March 2010
32 posts
goodbye "cool season"
in southern california, we’re lucky to have excellent weather that lets people garden year-round. where i live, in west hollywood, it’s almost a 365-day growing season. it’s rare that we have a killing frost, so cool-season vegetables like peas, lettuce, radishes, and the like can be grown from basically october to march/april. in all that time, what do i have to show for...
THERE'S NO REASON TO LIVE →
recent harvests - march 2010
i’m going into my first spring/summer as a gardener! what do i have to show for it?
(carrot sprouts, beets, mature “purple haze” carrots - march 19, 2010)
once the dirt was washed off, you could really see how purple some of these carrots were! (the smaller ones are a different variety - “mignon” nantes (cylindrical, rather than “imperator” conical)
...
1 tag
manticore eggs
liezl: did you figure out your insect?
me: oh no i'm sorry i got distracted by your foods
and began hunting this world fare bus down
www.flickr.com/photos/heather-m/4440771303/sizes/l/in/set-72157622705902422/
that's the egg case
it was on the back of a lettuce leaf but i flicked it off pretty easily
it didn't damage the leaf at all
and none of my lettuce has been eaten at all
i think it might be ladybugs but i'm not positive
liezl: wait what am i looking at
oh fuck w hat the fuck is that
the honeycomb thing?
me: yeah
its tiny
it was like the size of my thumbnail
but i never saw anything like it before
www.flickr.com/photos/joeysplanting/2473583047/
they look kinda similar
liezl: that would be cool if it as ladybugs
me: knowing my luck it's probably like, the manticore
liezl: but the egg casing looks like pin heads on this picture
me: yeah
liezl: hahaha
me: i put them in a puddle anyway just to be sure
like if it was moths or something
but all the bugs i've seen lately have been good ones, lots of butterflies and ladybugs and earthworms
nothing's been chewed on
liezl: ewww
bertha armyworm?
me: wow i have no idea what that is
time for google
liezl: ipmworld.umn.edu/chapters/Weiss_et_al_canola_files/image012.jpg
except those eggs aren't honeycomb patterned
me: this says it's a big problem in alberta
but i think we're too far south for it
ew thing looks nasty though
liezl: stink bug eggs? www.utextension.utk.edu/fieldCrops/cotton/cotton_insects/images/SG-Stink-Eggs.jpg
me: maybe
and i know we have those here
liezl: or they're mini bees
me: dang, maybe i should have like, put them in a jar
like tiny tiny bees?
liezl: yeah
a new breed of bees
more potent
powerful
faster
me: cuter!
THE MOST ADORABLE BEES
liezl: with stingers like swordfish
me: the biggest parts of their bodies are their heads and the biggest part of their heads are their soulful puppy-dog eyes
and stingers
also, somehow instead of venom they sting you with guilt
liezl: manufactured to deceive you in their cuteness
me: hahahaha
liezl: www.johnnyjet.com/image/PictureForNewsletterMalaysiaCameronHighlandsButterflyLeafMantis.JPG
fuck
me: wow
that'd be a sick pet
liezl: why does that exist
why
me: put it on a little leash of dental floss
tie to a tree in the backyard
invite the squeamish over and wait
HILARITY ENSUES
i think because nature loves a good prank
mother nature, the original ashton kutcher
liezl: FUCK YOU NATURE
me: hahaha
"people are gonna pollute? ok, i'll make giant bugs that look just like leaves"
i think humans brought that on ourselves
liezl: nature's transformers
a wild garden
i’ve never seen the person who gardens next to me. i’ve met most of my other neighbors, but not this lady (apparently, it’s a lady).
this is the best picture i have of her garden at the beginning. it’s next to mine, which is just bare dirt. it doesn’t look so bad, right? but 4 months later, and it’s almost like there was never anyone there to begin with.
i...
the end of the roof/pool garden
after spending all that time last night moving everything that wasn’t stepped on off the roof, i woke up this morning to see that there were workmen stripping paint off our apartment building. old housepaint, right over where i had just moved every single one of my surviving plants. basically this is the end of my apartment gardening attempt for right now. i still have the community garden...
* is the universal symbol for BING IT
ameen: ugh, [comedian] is gonna be at the [local comedy club]
i wonder if he's funny at all
me: hm
ameen: i bet he's nice
me: i think it'll be interesting
even if he's not funny
i wonder what his crowds are like
ameen: my guess, asiany
me: hahahaha
asiany
like they're wapanese* or otakus* or something
THEY ARENT EVEN ACTUAL ASIANS
ameen: haha
me: THEY LIKE HIM BECAUSE THEY THINK REAL ASIANS ARE SUPPOSED TO LIKE HIM
ameen: hahahhahahahha
natural predators of the rooftop garden, episode 2...
ugh now i’m super pissed. i called the landlady to bitch about the cables and she turned it around on me saying i shouldn’t have been up there in the first place because the roof has, and i swear to god she said this, “structural integrity issues”. i guess that’s alright except she hasn’t told ANYONE HERE ABOUT THIS. one of my neighbors goes up there every...
natural predators of the rooftop garden, episode 1...
i’m so glad it was dark out tonight when i went up to the roof to water my plants because i think i might have puked if i could see everything that happened up there. i guess the new neighbors are getting satellite tv put in, because there’s about 10 giant extension cables running off the roof that are plugged into the wall outside our door. i went upstairs to see what they were...
how to bore someone to death: a rebuttal
me: HEY
me: YOU'RE POSTING TUMBLERS ABOUT ME BECAUSE I'M NOT WRITING BACK FAST ENOUGH
me: HOW DARE YOU
(no time passes)
me: that's a pretty funny thing actually
folia - like myspace for friendsters →
there’s a new social networking site just for gardeners. it also looks like everyone within 50 miles of me logged into this site once and never used it again, but hopefully i can use this to keep track of what i’m planting. the excel spreadsheets were abandoned months ago.
1 tag
2 tags
how to pick peas (a long article written solely to...
first, grow some peas. they’ll be flowers before they’ll be pea pods, but they’ll still taste like peas. (they do! try them on salad! don’t eat sweet pea flowers or peas though. those look like peas but are actually poisonous.)
when your peas are ready, use scissors to cut them off the plant. (don’t pull them off the stem, the plants are too delicate.) shell them,...
recent harvests
here’s some stuff i grew!
a baby watermelon radish and mignon/purple haze baby carrots. the purple haze ones have an orange core but the outsides turn purple as they get bigger. did you know wild carrots were purple? the dutch domesticated them and turned them orange in the 15th century as a tribute to the king, because orange is their national color. i told my boyfriend this when i...
back to business: The Best Ghostbuster
Me: QUICK WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE GHOSTBUSTERS
Me: DON'T THINK, JUST SAY IT
Heather: WHAT DO YOU MEAN MEMBER OR WHICH CARTOON I LIKE BETTER
Heather: I LIKE THE ONE WITH THE MONKEY
Me: NO
Heather: FAILING THAT I LIKE THE ONE THAT IS BILL MURRAY
Me: REAL DUDES
Heather: IS THAT RAY
Me: THE REAL REAL GHOSTBUSTERS
Heather: i cant remember his name
Heather: its bill murray
Me: ah, Howard Zeddemore
Heather: howard!
Heather: crap
(Time Passes)
Me: heather, I have a confession