Update: As several commenters have pointed out, it's probably Joe Francis.  Who knew?

I did a double-take on the way back from the mailbox this evening.  If my eyes aren't playing tricks on me, there's Markos on the cover of the Plant Delights Nursery catalog.

In the illustration by cartoonist Jack Pittman -- under the title Plants Gone Wild -- Kos is sitting at a table drinking a beer with Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton.  They're surrounded by weird Hooters-esque plants. (I'll never look at clay pots in the same way.) Don Imus and the Rev. Wright (I think) are at another table in the background.  It's all 'Democrat' decay and corruption.

Lest you think this cover out of the ordinary, it's not much different from previous covers.  (There are links to the covers here.)  The proprietor of Plant Delights, Tony Avent, is a heckuva plantsman -- very progressive and innovative when it comes to bringing new ornamentals to the market.  But judging from his catalog covers, it's a pretty good bet he's not a registered democrat.

Crossposted at Politicook.net

For those of ye who do not know me well, gardening is sort of a release and a creative direction for me.  For those of ye that do, the same.  I am inspired by the by the bounty that my garden is now providing, and some of that bounty consists of fresh, ripe tomatoes, in all sizes.  That, like everything does, got me thinking.

Store tomatoes look pretty, but are of little flavor and practically no "nose".  Farmer's Market ones are much better, but often blemished.  I will trade blemishes for taste and nose any day.  Part of this has to do with commercial varieties versus small patch varieties.  Commercial ones are hard, and mechanically picked underripe so they can stand transportation.  Small patch ones are softer and often are left to ripen on the vine.

But the best are the ones that you pick yourself, daily, at the peak of ripeness, from either a garden (I am lucky to have enough space for one), or from a patio planter.  Anyone that has full sun for at least half the day can grow them.

I live cheaply because I have to. I don't have much money to spend for frivilous items, so I don't buy them. Probably the best thing I've learned from my frugal times, going past ten years now, is how to cook for myself. I kind of specialize in root vegetables (because they're cheap) and greens, which I grow for myself. Two crops of turnips and beets per year, and I'm pretty much set. Vegetable soups, beans, rice, that sort of thing. Homemade bread, cornbread, and pumpkin bread are staples too. I grow peppers in pots, and have more than enough, I give the extras away. I also do some greens in pots. I'm not quite a vegetarian yet, but I get awfully close to it. Chicken, and later chicken soup, is a primary winter meal. My total eating bill for a month, living alone, seldom goes over thirty dollars. Potatoes and a simple brown gravy are my friends. I use a solar oven to cook things when the weather is right.

Because you don’t have enough plants in your garden.  Because you don’t feel like ponying up money for seeds when other people have them free for the asking.  Because you want to spread a little joy.

Sorry, not that kind of grass.

It’s the weekend.  And yard work awaits.  Probably like many homeowners, mowing the yard is a love-hate relationship I find myself trying to embrace at least once a week during the warm months.  My yard requires just basic care, really.  Lots of low maintenance foliage that looks really nice most of the time.  Some light weeding here and there.  Limited watering.  But still the mowing of too much turf.  A monoculture of cultivated lawn and impoverished ecosystem staring me in the face.

Aminopyralid

According to the Guardian, this herbicide marketed by Dow AgroSciences as Forefront, among other names, has entered the food chain.

It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel.

The manure was sold to gardeners all over the UK resulting in withered or "grossly deformed"   potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and salad vegetables.  Never come between the English and their gardens.

This story reads like the opening of Sheep Look Up by John Brunner.

GF and I were on the road Friday, far from any wireless server, and from a glance at the "Jesus, You Guys, I Can't Believe This Crap" diaries, I can't say I'm sorry.

Instead of following the antics here, we were motoring in western Virginia and, as is often our wont, we turned off the main track and headed down a randomly-chosen road.  As is often the case, we were rewarded beyond our wildest dreams.

Come on down.

After a couple of comments that SOME PEOPLE are incapable of growing indoor plants I figured I had better try to be helpful.

I'm not sure exactly what I should write here. I know that there have got to be some folks at this site who are feeling down, either in general, or for specific reasons.

For some reason I was thinking it might be nice if folks had a place to vent, to post about their feelings, or to just talk about issues that are troubling or making them feeling down.

My children and I are in our second year of gardening.  We have a smaller yard so we used www.squarefootgardening.com plan.  It's a 4H project, but it is also a way of trying to continue to refine our eating to be organic, seasonal, local and environmentally responsible.  We have a wide variety of vegetables and melons going currently.  For my birthday, I asked for and my husband planted six blueberry bushes in our front landscaping bed.  Next year we plan to expand with strawberry bushes in that bed and a cherry tree in the front yard.  

We already purchase our organic dairy , meat, poultry and eggs directly from local organic/biodynamic farmers.  We have cut out the middle man and the huge use of oil to truck our food to us from out of state -my Romaine doesn't come from rocket fuel contaminated Colorado River area farms, it comes from the backyard.  Another concern is my rising food costs for my family of 8.  By maximizing our garden production I hope to shave 20 to 40 dollars a week off our food bill in the growing season (about 20 weeks if I do a fall second planting of greens, etc.).

When I get asked the question, "What is your favorite flower?" If I have to choose just one, it is the rose. As my screen name would imply I also grow cactus as well. But, that niche is small and reserved for quirky humans. Roses are more universal. Their history is long and storied. The list of growers and breeders is extensive. There are so many roses that it would be impossible for me to list them all in a single diary or a hundred diaries. I will limit myself to ten I have known and loved. I am partial to having fragrance in my rose. I maintain that there is an inverse proportion to its suitability as a commercial cut rose, i.e. its ability to be cut and shipped and not petal shatter before it is sold; its presentation qualities and its fragrance. The better it keeps and presents, the less likely it is to have a strong fragrance.

To the list!

Just a few (possibly misconceptions) perceptions I've gotten around here lately, and I'm wondering if it's me or not. All answers welcome, all criticisms will be listened to.

Well, if you're in the midwest, south, or almost everywhere, you're getting into the season where lawn care is becoming important.  Keeping a nice lawn keeps your property value, looks nice - so it keeps the wife (or hubby) happy, and a pretty lawn is something most homeowners are after.

But over the past several decades, lawncare has turned into a barrage of chemicals, gas use, poisons, pellets, sticks, costly methods, rain run offs and more machinery then you can shake a stick at (and later, I'll talk about how shaking a stick can work out).  But I wanted a diary devoted to how you can do the environment and your yard some good with a different method of lawncare management.  I'm sure their are plenty of gardeners here who will have better tips then I, but a few I'd like to recommend.

Hey there...

So any of you in or have set up one of these thingamajigs??

Follow over the flip:

Updated June 2008 Check out this video and visit our blog to see what's new.

Crazy?

Maybe, but we're doing it.

At the end of this post is a guide full of relevant links showing how you can do this yourself.  We've also told our story using pictures at this Flickr page.  Next to those pictures are similar instructions on how to do this .

Our experience has shown that this process has other benefits, namely that it builds connections in a fragmented social/political landscape.  If you're trying to organize people, it's got a lot of potential.  A big selling point is that it is something that can be done by individuals.  You don't need to appeal for funding, attend planning meetings, or hire a budget busting number of "professionals".

If nothing else, you'll get some great tomatoes out of it.

So much for being prepared.  I was intending to finish this chapter this morning, but woke up with a blinding migraine, so I'll publish now just to make sure this part gets out as promised, and update it in a couple of hours.  If folks send me an email address, I'll email them when I put the updates in.

A hearty welcome to both those who dropped in for Chapter 0 on April Fool's Day and those popping in on the spur of the moment.  Chapter 0 (I'm in computers, we start counting at 0, sue me.) was the general teaser and index of the series to be, and, as promised, Chapter 1 is a collection of ramblings on food and food storage issues that relate to emergency preparedness.

While lack of water can kill you far faster, water is generally relatively cheap compared to food, and generally more available, except in limited circumstances which we'll address later in the series.  We all eat, though, and with weather getting more and more unpredictable, it's a nice feeling to know that if a blizzard is about to hit, you don't have to frantically run to the store and fight the mobs of unprepared folks.  In addition, food preparedness usually equates to money saved, which is a bonus in these tight economic times.

Throughout our extended weekend and stay with a gracious Obama volunteer in Pittsburgh, I must admit I wondered if someone had matched us, a white, Mennonite-by-choice, vegan couple with a 70 year-young, black, Reconciliation-by-choice, health-conscious grandmother.  We had so much in common, but our differences made for deep and purposeful conversations.  It was as if we had filled out a matchmaker form in great detail and were placed intentionally with Dolly.

Part of the environmental deterioration we're experiencing is due to reduced species diversity.  I often wonder if our love for lawns and ornamental shrubs and trees might be contributing to this.