5th Week of My Garden

Garden, Kitchen,

DSC00663

DSC00664

 

After looking at elephant ears and plantains, this garden is doing very poorly.  It is now the fifth week after planting, and regular watering, plus fertilizer have only helped my radishes get a bit greener (shown).  This did not help my lettuce, though.

Of course, long term I’ll amend the soil.  It is still possible that there is not enough light, because two years ago I had fewer elephant ears, less tall plantains, and lower neighboring trees.   It may be that some things will begin to flourish in the new year as the days get longer again.  Some of that happened two years ago.

A major difference is our soil, lead free in the garden, but maybe largely nutrient-free as well.  Our soil in the rest of the yard tested very fertile, with virtually no recommendations for amendment.  What we had planted seemed to have grown better.  True, we did start with some partially grown plants in places of our garden.

Right now it looks like we may get at least some parsley, dill, cilantro, sage, radishes, cabbage, broccoli, beets, carrots.  The jury is out on our chives, onions, lettuce, mesclun, sorrel, basil, oregano, and marjoram.  Next stop is the garden store to get already started plants that grew well two years ago.

I’ll keep watching and learning.

 

Elephant Ear Flowers

Garden

DSC00661 DSC00662Did you know that elephant ears have flowers?  I just saw them for the first time today.  There are three flowers on the left from the front of the open one in the middle, a spent one to the right of that, and an emerging on to the left across the bottom of the left photo.  The open flower has a vertical spike going up the middle, protected by its pale yellow-green surround.  The right photo shows the same flowers from another direction.  The fact that I saw them for the first time today probably reflects the fact that they have not been disturbed for several years, and the fact that we have had enough rain this year.

Much of elephant ear reproduction is vegetative by way of  subsurface tubors.   You can see lots of little plantlets in the background that will become big next year.

Recycling Day, A Trip to the Recycling Center

Environment

DSC00665 Loaded up with

recyclablesDSC00666

After wanting to recycle for many years,  (I would even like to recycle the ink on the paper) we are finally recycling, and have found it to be quite convenient.  We just load up our vehicle with the paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, and glass which we have been collecting, largely separating as we go, and drive it to the user-friendly recycling center, where they help us unload, continuing to sort into their  categories .

It eases my mind that as we go along, I do not feel so guilty about getting rid of the packaging and plastic that comes along with our purchases, or disposing of broken items like old phones and radios that no longer work.   I am not really discarding them.  I am sending them for recycling.

The earth has yielded these items all to us, the plastics from fossil fuels, the metals from ores, the glass from common sand, but with the input of energy, cardboard and paper from trees, and other living materials, grown, transported, and processed with considerable environmental costs, so we are good to the earth when we recycle.  Furthermore, we are good to ourselves, not only in having a better conscience, but because we will prolong the livability of our good earth.