Green Man

I was doing a Google image search for an art project and I needed some pictures of the Green Man to tap my creative juices.

I found some great images. According to Wikipedia: "the Green Man is often related to natural vegetative deities springing up in different cultures throughout the ages."

It's a pre-Christian symbol that is used in many ancient cathedrals and churches in Europe. In Britain many pubs are called "The Green Man" or some variation. Way to hang in there pagan culture! If you do a Google image search of "Carved Green Man" you'll get some pictures of some beautiful carvings in stone and all kinds of cool materials.

Just some neato cultural inspiration for those interested in green and growing things.

Feed me, garden!

Since I've gotten my fingers back in the dirt it amazes me how many plants weathered my neglect just fine! That's no excuse to neglect them more but it does prove the incredible resilience of plant life, I wish I could say the same about my house plants. The other day I was poking around in the garden and brought home quite a haul!

From right to left Broccoli Raab or Rapini or whatever you want to call it. Radishes (Daikon and French breakfast) Radichio on the right and out in front are peas which love this cool weather. I need to plant more.


Here are the salads I made. The red pepper and spinach wasn't grown in my garden but everything else was. Yum.I used the Rapini in a Broccoli and Rice casserole (I love this dish!) It wasn't bad and the leftovers are pretty good cold. The cheeses I used were Parmesan, Monterey jack and cheddar. Next time, I'll skip the jack and just go all cheddar with a little parm. The rappini is more bitter than broccoli and could use more of the savory sharp cheddar accompaniment.I made bread sticks, oooh la la.

And the piece de resistance! Black cherry jello served in wine glasses. Keepin' it classy.

Howdy

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I posted. Hey, it's not like anything's been going on, there was that election thing and some economy stuff, but everyone knows the holidays are a breeze. Ha! Anyways, I've been neglecting my garden too. I've gotten out to throw some water at it now and again and of course to drop off compost but I haven't spent much quality time in it since October.

That was until yesterday when I went to take a good look at what is going on in my garden.
I got some peas, the last jalapeno of the season, a bell pepper and miraculously some green tomatoes! It's been hot and cold for weeks, one day 80 degrees the next night near freezing. Somehow my tomato plants which got big but didn't set much fruit to speak of have been pretty tough. I planted Celebrity, which is a hybrid and beefsteak (I think) and I usually don't have much to do with either of those but I have a bunch of green tomatoes (in December!) I learned a lot of lessons such as "thin your carrots, damn it, or you end up with carrot threads!" And "some plants are more drought resistant than others." "Mulch is king in the land of never ending droughts" and "weeds are just flags for opportunities." Sound like sassy cross stitch plaques, eh?



Last night was the first really hard frost of the season and it's pretty cold outside so I am content to dream up my winter and spring game plan with a cup of hot tea and a pile of garden books. I have some cool pics to post from the little gardening I have done in the last few months and I promise not to be a stranger any more.

Terrarium fever and yarn

I love terrariums but this is silly. The world of knitting and crochet is a bizarre one. Just having lots of yarn and lots of time isn't a justification for making some of the stuff they have patterns for. Pick up any knitting magazine and you see at least 5 car wrecks of yarn-tastic horror. There are more pictures on Why Would You Knit That? a super cool site that lives up to its name.

First kill

Here's a really awesome video of a Venus fly trap growing. It's facinating!

My terrarium is doing really well. I was nervous about transplanting it into a new environment but it never even drooped. I've kept it nice and moist and had it sealed most of the time to keep out gnats. We have a fungus gnat problem in the apartment right now. It sound's gross but it's no worse than fruit flies, though they're a lot smaller and slower. I guess one of them got into the snifter (there's that word again) and now one of the traps closed and there's a tiny gnat shaped shadow in there. Ha ha! If you enlarge the first picture you can see the shadow. I wasn't going to feed it for a week but it took the initiative which makes sense with the new growth I spotted. It's growing, that means it's happy and that makes me happy.

I don't like Ike

Ike is an asshole. We knew he would be difficult, and we were prepared. We knew when he was due to arrive and so we got ready for it. He was predicted to be terrible, but every cloud had a silver lining right? No matter how much of a bully he is there has to be a flip side to him. I stayed up into the wee hours watching the red and yellow swirl (big as Missouri) pummel our gentle coast on TV. I watched the skies in Austin turn gray and the trees whip around. I checked the weather, no I LIVED the weather hoping for that silver lining. Hoping for rain. Watching the color coded storm levels in great stripes across the patchwork of Texas counties. Calculating when to bunker down and how bad it could be? It was bad.

Ike smashed up Galveston, Houston and Beaumont and screwed with our already delicate beaches to the tune of 8 billion smackeroos. Not a drop of rain here in Austin. Millions displaced and it could be weeks before their electricity is back on. Yet all I can think of is I have seedlings to care for. Thirsty little seedlings that reach up to the sky begging for a drink. Now I have to placate them with the hose; let's face it, it's not the same. Sigh. Now I can't tell if Ike is the jerk or if I am. Well, I'm going to say Ike is. I didn't do $8 billion in damage, I just want to see silver linings in storm clouds as big as Missouri.

Terrarium

I’ve got terrarium fever! I found a flickr group a while back that made me really excited, then I found the perfect glass brandy snifter when thrifting, finally when I was at the store last week I saw some awesome carnivorous plants. I recalled seeing some in terrariums somewhere with carnivores but I wanted to make sure they weren’t fast growing or needed anything weird I already bought one plant that wasn’t suitable for the miniature snifter wonderland. I had all the ingredients except plants so I went back and $5 later the wheels of this project were set in motion.

Take one jumbo snifter*

Add a layer of pea gravel

Add some soil mixed with sand.

Plant the new plant and add some more pea gravel and a few decorative stones

Now just add water! Distilled water that is. I’ll give my new friend a week or two to get her bearings and then I’ll feed my precious pet.

S suggested I make some small skulls and bones to go around it. I love this idea, after all venus fly traps seem to have a significant role in pop culture. Cleopatra was the name of the Addams family’s carnivorous plant.

I do want some more moss in the terrarium. The sphagnum moss that came around my plant had a few green spots. Maybe it’ll grow and form a soft carpet around my little friend. Maybe I’ll add some. One terrarium site recommended if I take moss from the wild I should keep it in isolation for a while in case it has any thing that could infect/infest or contaminate my other planty friends.

* I know I keep saying snifter and there’s a reason for that. It’s an awesome word, just say it out loud: snifter, snifter, snifter, snifter. See what I mean?