Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, July 26

Spotted in a raised garden bed at a local assisted living facility where my mother lives. Not ours but they caught our attention.

Cheers,
TRex

A lovely scene for residents of that facility and a great photo! Thanks for sending it in!

Bleg:

Hello,

I hope you can help me. I've been a (really) long-time lurker at Ace of Spades HQ, and was wondering if you still have links to the old gardening threads.

Way back when-- unfortunately, I don't have a date, or this would be much easier -- there was a thread on Christmas/Thanksgiving cactuses. The advice in it was invaluable..... among other things, we finally understood why my father's cactus, would bloom twice a year, once around thanksgiving, and once again in early spring.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to save the thread, and various internet searches have turned up nothing.

Is there any hope?

Thanks,
Heather

There's a video with information in the post on 12/2/23 and more information on 11/22/14.

There are a couple of other mentions and photos, too. Anybody else have tips on growing these cacti?

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

From the famous Pat*

My second “learn by doing (it wrong)" garden lesson: The first one was letting tomato vines grow to maturity in the compost pile. I didn’t get many tomatoes, and all their roots made it hard to dig out and use that compost.

Lesson Two: Last fall, I put my “Largest Zucchini” Fair entry atop the compost and let it sit. This spring, I noticed sprouts growing from its seeds, so I took one (composted the rest!) and planted it, thinking I would get a jump on the season that way. These blimps are what I got. I believe the zucchini got… promiscuous… with the pumpkins, since they’re both Cucurbita pepo. I had to pull out the plant and put in fresh seed. I’m hoping I’ll get a few actual zucchini by the end of the summer.

Yes, this is a common result if you allow squashes to cross-breed in the garden. If you get volunteers, you can try eating them when they are extra-small.

Melons are the same way. And you can also get weird offspring from hybrid seeds even if you only plant one variety! Offspring of hybrid melons can be especially weird!

Ah, Nature

Bringing nature home:

Carnivorous plant bog from Field Marshal Zhukov

Nice idea!

My pitcher plant is small but mighty--it put out a flower. Oddly enough the flower is bigger than the pitcher top. Not due to perspective!

Lirio100

Beautiful! Both the flower and the pitchers are features. Compare to the pitcher plant in the photo just above.

Puttering

We had a question about fennel recently. See mythology below. It may be possible to be too attractive for your own good.

This is a good time of year to plant fennel and lettuce on broken terra cotta if you want them to wither quickly and die.

On the other hand, if you decide to make sausage after hunting wild boar (be careful), some fennel seed from plants located where they will not interfere with the growth of other plants could be a tasty addition.

Daily Dose of History:

One of the most popular and enduring stories from Greek mythology is that of Aphrodite and Adonis. It has inspired numerous pieces of art and has been the subject of many adaptations and retellings. Shakespeare’s narrative poem “Venus and Adonis,” for example, is believed to be his first published work.

As with most Greek mythology, the backstory is complicated and bizarre. Suffice it to say that Adonis was regarded as extraordinarily beautiful and the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone both fell madly in love with him. They went to Zeus to have their rivalry resolved and he decreed that Adonis would spend one third of each year with Aphrodite, one third with Persephone, and one third however he liked. According to the story, Adonis chose to spend his one-third allotment with Aphrodite, so that he was with her two-thirds of the year and with Persephone (Queen of the Underworld) the other third. While Adonis was in the arms of Aphrodite, the story went, crops and fruit grew abundantly, and the sun shined brightly. But when he was with Persephone, winter set upon the land.

Adonis met a tragic death. He was gored by a wild boar while hunting and died in the arms of his weeping lover Aphrodite. The death of Adonis is associated with red roses and anemone. Although the details vary among the accounts, the first red roses (ever after a symbol of romantic love) sprang up from the blood of Adonis and anemone are said to have sprung up from the ground when Aphrodite’s tears dropped to earth (in some versions the associations are reversed).

The veneration of Adonis and the remembrance of his death is attested to in documentary evidence as early as the 7th century BC. Ancient Greek women celebrated the Festival of Adonia annually, with singing, dancing, ritual mourning, and the planting of “Gardens of Adonis”— fennel and lettuce seeds sown in broken pieces of terracotta and placed on rooftops to sprout, wither, and die, in representation of the tragic life of Adonis.

The painting is “Adonis Changed into Anemone” by Nicolas Bernard Lépicié (1782).

As a reminder, the anemones would likely be the red anemones below, the State Flower of Israel (from Biden's Dog)

Gardens of The Horde

We have toritos (Tribulus terrestris, Puncturevine) in our garden. What's going on in your garden?

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, July 19

Any thoughts or questions? Pest control tips, fungicides, harvest reports, eic. Kindltot had directions for plum jam:

Plum jam: about 4-5 cups of cooked plums, add the powdered pectin and lemon juice, let come to a boil on high heat until you get foam you can't stir down. add 4-6 cups of sugar, bring to a boil, and then bring up to the jelly stage either by thermometer, or by knowing how to judge how the jam runs off a wooden spoon (or both)

Can in a hot water bath.

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:22 PM

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