Saturday, 10 January 2015

Christmas Swag

Here's the garden swag from Christmas (minus the Burgon and Ball widger. which is already too muddy to come back inside).  The pickling cucumber seed is not something I asked for (I don't think) but looks like it'll be something I'm doing next year! Patty pans are always welcome. They have the sweetest flavour (probably because I always crack and harvest them when they're the size of a sand dollar). Hungarian Hot Waxes are easy to grow and ever so pretty. Those are the ones I'll be giving away to everyone this year I expect! And there are those bright orange aubergines I was lusting after earlier this year. Very excited to see if they can be persuaded to do anything!


Of the books, Wicked Plants is a rather sweet to-do list of all the monstrous plants in the world, something I have been slightly fascinated by ever since I read about the Japanese suicide garden in You Only Live Twice. Of course, in real life I moderate the toxicity of my garden for the sake of kittens and visiting children; this belongs in the same fantasy zone as The Decadent Gardener, which is similarly full of ideas best left in fiction.

What a Plant Knows is here for practical reasons. I have an internal warm space where I can get plants started - my verandah - except that it is north-facing, and so dark and dull in there that everything etiolates and languishes. This books promises to tell me exactly how plants "see" - which I am hoping will tell me how to fool plants into growing without having to splash out on one of those dodgy e-bay grow-light kits, thereby lengthening my season to accommodate warm climate long season plants like peppers and aubergines.

The necklace is only a necklace. But oh, so pretty!


No comments:

Post a Comment