It's July! Holy cow, does anyone even remember me? I had a couple of
entries written that I was going to submit, but frankly, they were really
out of date. So here's to fresh summer produce and fresh summer writing.
What have I been up to lately? I've been eating. The farmer's market just
outside of St. Jacob's is a lively and colourful place these days. We've
been going every weekend to stock up on strawberries, blueberries,
raspberries, melons, sweet peas, new potatoes, and juicy tomatoes. Thanks
to Gayla's excellent pop bottle cloche article, my basil is looking
excellent. I know that it's made a difference because I didn't quite have
enough plastic bottles to go around and the basil that didn't get a nice
plastic shell has responded by resenting me and not putting out very many
leaves.
My sage plant, now in it's third year, was a real worry for me because I
trimmed it all back in the spring and it didn't start growing and putting
out leaves for a long time. I thought that I had inadvertently killed it
off. Even though I know it's good and healthy to prune, I nearly always
have doubts. Even the virtually impossible to kill devil's ivy has, in the
past, grown leggy and unsightly in my care because I fear that trimming it
up will make it shrivel and die. I got over that and now I have pots and
pots of bushy green ivy growing in the darkest corners of my apartment. The
sage did the same sort of thing. It's the prettiest looking plant in the
herb garden now - lots of silvery green leaves. Lesson learned. (Until
next year when I predict I will have exactly the same anxiety.)
Something cool happened with my houseplants. I used to have a silvery inch
plant (zebrine pendula) a long time ago, but during one year of living in
the darkest little hole of an apartment, it died. I've been meaning to pick
another one up for about, oh, six years or so, but I never seemed to find
them for sale. It wasn't really hunting, but I would have snatched one up
if it had been on offer. A few weeks ago I was over at a friend's house and
she was showing me her very beautiful houseplants arranged in a large bay
window on glass shelves. I admired the set up and told her how I used to
have a silvery inch plant (which I refer to privately as 'that purple thing
that I really liked') and the story of its demise and my difficulty finding
one for sale. Being a very generous sort - as well as an astute interpreter
of what I imagine sounded like a hell of a broad hint - she clipped off a
few stems for me.
I dusted the cuttings with rooting hormone the next day and planted them
directly in a pot (okay, in an empty juice can with holes punched in the
bottom). Even though I've had success with the rooting hormone in the past,
I'm still a little wary of it. So I was relieved to see the plant turning
towards the light over the next couple of weeks. Then about a week ago, I
noticed that not only was the plant alive, but it had tiny pink flowers! I'
ve never had this type of plant flower before. My friend was also pretty
impressed and said that the parent plant had never shown any inclination to
flower.
I felt like a hell of a gardener that day.
Too bad I wasn't smart enough to take a picture at the time, because the
flowers lasted less than forty-eight hours.
In case any of you are wondering, my latest avocado pit rotted into a smelly
mess. So I'm not the green thumb that I want to be quite yet.
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