Moon-lines and Apple-pathways

It's seriously about time I spammed you all with vegetable porn. (And it has nothing to do with the fact that I have major re-writes due tomorrow, including an additional sex scene. *ahem*)

( RED HOT VEG ON VEG ACTION XXX )

OK, now everybody shout: "AMY GTFO LJ, TWITTER, TUMBLR, PINTEREST (ETC.) AND GET BACK TO WORK!!!" :P

(Also: give me your best songs to write porn to. GO!)

First and foremost, BUT THIS BOOK:


It contains a story written by none other than the fantastically talented ladylovelace and is available in both paperback and Kindle form.

In garden news: I finally have little baby watermelons on my vines! I've been able to spot two so far, only slightly bigger than a jellybean, and that makes me very happy! Also making me happy are the seven pumpkins I have growing that are now about 1-2 lbs. each. While I am melting in the heat, the veggies are diggin' it, and all the plants are just full of new growth. Here's some gratuitous veggie pics: ( Read more... )

Things I am NOT happy about, gardenwise: the mildew, my arch-nemesis. END ROT! Ok, so I have seven pumpkins growing nicely, but none of the new little baby pumpkins are making it! They're rotting and falling off the vine before they get bigger than golfball-sized. It is epic sad! :( Various other forms of fungal wilt are striking my nutmeg melons (which otherwise have adorable little fuzzy fruits on them!) and the cucumbers. Everday I am ripping out a few feet of vine that have given up on life. And this FRIGGIN' HUMIDITY is torture!

Also also: more people need to play my game with me! It works thusly:

• You give me the name of a color or an emotion.
  
• I give you something that reminds me of or represents that color or emotion: a picture, a quote, a drabble, etc.
  
• I give you a color or emotion, and then you do the same!

And...go!

Everything going on in the world of my garden! There are tiny little golf ball-sized pumpkins, and we should be harvesting yellow squash within a week. The chinese cabbage will take over the world, if I don't eat it all first!

( Read more... )

In other plant news: Thursday's hail storms in Chicago have severely damaged the Garfield Park Conservatory. My friend actually works there as their director of family programs. It's a beautiful conservatory, with a massive collection of plants. The whole conservatory is devastated, with nearly all of the glass roofs laying in ruins and 80% of the plants damaged. It's closed until further notice.

If you can, please consider donating to help repair the damage! You can do so on their webpage.

The weather has finally let up, and we're able to start our plot in the community garden! Hooray!

Since my dad is retired and officially has Nothing Better To Do, my mother has recruited him to help with the gardening. (Which is good, since she can't really do any of it herself.) We went out yesterday morning to see if the Guy we hired had roto-tilled yet, but he hadn't. He did it that afternoon, and so my parents went out while I was at work to start making the hills. They were able to finish the back three, which are the big (3 ft wide) ones set aside for my pumpkins, squash, melons and the beans and peas.

This morning, they left to visit my brother in Indianapolis before he and his wife move to California. So I get to put together the rest of the garden by myself. It's a big job, but honestly: I'm psyched. My mother drives me nuts. She can't do anything herself, so instead she satisfies herself by playing Foreman and trying to dictate my every move. (Those who know me can imagine how well this goes over.) And my dad: well, he handles it even less well than I do. And with more shouting.

So today, I went out and finished digging out the rows. (Building up my awesome Ditch Digger arms!) I bought some organic fertilizer and raked it and some compost into the back mounds and planted the pumpkins, squash, and melons and gave them a good watering. I also spent some time chatting and catching up with my community garden neighbors.

Now, I may very well be the youngest gardener out there by about 10 years--I'm certainly the only one under 30. (Not counting this weird, commune-like community group that's renting a plot. I swear, they have about 20 people working one little square, most of whom are just standing around.) Despite being the age of many of my neighbor's grandchildren, I fit in scarily well. I spent about five minutes talking to a woman about my cultivator tool. (It's ergonomic. BOO YA!) Another neighbor told me I had "nice furrows!" "Why, thank you!" I replied coyly. :P

And so commences my exciting summer social life of chatting to middle-aged retirees about weeding and hose attachments!

In other happy news: my new iPod is here (oh, how I missed you, my love!) and Trade Secret is having some massive clearance sale and I bought a bag full of expensive-smelling hair products for just $17.00. I also got two bottles of OPI nail polish for $1.50 each. They were originally $12.50 a pop because they contain diamond dust! Ooh, how decadent! I'm gonna have to wait until the heavy digging is over to paint my nails, though: I haven't much to speak of at the moment.

Last night I told an intruding stranger to piss off (in politer terms than that) when he decided to come up to my friend in a restaurant and tell her how to handle her dog. Thank you, Cesar Fucking Milan, but we're not interested in your lecture course. I just hate blowhard men who think everyone's just dying to hear their expert opinion on absolutely everything. (When he lit up a cigarette, I was oh so sorely tempted to offer him some free condescension advice on how he should quit.)

(For what it's worth, it's not my friend's dog: she's watching it for a couple months. She has no experience with dogs, and I knew it was a bad idea to bring it to the restaurant. After I scared off the Dog Whisperer, she drove the little yapper home so everyone could eat in peace.)

We've started buying annuals for the house. My mom is crazy into container gardening, and loves making elaborate pots for the patio. Me, I'm much more into the herbs and vegetables: the stuff that's ugly, but useful! I bought a little four pack of dill.

I'm going to get the rest of the herbs I need when we go out to Eastern Market tomorrow. It's a huge farmer's market in downtown Detroit, and it is SO MUCH FUN! The market itself is full of about 5 tents worth of vendors, and the area is surrounded by fun shops and yummy restaurants. There's outdoor BBQ and street performers, and it's just a good time! I like looking for unusual mint varieties to plant and dry for tea. Last year I had chocolate, orange, lemon, apple, peppermint, and Kentucky Colonel Mint, which is a spearmint variety: it's GORGEOUS, and smells OH SO good! Very delicious for mojitos and other mixed drinks: I like a sprig in my vodka lemonade.

My father and I have started making plans to build trellises for my pumpkins, melons, and squash. We went out to Lowe's to look at wood and do some pricing, and the man who worked there was actually able to talk to me about what I needed as if I were a competent, thinking adult! HOORAY for restoring my faith in men, Random Lowe's Employee! ♥

Happy weekend, y'all. What's up with you?

First, some miscellaneous bitching: I need a faster computer. I see no reason why I can't have 10 different tabs open in Firefox, two Notebook pages, a Word document, iTunes, Spider Solitaire, a few different folders, email, and still be able to edit photos in GIMP. I feel a big 'ol sulk coming on.

Anyway. My frustration with my computer's inability to develop superpowers means that I don't have a shiny, pretty graphic to advertise that:

Posting for Spring Into Sherlock over at sherlockmas opens tomorrow! Super exciting, y'all: I'll have a banner eventually for anyone who wants to help promote, but in the meantime let me just say that I am very excited, and there are some fantastic submissions to the fest!

Now, since I can't edit the size of pics in GIMP at the moment, I'm going to resize these photos using the IMG tag. If it don't work in your browser: lo siento! (I'm sorry.)

"Oriental" Coleslaw with Peanut Sesame Ginger Dressing
(It's like cold sesame noodles, but with cabbage! And raisins...Mmmm...)

(I forgot to take a picture until it was almost all gone, so my apologies for the sloppiness of the presentation!)


( recipe )

( Photos of plants coming up in the garden. )

All right everyone: how was your weekend? Any miscellaneous bitching you want to get off your chest?

It's coming it's coming IT'S COMING! SPRING! ♥ (And I am RIDICULOUSLY excited about it!)

The last few days have been filled with sunshine, blue skies, and 40+ degree weather. (Those of you who live in warmer climates--OH, HUSH! This is Michigan! When it hits 50, we're bustin' out the shorts and flip flops!) (Also: it's dropping back down into the 30s tomorrow, with 4 inches of snow by 7pm. BUT NO MATTER! The sun has had its effect: spring is coming again, and I couldn't be happier!)

I took the cat outside to explore this afternoon. She'd more or less forgotten what it was like to leave the house, and spent the first ten minutes walking around the patio in a circle and meowing at me, she was just so damn excited. Hell, I was excited, too! I spent the better part of an hour poking around the flower beds, checking for signs of life. I was eager to see which plants in my perennial herb garden survived the winter cold. It appears as if the lemongrass has died all the way back to the ground, but I don't know if it'll make its way back for another couple months. Ditto on the lemon verbena. The lavenders seem to have done well, and there's green beneath the snow on the oregano, sage, and the thyme. ♥

I also noticed several spring bulbs starting to come up after this week's thaw. I know better than to get excited over these first few shoots of green that poke their heads above the ground: this is Michigan, after all, and we have at least six weeks of surprise!frosts left until the spring flowers can safely emerge from their winter slumber. But still, that flash of green, that little reminder that the earth is coming back to life, is just so rejuvenating!

I planted the paperwhite bulbs one of my students gave me for Christmas, and spent the afternoon shopping for vegetable seeds. We get to pick out this summer's plot at the community garden on March 15. Things are happening!

Behind the cut, find gratuitous pictures of spring loveliness, and a photo mosaic of some of the fruit and vegetable varieties I'll be growing this summer: ( HERE BE GREEN A'PLENTY! )

OMG I AM EXCITE! ♥

Someone has STOLEN one of my pumpkins!

I went out to the garden plot today to harvest my pumpkins and some veggies for dinner, and one of my pumpkins has been stolen! I had three, and now just the two. I'd been warned about vegetable theft from other gardeners, but naively, I thought it wouldn't happen to me. So sad!

Here's a pic of the two I harvested, along with some acorn squash:



For more veggie porn, ( clickety-click! )

A couple weeks ago, I was driving home from work, and I thought to myself: it feels like fall. At first, I couldn't understand why I thought that, because the weather was 90 degrees and humid as hell, and all the trees and plants were still green (and brown from the heat).

Then I realized: it's the position of the sun. The northern hemisphere is on the downswing of its tilt, and we're going to be plunged back into winter soon.

So, here are some parting shots of the flower and herb gardens; there's not much left that's healthy and blooming, so I'll have to enjoy it while I can!

First: a beautiful peach-colored zinnia.



( More here... )

More pictures of plants and such, this time mostly from my herb garden. I love herbs, and every year I have such big plans to do more with them (dry them, make teas and sachets, cook more, etc...) but there's always so much to do with a garden in the summer, it's easy to get burnt out with just all the general maintenance. Still, herbs are pretty low-maintenance plants, and they've managed thrive in spite of my ADD attitude to gardening.



( Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme... )