Not dead yet!

You know, I didn't know that in Monty Python and the the Holy Grail, the official title of the character of the old man who "wasn't dead" (but was being forced into the 'dead cart' by who we can only presume to be his son) is called "The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't"

I'd almost like to claim that I'm the "The Dead Blog that Claims It Isn't" for all the times that I've left you all in a lurch except I'd be paranoid-ly looking above me for some sort of Monty Python-esque massive paper cut-out hand above me ready to bop my head.

So yes, for the second time in the past 2 weeks I must apologize for the lack of updates.  Usually I am better about having posts interspersed and prepared to entertain you whilst I am running about on vacation (yes, that's the reason for my absence as many of you might have surmised since it was over Memorial Day weekend).  I have a tendency to  not want to proclaim to the world, via Twitter, Facebook, blog and the like that I am not in the house for an extended period of time for good reason.  Not like I'm famous like Elvis or have a collection like the Kew Conservatory that I'm worried about but too many people tell the world when they're not at home and it's just not smart.

Anyways, please give me another day to recover from many days of nonstop walking around the Washington DC area (8-10 hours a day, 5+miles a day, not including the time spent upright in museums) and the 12-14 hour nonstop crazy drives my husband and I make to get to see family and fun because sleeping at night (when there's less traffic too!) is for newbs and we're just crazy like that.

Upcoming posts will be about the awesomeness of:

-Washington DC's plants and landscaping

-The National Arboretum

-The National Botanic Conservatory

-Having a family that trades plants with EVERY visit (you'd think that the plant varieties would equalize out at some point..) (this post will also highlight the plants traded)

Segueing into plant trading with family I have an admission that I am going to make that's relatively stupid (but the husband insists I need to update my foibles--- and I should, but still, blah.) but I broke my plant moratorium.  Just this once!  After I was stung by the wasp recently I was "le sad" and at the local farmer's market they were selling pretty, 6 inch tall coleus plants for a $1(!) and I, uh, believed it would dull the sadness and pain of wasp sting-i-tude(ness).  The seller also gave me a piece of a pretty purple and green coleus that had snapped off, so it was like I got TWO coleus for $1(!). 

 I'd like to blame Dave at The Home Garden for influencing me many months ago to the idea of keeping, cutting and saving coleus cuttings for over the winter (and just to make more).  I don't tend to like to purchase non-edibles, but having a yen for color lately and add in some easy propagation on TOP of being severely malnourished of new plant/interesting growth in the garden I succumbed.  SIGH. There, I got that out.  Guilt be gone?  Except for some guilt that occurred in DC... but not in the plant purchasing way! More on that later and until then, thanks for your patience.

Not a fan of the shrubbery, but I gets it

After over a week of eating it, the kimchee got me.  Really.  And then I resurrected myself and was well enough again for another day of blogging!

Obviously, just kidding, but not kidding now, I'm sorry about the delay in posting.  Things just have gotten really busy suddenly and I didn't have a bunch of posts lined up as usual to stay on task due to busy-ness reasons, so thus my absence on the internet.

For a short moment I had some difficulty thinking of a topic due to my busy-ness that has kept me from gardening as much.  I'm really just waiting for things to grow anyways, but then a non-my-usual-edible-garden-y issue popped up in my head that I thought I'd address: shrubbery.

My house came with a plentiful supply of generic landscaping plants: azaleas, weigela, nandina, boxwood-like things, and lots and lots of hollies (some slow growers, the others, the tree kind, grow like the dickens).

It's a love-hate relationship with the shrubs.  The happiness of having some relatively decent good bones and pre-made professional landscaper designed stuff that is relatively work-free and xeriscaperific, and there are the instant micro-climates that some of the taller plants make for lower, shade loving plants you might acquire such as bleeding hearts and some begonias for example.  But it's pre-made landscaping also comes with the annoyance of a yard that you hadn't envisioned, full of sort of boring (inedible) plants (Ilex vomitoria anyone?) and some especially that are annoying as heck to maintain either because you have to trim them up all the time or like my Otto Leuyken and boxwood-like thing that was PRONE to pink wax scale aka strawberry scale.

A year ago the Otto Leuyken finally did kick the bucket due to lack of water and most likely due to the strawberry scale infestation despite after spraying multiple times with neem oil.  Despite its branching and I tried to get rid of the stuff as much as possible, I suspect that the scale was just too tenacious and was able to hide well between the "elbows"/nooks of the branches and survived.  I dug it up and tossed it leaving an unfortunate empty spot in its place.

Later that same year of 2009 I found the same scale on one of the boxwood things, cut it tragically short and attempted to pick out the scale and prune out dead and crowded branches (one of the most annoying and worst tasks ever).  Things looked good, new growth was occurring... and then this year I found it again on the same plant.  And then the next one... and next one... and next one.... until I realized ALL of the boxwood things in the same row against the house were INFESTED.

I pruned them ALL back severely earlier this year and sprayed and then after a while, I thought to myself, "Man, this stuff doesn't go away, and I hate these shrubs anyways.  They do NOTHING for me except act as a strawberry scale hotel."  So I said "screw it" and dug them up:

Oh my was that cathartic and thank you mom and dad-in-law for the tiny me-sized shovel you gave me for Christmas that helped me dig these bloody things up!

Surprisingly they weren't as tough to dig up as I was worried about in the first place.  A little hopping on the shovel a few times were needed to cut roots here and there, but nothing terrible.  Granted doing that for 6 shrubs did give me a little sweat, but I am not complaining if that means no more stupid pink bugs to deal with from hear on out.

In its place I think I'll let the oregano that I've used as ground cover cover up the holes where the shrubs once were.  It's getting a little woody and I don't think I'd mind oregano "bushes"  The root system isn't terrible I find, shallow enough to pull up if need be and I can easily hard trim the stuff back if I want to.  Plus, it just means more oregano available, and how is that a bad thing? (unlike mint....)

Point being in this whole ordeal.  Got a shrub you really hate and gets infested way too often?  Stop fighting it! It's not worth it! Dig it up, let it go and find something that gives you infinitely less grief!  Life's too short to waste on plants that just can't cut it.

Revitalized root pruned citrus and forbidden fruit

So, remember a while back I decided I really needed to prune the roots of one of my potted citrus plants because I knew it was root/pot bound?

Well, I think it seems to be doing a-okay!

In fact, better than just ok it seems.  The pic from above was from 2 weeks back and presently, it's glorious bursting out in its full foliage, fuller than it's been in a long time and maybe even when I first got it!

Talk about revitalization the plant!

It even has some flowers! (not photographed b/c they were getting old and wilty)

Since this grapefruit tree is doing so well, I am tempted to root prune the navel orange tree now, especially as the fruit I was so excited about:

Got either knocked off by the wind, or I suspect birds or squirrels (gah, squirrels, I really hates them). So there's nothing really stopping me from root pruning except some worries about the heat as it's a bit late in the year.

But if I don't do it now, or sooner, rather than later, I'll have to wait until next spring and if it's root/pot bound I'd rather give it the opportunity of all this sun to soak up and strengthen itself for the winter now with the potential to flower away this winter/coming spring.  Past reading seems to indicate that prune then shouldn't be an issue, so I've had good luck with the grapefruit, why not expect the same with the orange?

Randomly, as I have a proclivity for living green mulches (ok, groundcovers...) so I don't have to mulch the wood chips/ pebbles/hay/etc way (though some of those ways are necessary) I decided to add some sedums to the citrus pots in hopes that their covering the surface will keep moisture in relatively well , assuming that they both decide to not compete for water... granted sedum root structure is shallow, I'm relatively unworried.  If anything I think if the sedums do well, they'd look pretty spiffy hanging off the side of the pot and maybe this way too I will be inhibiting the little weeds that keep cropping up in the pots.

After summer's over I'll most likely take the sedums out of the pots and replant them in the sedum pathway where I originally got them from because I've found these sedums get very leggy and scraggly looking inside, rather unattractive when I eventually need to take the citrus in.

Have a safe Memorial Day Weekend folk!

Mini-update to previous ants post

In regards to my latest post on ants that I discovered in my herb bed...

The great Tom Turpin from Purdue University's entomology department emailed me identification on my little guys:

"These are Lasius ants.  Sometimes called piss ants.  They tend aphids (which might be a problem for plants) but cause no direct harm to plants.  So your saffron bulbs are safe but the presence of the ants might mean that there is a healthy population of aphids on some plants in the vicinity. Regards."

(heh, "piss-ants"  Ok, a little puerile, but I'm amused mostly because I'm a fan of entomology as well as etymology I've heard it used a few times, really! It's in Merriam Webster:

Main Entry: piss·ant 

Pronunciation: \ˈpis-ˌant\

Function: noun

Usage: often attributive

Etymology: pissant ant, from ¹piss + ant

Date: 1945

sometimes vulgar : one that is insignificant —used as a generalized term of abuse

and from dictionary.com:

Also, piss-ant.

Origin: 
1655–65, in sense “ant”; piss + ant, prob. orig. on the model of pismire

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
Cite This Source

|

 Link To pissant

Word Origin & History

pissant

1661, "an ant," from first element of pismire (q.v.) + ant. Meaning "contemptible, insignificant person" is from 1903.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source

Anyways, thus far I haven't noticed an ant problem in my herb bed, but thanks for the heads up Tom!  I'll probably inspect it closely tonight and possibly give it a spray-spray of soap or neem or just knock 'em off with water.

Admittedly, it would be kind of cool (and uncool) to see ants milking aphids like farmers.  But I'll just tune into the Discovery Channel (if I had tv...oh, yeah, the internet!) if I really want ant-milking-aphid action. 

Work Hazards: Wasps

Marking my calender today, my first wasp sting ever. Woohoo, I'm alive?

I had seen a wasp hanging around the bird house I just got for a buck at a garage sale  and after I thought I had made sure it went away I went to check on the little drawers  beneath it to make sure nothing was trying to make a home in it other than birds.

I think that's when it and I may have collided because 10 steps later after checking  the birdhouse I felt like what was a thorn stuck in the wrist area of my sleeve.  This  actually didn't disturb me so much as I often get stuck by stuff in the garden  (someone's going to tell me to wear gloves aren't they... though I think the wasp could  have gotten stuck in there too).  I was surprised of course when I tugged at my sleeve  and couldn't get the thorn loose and then exposed the wasp which then flew away.

Mostly I was worried about having a reaction (too many horror stories growing and re- showings of the movie "My Girl" I guess).  The sting itself wasn't so bad, but the  interesting aspect of this experience was that I was able to force myself to stay calm  (very weird for a highstrung person such as myself) and within a minute I called my  neighbor who's a nurse (and interestingly allergic to bees/wasps, making her perfect to  help me in case I went into a anaphylactic shock).  She told me to hold a minute and  she would be right over.

I washed my hands to get all the dirt off and stupidly began putting dishes away and  fretting about the mess of the house all the while feeling a little dizzy.

Usually I try to tough things out and figure out how to handle it on my own, but the  idea of having a reaction and dying was enough to keep me from trying to just "let it  go."  I was also very lucky because my nurse nieghbor ususally works the 3rd shift and  she was off today and awake/alert (I had talked with her earlier that day) so this  helped things immensely.

In my weird calm daze, my nurse friend immediately put meat tenderizer she has on hand  at her house on the sting (which looked like a fairly small red mark on my hand).  As I  was dizzy from either dehydration or anxiety she got me to put my head between my knees  and cold washclothed my neck and then made an ice bath for my hand to place in and  bring down/prevent any swelling.

After I got a little less dizzy, she dried my hand off, put some topical benadryl on  the wound and covered it with a bandage.  I took some aspirin on my own to try to  offset further swelling.  Then I ate some coffee gelatin and chocolate (dark) to make  me feel better.

(that's 'ouchie' not something else my husband thought I wrote)

Other than swelling, little twinges of pain here and there and my wrist oddly popping a  little more than usual, I think I'm taking my first wasp sting pretty well.

From what I remember seeing when I was stung, it looked to be what they call a big red  wasp, which, other than being big, isn't a terrible one is what I've been told.

I also was told by my nurse lady that even if you don't show signs of allergy to a  sting now, you can have a reaction if you get stung again.  I guess the first sting  primes a person's immune system?

I don't blame the wasp, just does what it does.  Reminds me of Aesop's tales, those  wolf or scorpions won't change their nature, you just have to accept them as they are.   I still won't be putting up any wasp traps (they're pollinators!) but perhaps just a  little more vigilance should be necessary on my part when I see a wasp hanging around from now on.

Oddly enough, I've found this sting (of course it was treated very quickly) more tolerable than some of my mosquito bites I've had in the past

For more info on what you should do if you get stung by a wasp or bee and how to avoid getting stung:
http://nasdonline.org/document/962/d000800/first-aid-for-bee-and-insect-stings.html

Game, mâche, set!

So, for the longest time I thought I had heard that mâche, aka corn salad, aka lamb's lettuce aka RAPUNZEL (a new name find for me, and one that I think I'll use for now on as I am a sucker for fairy tales...) was perennial.


No clue how that got stuck in my head that it was perennial, but somehow it did and now I am chastened to say that it's really a bloody ol' annual.  Maybe I was reading up on too many perennial vegetables, and getting it mixed up with something like Good King Henry (because they sound so alike...) but I made a mistake and I apologize for my stupidity if I accidentally mislead anyone there.


Back to mâche/rapunzel though.  


All in all, growing this vegetable was not so successful as I'd like, not in the 'it-didn't-grow-for-me' way but in the 'I-didn't-use-it-much-because-I-didn't-force-myself-to-eat-salads-more' way.  


This is a cool weather green that seemed to grow very very slowly in the winter when it did sprout and then warm weather came upon us so quickly that this thing bolted like the dickens and got yellow-y and un-worthwhile to eat fast.

While there were plentiful little cute leaves to eat, I loathed to eat them because they seemed so tiny and though I had also heard you could eat the heads whole like some smaller lettuce varieties, the idea of extinguishing my plants in 3 bites was not very agreeable to me.


So, instead the leaves went somewhat to waste (which I hate) except for the fact that I guess that energy went into making surprise...

(and this was just from one plant... half of the seeds were still in the bed/between cracks of the bed)


....SEEDS for me!


So, maybe I will grow mâche (rapunzel) again and try to utilize it better now that I can feed a whole herd of goats with the amount of seed I saved.  


I noted too, when brushing up my knowledge, that you can use it in omelettes and OMELETTEs are right up my eatin' alley.


LINKS OF INTEREST:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1370492
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62221/
http://www.floridata.com/ref/v/vale_loc.cfm

Ants in my Plants!

Pittering around the herb garden a couple of days ago, I noticed something odd around an area where I had tossed a light handful of fertilizer some days ago: movement.

Lots and lots of tiny movement.

Closer inspection proved that I had a whole helluva of a lot of ants.  And they were carrying BABIES.  Well, EGGIES... or PUPAE (to be really scientific).

(sorry about the fuzzy pics, as they are tiny and my camera isn't the greatest, this is what I've got)

There was a lot of activity going on, workers swarming back and forth with their little white bundles.  It looked like the main nest or whatevers was based in circle of my borage plants and directly on top of where my saffron bulbs are. It looked like they were ferrying things between that nest and another a couple of feet away from the rue/lemon balm.

My initial reaction:
"Aw crap!  Need to make powdered sugar-borax balls to kill them!"

Mature reaction soon thereafter:
Ok, what a minute. Don't need to kill them, just because they are plentiful and you have no idea if they are beneficial or not and because you get rid of them when they party inside the house.  It's time, for some RESEARCH!

As I'm not one for ant identification, I decided to google and see what might come up while I try my luck again emailing Professor Turpin from Purdue University's illustrious entomology department to see if I might be able to come up with anything.

Of any benefit I could think of that ants might be of use in the garden, the only one was of aeration from their tunnels.  Online searching seemed to indicate this to be true, and also pointed to me that common garden ants are scavengers of old, dead materials, cleaning up after other things or pests. Ants also are pollinators (a plus obviously) and in addition are predatory towards the eggs and larvae of fleas and other pests, news that is GREAT to me.

The negatives now:
If you find ants underneath pavers or stone/foundation things you freqently walk on or need held up, the ants need to go as they can collapse these structures with their tunnels.

You might also be aware that quite a few ants like nectar (just like bees as pollinators!) and they can be a nuisance if you enjoy picking or sniffing flowers when there's an infestation nearby.

Some of you may have also heard that some ants like to "milk" aphids, which is true, and the ants will protect the aphids to retain their food source "milk" of honeydew that the aphids produce.  Though, a good indicator for aphids, it can get bad, and messy if there are aphids and ants together.  As long as you get rid of the aphids, the ants will find other sources of food and will not be an issue.

(more close-up individual ant portraits)

For now, I can conclude that they are not carpenter ants, as they are not large-ish or black and I don't think they are fire ants as they seem non-threatening and didn't swarm a ladybug that I placed amidst them.

So, until I get word from someone of bug identification brilliance, these guys are a-okay where they're at.

Dancing queen: Dark Dancer Clover

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for clover.  The poofy flowers, the soft  structure of the leaves... knowing the difference between it and medic and oxalis :P

When I was a kid, I was the one on the softball team in far left field, dawdling,  throwing my glove in the air or on the ground looking for 4 leaf clovers.  I mean, what  8 year old is going to throw a homer my way? (It did happen; twice, I recall, and my  team was not happy with me.)

I think I've found 4, maybe 5, four-leaf clovers in my lifetime that I'm sure I pressed  between pages of books for safekeeping, only to lose track of which books they were in  over the years.

It's not as though I really believed in the nature of luck to be gained by 4 leaf  clovers, just the simple rarity of them was enough to sustain my interest and I suppose  the pleasure of whiling away the time enjoying the simplicity of such small treasures.

Even as an adult, I can't go past a patch of clover without giving it a cursory glance  for 4 leafed stalks.

Well, right now I've got Mother Nature beat.  Or you might say, scientists have made  the magic a little less special because I purchased some time ago Pre-P.M. (Pre-Plant  Moratorium) this little lovely:

All Hail to Dark Dancer Clover!

As you might expect, the burgandy on green hue is what first caught my eye, but upon  closer inspection, I noticed a four leaf clover, then another, and another, and more!

Dark Dancer is gifted with not only beauty, but luck too! (Sounds like the fairies  gifting Sleeping Beauty doesn't it? Well, except for that one stupid bit of bad  luck...)

I'm in love with Dark Dancer, and though she's blessed with all her gifts, I've seeded  in my front and back lawn some basic red and white clover so I can have patches of the plain ol' stuff to lie on my belly in and while away the time look for 4 leafed treasure.

ADDENDUM:  The OTHER reason I've seeded my front and back lawn with clovers is because  we don't really fertilize our lawn, and as clovers are nitrogen fixers thus fertilizers, which I hope it will do our lawn good.

Red clover has the interesting property too of a being a favorite food of slugs I've  read and research seems to indicate it as being an excellent diversion crop for crops  such as strawberries.  Granted, as my husband scoffs, 'why are we feeding pests?' it's  a little counterintuitive to be letting pests you hate get a free dinner, but we can  just hope too, that with a little Slugg-o in the clover patch, maybe those slugs won't  be coming back...

I've also heard that planting clover in a lawn can encourage moles because many bugs seem to  like clover and when you bring bugs, their predators (the moles) will not be far  behind.  So far my clover patches aren't too large yet, but this was just a warning for  those who might be interested in clovering up their lawn too.  If I get any extra  moles, I'll mention it.

ALSO, more info on Dark Dancer:

Dark Dancer, like all clovers, is perennial here and is known to spread relatively well  to vigorously.  While I really wanted to plant it in my lawn, the husband thinks that  would be 'weird' and so I've taken his opinion into consideration and planted a small  patch at the edge of a flower bed...near the lawn, in hopes that it might make it's  escape and spread, spread my pretties!

Another point of interest is that, despite its appearance, Dark Dancer is actually a  white clover.  I know that it's the flowers that determine the white/red variety of  clover, but a person could easily assume that the red leaves would mean red flowers or  just red clover-ness.  Hmm, now I sort of wish the flower did come in red because  that'd be rather pretty and I just like red.

FINALLY, just a crazy thought because I'm weird:

Speaking of nitrogen fixers, did you know that when there's a thunder storm, with lots of lightning, it makes the ground more fertile?  When lightning strikes, the energy breaks nitrogen molecules in the air enabling it to bond with oxygen and this forms nitrogen oxides which then dissolve in rain and gets carried down to the earth.  SO, other than the amount of energy to create this, wouldn't it be awesome to create some sort of 'lightning sprinkling water wand' that we could go around using in our gardens (or that we could rent?) and zap our gardens into fertility? Spiffy and Thor-tastic!

LINKS OF INTEREST:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/101691/

http://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/2821/dark-dancer-white-clover.php

http://provenwinners.com/plants/detail.cfm?photoID=6228

http://www.paghat.com/cloverdarkdancer.html

http://gardening.about.com/od/gardendesign/ig/Plants-to-Walk-On/Trifolium-repens-Atropurpureum.htm

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/N/NitrogenCycle.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n1_v133/ai_6284571/

Monday morning, is for kimchi making! (and Tuesday posts are for those who post late about Monday...)

(Yesterday I didn't get to update as promised because I have been busy busy with guests, so please forgive me for this late post.)

As many of you are experiencing, at least down in the South here, it's warmin' up and many of the cold weather plants are BOLTING.

The cilantro's gone to flower (off to become coriander if you so wish), the mustards are sending up stalks too and the corn salad (aka mache) has long gone by the wayside of anything near delicious.

My turnips and radishes have also begun to send up flower stalks and show off a few pretty purple flowers.

A few of those useful for next season's cold planting, but to salvage some for food use, I needed to think quickly about how best to use them.  Unfortunately the husband is not a fan of either of those vegetables and I can't eat them all on my own in enough time especially before it all becomes unpalatable.  So after thinking, thinking and thinking I realized: KIMCHEE!

I can't get the husband to want to eat kimchee either, but at least this will allow me to preserve the vegetables that I can eat it slowly on my own over time.  I thought about searching for some recipes online, but what wouldjaknow, reliable Mother Earth News read my mind in their most recent issue (got a subscription from the in-laws for Christmas).

Spiffy, so now I just needed the veggies...  M.E.N. lists using turnips, radishes (tops if wished), horseradish, garlic, ginger, carrots and scallions in their recipe.  I didn't have too many red radishes, and so I used what I could, the turnips were white Asian ones:

...ones that I had forgotten to thin out and grew a little weird and... obscene:

(sorry about the knife and "surgery" that happened to the turnip guys, don't mean to make you uncomfortable...) 

To make up for the lack of radishes and relatively small amount of turnip-y-ness I used some small Chinese cabbage.  I didn't have 'official' scallions and so I raided some stalks from the Egyptian Walking onion.

My carrots were 2 years in the ground and flowering (and too woody obviously for use).  I've decided to use carrots in the garden now for loosening the soil and when they flower, the umbels of carrots have such tiny flowers that they are good for attracting especially nice pollinators.  It's so cheap to purchase a bag of carrots it's hard for me to justify growing them when I could use the room for other things.

Perhaps I will grow some of those awesome purple or red carrots that I can't find in the stores usually that would make it worthwhile.

After a lot of chopping I finally was ready to brine the veggies in a jar!  As it turned out, the cabbage gave the recipe more heft and caused the recipe to double and I needed to add more brine than it called for.  To make sure that the vegetables become fully preserved, it's suggested to immerse cover (use a plate)or use a plastic water weight (plastic bag full of water here) over the jar of vegetables and brine so that there's no spoilage and contact with air.

After the veggies sit in brine overnight you taste for saltiness level in the morning (which is what I did today, Tuesday morning) and then you add the seasonings.  I would have used horseradish, ginger, garlic and fresh chili peppers grown here, but they were not ready/ in season and I had used all of mine already from last season anyways.

So, alas... note to self to make this recipe again in the winter when all those things are in season in the garden (duh).  (Ooh, then I can have jars and jars and JARS of kimchee!  I wonder if I can, can it so that it doesn't take up room in the fridge... mmm)

We had all these seasonings in the fridge/pantry on hand as we cook Asian-y food often enough, so that was helpful.  I used whole red chilis (though the recipes states powdered Korean chili is fine) and had a mini workout by grating ginger (gotta stay buff somehow!)  Technically you're supposed to make a paste of the rest of the spices/seasonings which I proceeded to do for 2 minutes with a small mortar and pestle of mine, but then gave up and just dumped my relatively finely minced/shredded seasonings in the vegetable and brine mix and decided it would probably be fine.  After stirring everything around well, you cover with a dish or water weight again to begin, FERMENTATION! (a beautiful process that all delicious things in life use: wine, beer, pickles, etc.)

(ta da!  Seasoned kimchee, ready to bum around for a week and get sour!  please note: the stove was just a convenient place to put the jar for the pic.  I found that it leaked some brine after a while when the plastic water bag weight settles a bit.  No actual cooking over a hot stove was done during this mini-project)

The recipe tells me to let the jar go for a week like this and to check on it every day for sourness level and make sure that it's still covered.  Hopefully I don't die of botulism or something... My understanding, like my past failed experience with pickles, is that if the stuff doesn't taste good, you did something wrong, and you need to toss whatever you tried pickling (because why would you want to keep it anyways?)

So, if you don't hear from me after I try this stuff in a week... you'll know the reason.  

Spiderworts are this girl's best friend (somewhat lame post for the weekend)

More substantial posting Monday (cross fingers) but spiderworts,  are the best. If you want a fun perennial that is easy and self seeds like mad... but we enjoy invasions around here.

Their flowers are substantial but close up when it gets too hot by the afternoon. 

As they self seed, I have a million little seedlings which I give away and ones of various ages so that I have a varying amount of heights for my spiderworts.

The oldest ones are ginormous!  About 4 feet tall, I swear.  They are in my front yard bed though that gets a good amount of fertilizer for the irises and bulbs, so that might be a factor in their height.

I still have to give them a taste, as I learned some time ago that they are edible, and okra-like in taste as well as excellent indicators for a nuclear apocalypse.  This plant is also a common find at master gardener trades/flings, due to that easy self seeding thing.  Like all my lemon balm and feverfew and lambs ears, this self sows into my lawn too. 

I promise to give an update when I give this stuff, also known as "cow slobber" a taste (next month, I swear!)

Just wanted to bring up reliable plant-i-tude for those who care!