Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Clearing skies, drier."
Currently blooming in my garden: Portulaca, Gazania Sonnegold, tomatillos, tomatoes, lavender, plume poppies, salvia, African blue basil, Thai basil, nasturtiums, nicotina, Echeveria lilacina, anise hyssop, black-eyed Susans, calendula, thyme, day lilies, cilantro, and passion flower.
My birthday is coming up this week. July 31st to be exact. I'll be 28 years old. I noticed last week that I am no longer subject to that purse-lipped scowl from old women that teenagers get. That "You're one of those trouble-some liberal-minded kids" look. Old ladies talk to me in the bathroom at the mall. They speak to me like we're equals now. Like I'm an adult woman of child-bearing age and thus we have a common bond. I think that's more of a sign that I'm getting older than the fact that I'm turning 28. In a lot of ways I prefer this new stage. It means that I can be taken seriously when I go into banks and official institutions of adult affairs. However, I do want to state for the record that it all depends on how I'm dressed. I still don't get taken seriously at the garden centre.
Due to my approaching birthday I finally joined the grabby online consumer set and started an Amazon Wish List. I picked Amazon cause everyone else does. I don't buy books and crap online so it doesn't really matter. Well it has really opened my eyes to just how many books about plants and gardening are out there. Now I'm sure that there really is a need for the Reviews section. There are so many books about gardening out there! It would be REALLY easy to make bad book purchasing choices and waste a lot of money on crap. Of course on the other hand there are alot of killer books out there that I didn't know existed. I said to Davin "Looks like there's going to be a lot of books that I'll be buying for myself off that damn wish list."
I purchased a new bird feeder for the birds. It has multiple stations so the birds don't have to fight for the 2 prime spots anymore. It also holds more seed. I'm currently refilling the old feeder once a day. That's alot of work and responsibility. All day long the birds have been crowding around the 6 stations at the new feeder. The sunflower shells are starting to form a thick layer in the planter boxes like mulch. So far I'm thinking that's a good thing. I haven't figured out what the drawbacks to this could be.
I'm taking a week off soon. It's official. I'm so far past burned I'm like a chunk of mental and physical charcoal. I can't state it enough--a break is required immediately if I'm going to make it through the next month. August is the month in which I'm basically comotose the whole time due to extreme hayfever. I don't take allergy medication. It does real physical damage to my body and isn't worth it. But I've been working on building my immune system this year and have noticed a dramatic decrease in allergy symptoms thusfar--without taking medication. So we'll see how it goes in the worst month of the year. Hayfever season is the only unfortunate aspect of life with plants.
I bought a new book about cactus a few weeks ago called "Cactus" by Elisabeth Manke. Reading it got me all excited and itching to buy a new cactus. I kept trying to think up excuses to go to neighbourhoods that I knew would be selling cactus plants. So finally last Friday I went to a store that had a big plant section. However, instead of buying a cactus I was suckered by a succulent. It is a Euphorbia similar to Crown of Thorns called Somona TM (Euphorbia X lomi hybrid). Yes, that's right, it's trademarked. In fact I was completely blown away by the text on the tag
"ATTENTION:
The name 'SOMONA' is a registered Trademark and must not be used for any purpose."
On the back of the tag it states "This plant is not for human consumption. Propagation prohibited."
What the hell? I mean, propagation on a large scale for commercial purposes I can understand. But are they saying propagation of all kinds is prohibited? Are they telling me that I can't say, snip a piece off, stick it into some soil, make a new plant and give it to my friend as a gift? That's a bunch of crap. And all that crap about the name Somona being a registered trademark. When I did a search on google for the word "Somona" I also came across pages of companies and places named Somona.
I feel like a bit of an idiot now, having read the tag. Had I read the tag more carefully in the store, I don't think I would have contributed $3.99 to this company. Maybe this is normal and I'm over-reacting or just really naive. I personally have never seen this amount of attention paid to staking and protecting plant property. It comes off as a little extreme to me. Trademarking plants just doesn't seem to right to me. All I know is that I wish I had a real Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milii) (which I thought it was in the store) and not this crazy cultivar. I'm not even going to show a photo of it here.
 Oh I almost forgot! I harvested my first ripe Early Girl tomato this week. It was the first tomato to appear on the vine and the first to ripen. I ate it on toast. It was the first tomato I'd had in months so as you can imagine it was pretty good.
Last year at this time: Scylla's Potatoes
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