gardening

Butterflies are more important than fresh parsley. Got some clones going so I'll have enough for everyone next year.

Anyone ever try a cayenne in water spray bottle solution for this, any tips?

nice story about someone growing flowers in a community as a business

This little guy is always chilling with my bananas.

There's also some hornets that keep the slugs/caterpillars at bay but they're less cute.

"I remember finding in the high mountains of Catamarca (Argentina) a highly anthocyanin-containing species at over 3500 m altitude, which combined high winter frost resistance with an excellent aroma of its fruits and which seemed quite capable of being adapted as a cultivated plant." (Bruecher 1977).

This species was Passiflora umbilicata. It comes from the Andes of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. It can be found at altitudes from 1600 m to 3700 m and survives frost and also the cool climate in some areas of Central Europe. This species grows very well in the southwest of England unprotected in the open ground.

The fruit of Passiflora umbilicata is round, between 4 and 7 cm in diameter, with a yellow, leathery shell at full ripeness. It's is tasty. The species, like most Passiflora, is not self-compatible and requires cross-pollination. The plant is very easy to care for and can bloom from May to October. It prefers a cooler climate, but also withstands temperatures up to 40 °C and blooms both in sunny and semi-shaded locations.

• 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝘀𝗼 𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗲...

The main problem of this species is that cuttings root very poorly and slowly. That's one of the reasons why it's so rare in cultivation.

• 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘆 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁

P. umbilicata is very interesting for breeding hardy passion fruit. It has a certain winter hardiness and possibly there are still genotypes in Argentina that are significantly hardier than the plants so far distributed in Europe.

• 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝘆𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗱𝘀

What makes this species particularly interesting, however, is the fact that the species crosses relatively easily with other species to create hybrids. There are now numerous hybrids. Some of the species involved are: P. actinia, P. antioquiensis, P. cincinnata, P. edulis, P. garckei, P. incarnata, P. racemosa, P. tarminiana, P. tripartita var. mollissima, P. tucumanensis, P. sidifolia and P. sprucei.

Interestingly, some of these hybrids are very fertile. An example of a promising hybrid for hardy passion fruit is Passiflora ‘Jutta’ by Henk Wouters. This cross between P. tucumanensis and P. umbilicata tolerates at least up to -8 °C. It is a fast-growing plant that flowers abundantly and sometimes forms two flowers per leaf. This variety forms fertile pollen and easily produces fruits. P. ‘Jutta’ bears full and delicious fruits, which become ripe in 45 days.

• 𝗔𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗴𝗲

P. umbilicata can pollinate most species of the supersection Tacsonia and be used as a bridge species:

Various properties such as tolerance for extremely cool weather and self-fertility could be combined from the supersection Tacsonia with strong root formation, good fruit qualities and frost hardiness of species of the subgenus Passiflora.

(Photo credit: Andres Krzisnik)

I rescued her from an ashtray 3 years ago and she's become so beautiful. but I have no idea what she is. please help :)

I noticed this moss growing on the bark chips in this potted plant I bought about a month back. It's an indoor plant and gets indirect light.

I'd like to keep the moss if it's a good moss.

Plant is a zygocactus (Schlumbergera truncata acc the tag)

Cooked the white and red beets just in foil, fresh young white onions, lots of spring onion, lightly steamed snow peas, nasturtium leaves, in rice vinegar and olive oil with a little sugar as dressing Everything but the vinegar, oil, salt, and sugar are from the greenhouse.

Planted them 2 months ago. Around 800 cloves and so far no duds. I still need to figure out where and how I am going to cure them but I've got 7 months to figure that out.

this was my garden a few weeks back. i'm basically totally new at this despite having done this for a few years now and this is gonna be a sort of lessons learned kinda deal.

the story so far is that i decided i was too busy to fuck too much with replanting seedlings this year and figured that i would just go straight from seed, hoping that the unusually cold weather we were having in spring would kill most of them so i would have less work to do down the line. that was a completely unfounded and stupid assumption on my part and i had to replant/uproot a bunch of plants (see above) because i ended up just haphazardly scattering seeds everywhere and the distribution of plants was totally fucked.

a lot of them started flowering last week-ish so i decided to fertilize this week. this was initially impossible because i hadn't really done any maintenance on my little guys since i replanted them and so the place was basically a jungle. after two afternoons worth of effort the garden now looks like this (didn't really do much to the guys in the planter, there's a drainage layer but the big drainage pipe is above the drainage layer for reasons outside my control and i really need to get on that...):

all this to say that for anyone starting out, just bite the bullet and start your seeds off somewhere where you can keep track of them and replant them (IN AN ORGANIZED FASHION) later on. you'll save yourself a lot of trouble and won't end up spilling fermented soybeans all over yourself because you tripped over a potato while trying to maneuver yourself around your poor man's tomato cage.

the leaves started getting all sad and gross the other day :C

3 species eliminated as threats. New challengers appear but I grow stronger as their attacks grow more feeble. The successive progression of ecology is restored.

:vegan-liberation-rad:

It bolted a bit but the flowers are delicious, they taste like sweet mild broccoli. Looking forward to making stirfry tonight.

:xi-lib-tears: the dragon rises

is this a bad idea? plan on mixing some topsoil in, but dont have very much on hand

I've got roof rights over a beautiful 1500 square foot flat roof, and I'm determined to set up a garden. Looking for resources on how to do some DIY stuff, I'm not about to hire a contractor to install anything. Specifically I'm trying to find a way to build a raised bed on a roof with all the proper drainage and weight distribution figured out.

I have some blackberry plugs I won’t be able to get into the ground until the weekend. The supplier said they are dormant and to keep them in the fridge for up to a week before planting. They’re in there now bagged up. I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be better to put them outside and let them start waking up or just leave them in the fridge. I guess it’s better if they stay dormant to avoid transplant shock?

I have lots of experience putting fruits and vegetables in my fridge and know what they look like when they come out so I am thinking best to get them out sooner rather than later. I can keep them outside in wet shredded newspaper or something. Will this fuck them up?

it's very orange

Had to keep this beauty intact. Boioioing boner penis joke. Dick and nuts.

Nutty goodness from the forest floor. I will make a black truffle and morel risotto this week with my bounty.

Weirdly, it smelled strongly of cucumbers when it was fresh. Removed the pore surface, sliced into strips and sautéed it in butter. 10/10 texture, 3/10 taste. Crispy on the outside and meaty on the inside, tender but firmer than button mushrooms. Some pieces tasted fine like a normal mushroom but others had an unwelcome sort of aromatic wood/chemically flavor.

I cooked more than just the two in the picture - it could be that the larger (therefore older) ones had the strong taste, or possibly the type of tree that a few of them came from imparted a flavor.

Probably won't go out of my way for them in the future but if I was backpacking for a night or two and came across some I'd for sure cook em up.