaug was part of the Sasakawa Africa Association which attempts to use native or ethnic crops such as maize, cassava and etc improved crops while also introducing non-natives that take well to the environment and will produce a good crop to add to the food supply.

It seems that the foundation attempts to utilize/incorporate green methods such as green manure crops to choke out weeds, yet incorporate and fix nitrogen so as to limit the amount of fertilizer needed.

Minimum tillage methods are also being introduced within the program so that old crops can be used as mulch, less labor is needed and water is conserved, all very helpful and important things to maintain in this area of the world.

Stated too, they attempt to limit the use of herbicides to a minimum and prevent the over-use of chemical fertilizers. All of which is good for the environment and appropriate cost control methods.

It is exciting to see that despite its third world status, green/organic modern methods are being utilized to attempt to avoid past modern wealthy country mistakes of over fertilization, tillage soil structure damage and excessive chemical.

Also by avoiding hiring expatriates and keeping a lean staff they ensure that most of the money stays in the country and that much of it as possible is used towards farming supplies.

By teaching their farmers too how to properly store their harvests and treat it to prevent damage from pests and rodents, their farmers can wait until grain prices are reasonable for them to sell at. Thus, showing them the economies of things and avoid pressure of selling all their crop at too low prices where they might sell at a loss or fear of losing their crop to rodents/pests.

While this sort of farming is more industrialized and there is slight concern that some of the "old ways" of farming and processing food might be lost, but the avoidance of famine is an obvious benefit next to that loss.

If marketing is any example however, old methods will not be lost as there are still many products such as coconut, shea and neem oils being grown/gathered and produced in the traditional manner by small companies bringing and keeping that wealth to their particular nation (such as Alaffia, where I get my neem oil) by emphasizing their product pride on hand made, non-refined materials.

The country profiles within the Sasakawa website are detailed and very interesting to read how each country found successes and what was achieved specifically in terms of the agricultural, managerial, funding, educational and etc. levels.

Borlaug utilized specific breeding methods, not genetic modification, to create wheat hybrids which have changed the way we eat and averted famine in a time when mass world starvation was a serious threat people believed.

I am a proponent of heirloom varieties because of their uniqueness and diversity and believe that it is important to remember our past, but I also do realize the benefits of stronger hybrids and the potential for good that certain GMOs can do for countries with insufficient land or environment to sustain their population. (I am somewhat hesitant as Garden Rant has recently mentioned about GMOs). Of course, it may seem like a cycle we will reach again if we continue on our path of an ever-increasing population, unsustainable this and that, with technology which will supposedly swoop in to save the day every time which is not sustainable in itself all the time.

I do believe that it is only reasonable to do what we can within our means and minds to fill a gap for those who need it the most and to help those who need help. Compassionately teach others to help themselves through education and personal involvement.