You Grow Girl™

I have a soft spot for these things. I mean the tire planter, not the begonias. Okay maybe the begonias too. But only tuberous begonias because the flowers are edible. All of those other useless begonias can suck it.

I took this photo in the summer. No aphids right now thankfully.

More about aphids.

I took advantage of natural light the other day to photograph some citrus.

Top Left: Tangelo

Top Right: The smallest two are kumquats from my own potted tree.

Bottom Left: Meyer lemons

Bottom Right: Satsuma

I chose today’s photo by blindly scrolling through a folder of images. This photo was taken on August 3, 2008. I remember purchasing these chanterelle mushrooms from my weekly trip to the farmers market but I don’t recall what I made with them. No matter, this picture is a good reminder that I need to get on signing up for some kind of wild mushroom foraging class this spring. I started off the year crossing off a couple of items from my life to-do list. Might as well keep going for the gold while I’m on a roll. Let’s get this done!

When I didn’t have time to sign up for a course in the fall I went ahead and bought myself a new guide to edible mushroom foraging called, “The Edible Mushroom Book.” The book is a very good beginner’s guide with lots of detailed photographs and instructions to help prevent terrible, unfortunate accidents, but I’ll admit that while it is nice to look at the pictures and daydream I don’t plan to go out and give it a whirl without a professional guide. I ate mushrooms off the front lawn when I was five; lots and lots of forced puking followed by an overnight hospital stay turned out to be a hands-on lesson that I’ve never been able to forget.

I found this guerilla patch of green shiso growing in the alley behind a high rise apartment building in my neighborhood. I took this picture last summer but first discovered the garden when we were shooting bike riding scenes for Recreating Eden. I’ve been back a few times since but have not managed to run into the gardener. Eventually…