Friday, April 13, 2012

slouching towards spinsterhood: garden edition

The great seed-starting experiment has had mixed results. It seems that plastic works better than peat pots (some have rings of mold where the water soaked into the sides rather into the starter), and I should have marked what they were with sharpie rather than crayola, and I wish I had an acre for the five kinds of squash that I want to cook with this summer.

This year I'm also hoping to get super geeky and attempt my own blends of herbal tea, though this probably won't happen. I love the smell of rosemary and lavender though.

Here's some of what I'm hoping works out.

Scarlet runner beans for the porch. I don't wear them often, but I love bright colors in nature like no other, in part because it breaks through the grey and sepia of Clevelandia's urban landscape.

I don't know where I'll put these blue pumpkins that I'm seed-starting because they take up space like no other. But the color is so cool and they'd make amazing jackolanterns.

Nasturtiums were the first flowers I tried to grow as a kid and actually succeeded. Phyte Club pointed me towards nasturtium pesto, which sounds delicious.

A lot of people don't like okra which is how I ended up with these seeds, but I like it in Indian food and the flowers have that whole hibiscus look that I like.

Japanese eggplants are long and skinny and way less seedy.

Sweet peppers are crazy expensive at the store and the hot ones are good for everything.

assorted sunflowers for the front yard...
California poppies are lovely. Notice, Randal, I didn't say "cute" this time.

6 comments:

  1. Of course you don't wear bright colors YOU'RE SO NEGATIVE. Those blue pumpkins are going to make the cutest jack o' lanterns.

    Holy crap, those peppers look delicious. I hope the okra turns out good 'cause I don't think I've ever tried it, which means I should have planted turnips.

    Ah, sunflower.

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  2. great colors seem to call out for painting still lives
    http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2012/remembering-god/

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  3. Lovely. Strawberry leaves and caps make for a lovely tea or tea flavor.

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  4. Happy gardening, and watch out for the bugs...
    ~

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  5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bqpRoVxH2jc#!

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  6. Randal,
    If I got red pumpkins and white pumpkins I could be way patriotic or something.

    Okra's got a bad rep for being slimy but it's swanky in Indian food and anything covered in breading and fried is guaranteed to be good in a bad way.

    dmf,
    Indeed!

    Jim,
    Here's hoping. I should definitely get some strawberry plants too come to think of it.

    If,
    I'm the queen of squelching vermin, hopefully I'll be able to hang onto that title.

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