Still alive!

The third flesh-eating alien hatched about two days ago. The first one is now at least three inches tall. I don't want to provoke it by approaching it with a measuring tape, but it's clearly growing very fast. Nonetheless, so far none of the aliens have tried to attach themselves to myself or the dog. Phew!

Now I'm angry

I have two bowls for the ravens, a red one and a yellow one. They know what they're looking for, and they can see whether there is food in the dish as they fly by. It's a bit of a code between us.

Today, the weather was really nasty, so I put food out early instead of waiting for Chicken to come by. Several ravens came. Given the blowing snow, there wasn't much else they could do if they wanted to eat today.

Each raven started picking up food and taking it away to a cache... until one smartass decided that the bowl itself is the source of food and it would be easier simply to take the bowl home.

You stupid bird!!!!!!

I thought ravens were supposed to be smart. Chicken knows that I fill the bowl, the bowl doesn't fill itself. This other idiot bird just totally took me for granted and stole my red bowl. I bet you anything it was a male raven. Men totally do this sort of thing.

Now I'm mad.

More bait of Satan!

I got a new seed catalog in the mail. This one is from Stokes. I haven't shopped from them before, but I'm about to.

As far as seeds, Stokes isn't exactly up my alley. They supply not only gardeners but commercial growers, so they have a very large selection of vegetable seeds, which they can ship in staggering quantities. But since I'm not into growing food and there is only one of me anyway, that's rather beside the point. Their flower seed selection is, predictably, more "commercial" than what I'm after. They sell the stuff people buy; I'm more into the stuff people have never heard of.

There are, however, two very attractive features in the Stokes catalog. One is their selection of pansies. I'm in love with pansies since my Matrix experience this summer, but unlike Ipomoea, I have no desire to collect every pansy cultivar ever created. Moreover, there are many pansies I totally don't like. So far I had only found a few choices, mostly as mixes, and although I love the Matrix mixes at Veseys, I was displeased with the overall selection from my suppliers. Stokes, on the other hand, offers over 100 varieties of pansies. I kid you not. And they're packed by variety, not just as mixes. I've picked out about 14 so far that I want. The only downside is that some of them are not available in less than 250 seeds. Oh well... Seeds keep.

And point 1b, they also have twice as many varieties of pumpkins as Veseys. Mmmmm... Pumpkins...

The other thing about Stokes is, clearly they must be getting volume discounts along the way, because a lot of their gardening tools and supplies are much cheaper than at Veseys. For example, the same heat mat that Veseys sells for 39.95 is 28.99 at Stokes. That timelapse plant camera I want is 119.95 at Veseys, but only 86.99 at Stokes. And, most importantly, they have a grow light for only $71.99. That's considerable cheaper than anything at Veseys. Still not within my current budget of $0, but once the budget increases to above zero, I can definitely afford a $72 grow light. That will make a world of difference, I think.

211 days until last frost...

The Great Pumpkin Problem

I may have mentioned, repeatedly, that I have a problem with pumpkins. Namely, they don't grow fast enough. But the cool thing is, so does everybody else here. So it's not me being inept at pumpkins; there really is a pumpkin problem here.

While looking at the times-to-maturity of different varieties, to see when I should start them for a mid-August maturity, I quickly realized where the problem is. The average time from transplant to maturity, between all the varities offered by my supplier, is 96 days. That means having to transplant out on May 11.

Haha, very funny. There is still snow on the ground on May 11. Nothing can get planted out until the end of June, and keeping a pumpkin indoors for two months is a nuisance, as they spread over the floor like... fleash-eating aliens, or something.

I must think of a solution.

Another one!!!!!

The third flesh-eating alien hasn't emerged yet, but while tidying up in Planter #9, where the herbaceous perennials from the 2011 garden are wintering, I discovered something else. Presumably it's the oriental lily coming up again, which is annoying because it bloomed too soon "last" year, which was really this year but last gardening season, and now it's going to bloom even sooner and I'll have no lilies at all for Yards in Bloom.

On a positive note, the fact that this is almost certainly a lily suggests that the ones in Planter #21 might also be lilies, and not, as I thought, flesh-eating aliens.

They're coming outta the walls!

See this?

I shot it on Tuesday, when I went to check the moisture in my incubators. The thing on the right, obviously, is a zombie morning glory that's starving for light. The thing on the left is one of those flesh-eating aliens that I received from Veseys on October 27 and had to plant indoors because it was too late to put them outside.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

The aliens are coming. This one was actually probably two days old already when I spotted it. As of this morning, there is a second one. Unless the third one rotted to death, which doesn't seem plausible given the success of the first two, it won't be far behind.

Sigh... Now we're all gonna die.

And another thing that's been going on for at least two weeks is this:


This is a crappy photo because the light was miserable, but you can see it's Deng Xiaoping. And it's leafing out. What the Ford? What kind of tree leafs out in early November????


This is bad. Either the flesh-eating aliens are going to kill everybody, or they're actually lily bulbs, then they'll flower in December and be unavailable when Yards in Bloom judging rolls around. And Deng Xiaoping is going to have to keep those leaves for 10 months, which isn't necessarily the end of the world, but not what a mayday tree needs, either. This is absolutely the worst time of year for plants to be growing.

See, if you ever look at a map, you'll notice that Hay River is on the south shore of Great Slave Lake, one of the largest lakes in North America. This time of year, when it's well below freezing but the lake is still open, steam rises off the lake, thusly:


That big cloud isn't a storm, it's steam off the lake. When the wind is from the south, as it was that day, we get bright clear skies with a menacing cloud to the north. When the wind is from the north, the cloud blows over us, and it gets overcast, and it snows. And if it's a strong wind, it breaks up the thin ice on the lake, thus retarding freeze-up. Once the lake is completely frozen over, it stops snowing and we get mostly clear weather until break-up. And this is why, if you're obsessively tracking my photography, you might notice that I have almost no photos shot in November. Of any year. Because there just isn't any light here in November.

Back to my garden, therefore, plants shouldn't try to grow in November, because there just isn't any light. No one has seen "direct sunlight" in weeks. And even if the weather cleared up, the hours of daylight are still decreasing for another month. If my house plants want to go nuts in January, that's fine by me; by then we get actual "sunlight" and it's increasing. Plants that grow in November are either going to be spindly and pale, or they're gonna need a grow light. And as I've already mentioned, I can't afford a grow light. Plus there's nowhere in my apartment to set up a light garden, really. Though I suppose I could find a way. I always find a way.


Well, I suppose all this is irrelevant now that we're about to be picked off one at a time by flesh-eating aliens, right?

Waaaaaaaaiiiit a minute...

Ravens can't read, but then again neither can most construction workers. (Technically, most people are functionally illiterate, but that's beside the point of this blog.) However, construction workers can read pictograms, and I'm pretty sure ravens are smarter than construction workers.

In conclusion, I need to make a pictogram that a raven can interpret as "don't crap in food dish."

Even more reasons I'm single

Ok, this has nothing to do with gardening, but since I started writing reasons on this blog, you're stuck with it.

On Sunday, my car didn't start. So I went and got my work vehicle and my cables, boosted my car, and went about my day.

Gasp!

You'd think that knowing how to boost a car wouldn't be the end of the world. I mean, considering that the guy I like to look at has been with a woman who beats him for a few years (off and on, after his off-and-on relationship of many years with his abusive ex-wife ended), you'd think that knowing how to boost a car would be somewhat forgivable.

The only thing is, a more likely to get laid woman would have gone looking for a big burly dude with a big burly truck and let him do the boosting. And refrained from pointing out that almost every big burly dude in the world will inevitably connect the cables wrong.


Ok, here is another reason that actually has to do with the garden. Now that it's cold and snowy, I've started feeding my raven again. Wait... That's one reason right there. But actually, there seem to be currently as many as three ravens: Chicken, his girlfriend Squeaky, and another guy named Hoggle whom Chicken beats up whenever he sees him. (Naming ravens: two reasons.) But most importantly, ravens don't care where they crap, and in particular, one crapped in the food dish this morning. And I don't like to have to wash bird crap off my dishes. Who knows but they might carry psittacosis, or something. (I can spell "psittacosis" and I know what it is: three, four reasons.) So I was thinking how to prevent that, and being also an Occupational Health & Safety leader (four reasons), the first idea that came to me is to write them a sign. "Ravens: please refrain from crapping in food dish."

Yes. I'm sure there is hope for spinsters who write OH&S signs for ravens.

And you know what's really sad? Even though I obviously know that ravens can't read, the OH&S leader in me refuses to let go of the notion that this is obviously an occupational hygiene problem and occupational hygiene problems can be solved by signs.


And another reason I'm single is, I actually wrote all these thoughts.

Er... not so much

I googled "solar-powered grow lights" and as I predicted, lots of hits came up. And as I should have predicted if I had bothered to think about it, most were targeted to the grow-op demographic. As it turns out though, you'd pretty much have to have a grow-op to make it worth the money, because solar-powered grow lights are incredibly expensive. I mean six, seven hundred dollars.

Yeah: I don't think so.

Mind you, the grow light itself is quite expensive, but even accounting for that, the cost of the whole thing is prohibitive. It would take years to save enough on power bills to recovered the initial outlay. Same with hybrid cars, by the way. I wanted to buy a hybrid, but then I discovered it would take twenty years to save enough on gas to make up for the higher sticker price.

In management (yes, management is one of my many unused skills) we learn that training employees is pointless; instead you just have to "make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard." Sadly for the environment, the right thing is almost always considerably harder than the wrong thing.

You know what I'm gonna do instead? I'm gonna buy a solar meter. It's a little device that you stick in the ground, and after 24 hours, it tells you whether that spot is full sun, part sun, or full shade. Then I'll do the math, and if I find it's really worth it, I'll just buy a regular grow light and run an extension cord to the wall. I've been meaning to do that (the extension cord, that is) in any case to plug in other environmentally-wrong devices such as heat pads (if my hotbox proves insufficient to winter the plants), Xmas lights, and a heat lamp for my raven.

Speaking of which, another thing I need is a dog house for my raven. As I keep telling you, gardening is so wild, it makes psychedelic drugs redundant.

Pray for my baobabs!

Currently I have six baobab seeds on the go, but I'm pretty sure one is dead and a second is not moving. Of the other four, two have been in the dirt for a long time, and two were just planted two days ago in pasteurized soil. I'm refraining from checking on them on the grounds that if they're alive, they don't need me bothering them, and if dead, there's nothing I can do about it.

In addition, there is still a lychee, which I think is dead; two kwyjibo seeds; three Robusta coffee seeds; 27 freshly destratified cherry pits; and the holly seeds that still have one month to go in the CryoVat. And then of course the dogwood and cotoneaster seeds in the outdoor CryoVat.

That's not all! There is also the peony root, the three alien spores, 12 tulip bulbs sleeping in the fridge, and 18 bulbs of various species spending the winter outside in the Jungle.

Why am I on about this? Because some weeks ago I read an article about the efficacy of prayer. You see, I'm a Lutheran, and I would say a fairly devout one. Though of course since Lutherans are fairly rare (about 0.26% of Canadians, if I'm not mistaken), I only meet them at church, and ipso facto every Lutheran I know is "fairly devout."

Be that as it may, I don't believe in prayer.

GASP!

How can you be a devout Christian and not believe in prayer? Because we Lutherans believe in thinking about what we believe, whereas most people consider that faith and reason are intrinsically incompatible. But if you look at prayer logically in the context of what we believe we know about God, it should be self-evident that prayer, as most people do it, is useless. There are three things you can do with prayer: give glory, give thanks, or admit you're powerless and affirm your trust in God. Most people, however, use prayer to make long to-do lists for God, and therefore expect that God will manifest his approval by getting some of the to-do list done. And then they'll tell you "prayer works."

All right then. I set out to find out what evidence there is of the efficacy of prayer. Because one thing I can tell you for sure, I've read the entire New Testament, and nothing in it supports the idea that you can tell God what you want and he'll get 'er done for you. So if there is evidence for the efficacy of prayer, given that it isn't supported by the Bible, it better be supported by something very, very convincing.

Promptly I found an article titled Scientific Research of Prayer: Can the Power of Prayer Be Proven? by Debra Williams, D.D. (1999 PLIM Retreat, (c) 1999 PLIM REPORT, Vol. 8 #4).

Ok, first of all, "D.D." means "Doctor of Divinity". I have a B.Sc., "Bachelor of Science." That means I have scientific training and she doesn't. So I feel competent to question her findings. Or lack of findings, insofar that the article isn't original research, but a survey of some of the existing research. In particular, I find the following statement: "In a study on germinating seeds done by Dr. Franklin Loehr, a Presbyterian minister and scientist, the objective was to see in a controlled experiment what effect prayer had over living and seemingly non-living matter. In one experiment they took three pans of various types of seeds. One was the control pan. One pan received positive prayer, and the other received negative prayer. Time after time, the results indicated that prayer helped speed germination and produced more vigorous plants. Prayers of negation actually halted germination in some plants and suppressed growth in others."

Hmmmmm...

Most interesting. Further on, regarding an experiment using bacteria:

Bacteria presumably do not think positively or negatively. Another major advantage of microorganisms in studies of distant mental intentions has to do with the control group. If the effects of intercessory prayer, for example, are being assessed in a group of humans who have a particular illness, it is difficult to establish a pure control group that does not receive prayer. The reason is that sick human beings generally pray for themselves; or outsiders pray for them, thus contaminating the control group, which by definition should not receive the treatment being evaluated.

In studies involving microbes, this notorious "Problem of Extraneous Prayer" is totally overcome because one can be reasonably certain that the bacteria, fungi, or yeast in a control group will not pray for themselves. And that their fellow microbes will not pray for them.

If the study involved negative intentions instead of positives, the advantages remain the same. The thoughts of microorganisms do not influence its outcome.

Jean Barry, a physician-researcher in Bordeaux, France, chooses to work with a destructive fungus, Rhizoctonia Solani. He asked 10 people to try to inhibit its growth merely through their intentions at a distance of 1.5 meter.

The experiment involved control Petri dishes with fungi that were not influenced in addition to those that were. The laboratory conditions were carefully controlled regarding the genetic purity of the fungi and the composition of the culture medium, the relative humidity, and the conditions of temperature and lighting.

The control petri dishes and the influenced dishes were treated identically, except for the negative intentions directed toward the latter. A person who was blind to the details of the experiment handled various manipulations. The influences simply took their stations at the 1.5 meters and were free to act as they saw fit for their own concentration. For 15 minutes each subject was assigned five experimental and five control dishes. Of the ten subjects three to six subjects worked during a session, and there were nine sessions.

Measurement of the fungi colony on the Petri dish was obtained by outlining the boundary of the colony on a sheet of thin paper. Again, someone who did not know the aim of the experiment or the identity of the Petri dishes did this. The outlines were then cut out and weighed under condition of constant temperature and humidity. When the growth in 195 experimental dishes was compared to their corresponding controls, it was significantly retarded in 151 dishes. The possibility that these results could be explained by chance was less than one in a thousand.

Hmmmmmm...

You see, I'm pretty sure that this proves the opposite of anything, but first of all as the more educated scientist here, I take exception with the idea that "one can be reasonably certain" that micro-organisms cannot pray for themselves or each other. In fact eukaryotes very much have the ability to sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony, so whatever non-thoughts go on in their non-brains, I think the last thing I would want to assume about them is that they're not capable of wishing for the well-being of their peers with all their non-heart, with all their non-soul, and with all their non-mind.

Regardless, if we make the assumption that humans have far greater capacity for prayer than bacteria, we can still explain this result as a sign of the power of prayer, in a sense. But if we grant (which I haven't so far) that this proves that prayer does indeed reliably control the growth rate of bacteria, then it also proves that the mechanism by which prayer works has nothing to do with any Higher Power. If the power of prayer lay in the ability of humans to dictate the actions of a Higher Power, then most certainly this experiment would have failed, because the Higher Power would not waste its time speeding and slowing the growth of bacteria over and over as the humans dictate. If there is a Higher Power, then by definition we do not have power over it, therefore we can't make it do this sophomoric little trick with the bacteria every time we ask.

So apparently, attempts at scientific investigation of the efficacy of prayer have shown us two things: 1) prayer makes plants grow faster and 2) this is completely independent of a/the Higher Power. Which means that it isn't necessary to believe in any Higher Power, or in the efficacy of prayer in influencing said Higher Power, in order for prayer to make plants grow.

Ha.

Well actually, that's rather to my advantage. If I believed God listens to those whiny lists of demands and goes out of his way to comply, I certainly wouldn't pray for something as irrelevant as a baobab seed. But since obviously this has nothing to do with God, and since there is some rudimentary support for its effectiveness, it's worth trying. So if you're NOT the praying type and/or you do NOT believe in a Higher Power, please pray for my seeds, bulbs, roots, rhizomes and alien spores. Because the more you do, the more I'll have to blog about.

QED, yes?

Ok, so here is what I need

I was contemplating the sad problem of my balcony. You see, most of it is in part shade, and some is in full shade. And most plants I like want full sun, which is at a premium on this balcony.

An obvious solution would be to move to an X07 apartment, which has a southeast exposure, whereas X01, where I am now, is a northeast exposure. But the X07s are one-bedroom and therefore much more expensive. Besides, the one on my floor is already taken, and I like my floor. Plus, I don't want to move. So no.

Second solution: grow plants that like shade.

Meh. I grow plants I like. I'm not gonna grow plants I don't like just because they like it in the shade. If I see a shade plant I like, I'll get it, but otherwise, no. Though as to that, pansies, nemophilas, and allegedly the non-blue geranium, all do quite well in the shade. So I could sow my upcoming Sea of Pansies on the shady side, I suppose.

Third solution: get a grow light. That's what you do when plants don't get enough light, right? So I could get a big grow light and mount it to the underside of the balcony above. But then I'd have to pay for electricity, which is stupid. I'm not wasting power on making plants grow.

Fourth solution: get a solar-powered grow light. Is the idea of a solar-powered lamp ridiculous? Sounds ridiculous. Nonetheless, I would almost bet money that if I google, I'll find solar-powered grow lights somewhere. And if not, it doesn't matter much, because you can get a solar panel and a grow light separately anyway. Then I can mount the solar panel on the sun side and the grow light on the shade side, and as long as the sun shines on the sun side, the lamp will shine on the shade side.

Gardening is so surreal, it makes psychedelic substances redundant.

Perlite rocks!

I don't know what perlite is. I mean, I know that it's a white granular substance and what it's used for, but I don't know what it's made of, where it comes from, or why it does what it does. I do know that perlite is awesome.

Consider this: I just de-stratified some cherry pits which had been in a cryovat full of only perlite for six weeks; the perlite was still moist, and there was no mold whatsoever. In contrast, all my previous soil-based cryovats developed mold sooner or later, and had to be destratified early, or simply failed. Now I can't say for sure that these cherry pits are still alive, much less that the dormancy has been broken, but at least I can tell you for a fact that they are neither moldy nor dried out. So if I fail to get a sprout out of 27 seeds, it won't be the perlite's fault.

See, when you stratify seeds, like I keep saying, they're exposed to Killer Fungus for extended periods of time, in their most vulnerable state. So ideally you want a "sterile" medium. Not "sterile" in a surgical sense, obviously, but more in the sense of "not having the ability to sustain life." Many websites suggest wet paper towel, but this does not regulate moisture very well. When you put water on it, it gets soaked right away, and then it dries out right away. Perlite, on the other hand, absorbs water and apparently releases it very slowly, so that it changes very slowly from "wet" to "dry" or vice-versa. And it does not support the growth of mold.

Great. Now I just need to sow all my seeds in perlite, and I'll be set for life, right?

Well, we'll see. Meanwhile, I scalded the cherry pits, because I have a hard time believing that a sprout can break such a hard shell. Obviously, I should have boiled only half, to have a test group. Oh well... If these don't sprout, there's always next year.

What else can I pasteurize?

The thing is, there is no point pasteurizing your soil if you're going to touch it with the same germy tools you use in the contaminated soil. So then, you're supposed to pasteurize / sterilize everything that will come into contact with the soil. And me without an autoclave...

Ok, I boiled some forks and spoons, which I will be using to scoop the soil into the pots and cultivate it. I didn't boil the containers themselves, which are 4" geranium starter pots. Being made of plastic, I don't think they'd take kindly to boiling. I did wash them with dish soap, as I don't have bleach on hand just now. These pots have never been used anyway, so there is no reason they should have seed-eating vermin in them yet.

You know what else might be carrying vermin though? The seeds. What if there is vermin on the seeds? I guess the baobab seeds are safe since I boil them before seeding anyway, but what about the kwyjibo seeds?

Ha. If you thought gardening was a sound, relaxing pastime, you've come to the wrong blog.

Stink, darn you! Stink!

After about 25 minutes at "250 F", the soil was emitting a not unpleasant smell of hot soil. I figured, let's turn it up higher, then it will stink.

So I crank it to "300 F", whatever that is in real temperature inside the oven. As the temperature rose, however, the soil started to make a crackling sound, suggesting boiling water and therefore that it was too hot. I opened the oven again and found that the noxious fumes were stronger but the smell of soil was if anything weaker than at "250 F". So I turned it down, then back up, then back down.

Then I got tired of the whole thing and turned the oven off. My eyes are burning and I want to go to bed. Hopefully this killed some of the evil in the soil and my hard-to-hatch seeds will stand a better chance. If not, meh... There's always more seeds where those came from.

How to pasteurize soil

Actually, I have no idea, in that I'm quite sure I'm not in the process of succeeding. But in theory, here is how you either pasteurize or sterilize soil, depending who you ask.

Moisten soil, to the moisture content you want for planting. Put soil in an oven-safe dish, no more than four inches deep (the soil, not the dish). Cover tightly. Stick a meat thermometer into the soil. Then, heat the soil until the internal temperature reaches 180 F, and maintain this temperature for 30 minutes. Done.

First caveat: allegedly, this process produces a foul odour. Second caveat: allegedly, if you cook your soil to 200 F, it will produce toxic chemicals that will kill your plants.

Ok. Whatever. I wasn't gonna try it, but I'm getting more and more seeds that are expensive (as seeds go) and hard to germinate, and which therefore spend a long time in the ground getting eaten by the fungi. Usually I just pour boiling water on the soil, on the theory that more heat for a shorter time works for milk, and what's good for milk has got to be good for soil. Nonetheless, I decided that perhaps I should try the real deal. Except I don't have a meat thermometer, nor did I feel like buying one, so I thought, "meh."

Ok. I wet the soil, put it in the dish, covered with foil, preheated oven to 180 F. Except the markings start at 200 F, so that was a best guess anyway. And then I suddenly remembered that the last time I used this oven, being in 2009, it didn't work right and took hours to bake anything, and I had to turn it way up. Hmmmmm... Then I remembered that allegedly it was repaired in 2010, but I haven't baked since, so I have no idea whether it's really fixed.

Hmmmmmm...

I used to bake and cook, you know. Before I became a bitter old spinster. But anyway.

After the soil had been in the oven 15 minutes, I decided it mustn't be working, because there was no foul odour. But then I noticed corrosive fumes, which however were not previously mentioned, and might be caused, possibly, by the oven being dirty, or maybe there are cobwebs in there or whatever. In any case, I figured that corrosive fumes were just as good as foul odours. I opened the window, which was stupid since I only just yesterday got the landlord to put the heat up, after the temperature in my apartment had reached down to 62 F. Then I went to walk the dog, leaving the oven on, the window open, and some scented candles burning, none of which are safe practices. Oh well. My Field Level Risk Assessment tells me this was a low-priority hazard.

Returning from my walk 45 minutes later, I detected more corrosive fumes, but still no foul odour. I opened the oven, still no foul odour. Hmmmm...

At first I decided to leave well enough alone, until I remembered that soil most definitely produces a characteristic smell when you pour boiling water on it, and therefore if it wasn't smelling, it really mustn't be hot enough. Stupid oven... And stupid me for being too lazy to get that meat thermometer.

So, at the time of writing, the soil is still in the oven, now cranked to 250 F, the window still open, and still no foul odour detected. Sigh... I'd really like to go to bed, you know.

Now you might be thinking that the question is not so much "how" as "why" I'm pasteurizing soil. Simple. As you recall, some seeds rot instead of growing. This is due to vermin in the soil such as larvae, fungi, molds, bacteria, and who knows what else. Also, all my soil is riddled with zombie seeds. Pasteurizing is supposed to get rid of just about every living thing in the soil, so your seeds don't get eaten.

Wait and see, I guess. Or keep calm and carry on. Or something.

The kwyjibo tree

I got some seeds in the mail this morning. They're called "crocodile bark jackal berry."

What's a crocodile bark jackal berry?

I have absolutely no idea. I was looking for something else and I saw the name, and the supplier didn't have a picture, and it was "only two bucks." Like I always say, everything is "only two bucks" until you buy 150 of them.

So, now I have five seeds of crocodile bark jackal berry. I could google it, but I'm not going to; that way it will be a surprise. Assuming I can even get them to sprout, as tropical seeds are a bit of a bother. But the thing is, Blogger post tags can only be 255 characters total, and "crocodile bark jackal berry" is 28 characters, so that's a waste of space. So for the sake of brevity, it will henceforth be known on this blog as the kwyjibo tree.

So now you know.

The new love of my life

THE love of my life is my dog, the incomparable Tinky-Winky. Followed by the man known as The Handsome One, whom I've been stalking for years. Sadly, the only way I'd be any less his type is if he were gay. But other than that, I found the new love of my life today: Summer Hill Seeds.

If you go there and search for "morning glory", it returns 54 results. Fifty-four (54) results. Really.

At last, someone who's as crazy for Insanity Plants as I am! (Haha, what a crappy pun.)

I sure hope the quality of their seeds is as good as the quantity. 54 types of insanity... Mmmmmmm... (drool)