Life On The DT Homestead
One of Mrs DT’s hobbies is gardening. It never much appealed to me although my parents once had “award-winning” gardens and four helpers. That could be when I lost my interest … but then I had two grandfathers that were raised on farms – and both got out as soon as they were old enough to leave home. So maybe I inherited my disinterest.
But I’m happy enough to help “document” her efforts.
Similar situation here. Nothing I grow, grows. Everything my wife grows, does, and very well. Back in the late 70’s though, outside Ft Campbell, KY, I grew a reefer plant an estimated 11′ high. I even saved one of the leaves and framed it. That leaf is long gone now but I do have a picture of it somewhere….
Three things grow tall in Nebraska: corn, sunflowers, and the evil weed. Probably the same in Kansas. The evil weed is feral hemp from the days when that was a cash crop – where “smoking rope” came from.
Apparently, your wife knows my wife.
I’ve attached a photo of two Octopus Agave in our front yard from 2 years ago. The stalks on those agave grew to 18′, if I recall, and are covered with thousands of flowers. Each one of those flowers will eventually form a bulbil which is genetically identical to the host plant. Around our parts, these stalks on agave are often called “Death Stalks”, because the plant’s growth of a stalk and then flowering are shortly followed by the plant’s death. In the wild, the bulbils on those stalks on a dying agave will fall off and then will eventually land in a place to produce a new plant.
Anyway, two years ago, the lovely Mrs. azlib harvested dozens of these bulbils and planted them all. She’s given them to anyone who will take them. Not long after I cut down the stalks and dug up the plants, she called our local nursery and asked if they’d be interested in some of these bulbils as a trade for some other plant she wanted “Sure. I’ll take a hundred.”, he said. I gave him an entire stalk….it had to have weighed 30 pounds, with enough for a thousand or two new plants.
This morning I went on my walk and she got out for her gardening. We’re down to maybe a dozen of these Octopus Agave and 4 were getting big enough that they needed to be re-potted into larger pots and that was her morning task. We’ve long since replaced the now-dead Agave with the offspring of the originals. What we’re supposed to do with these plants she’s tending for the past 2 years is a question that I have avoided asking. Whatever. It makes her happy and keeps her out of the beer halls, so I won’t complain.
I have a small garden. Couple rows of pole beans, four chilis and a volunteer tomato. Oh, and what looks like a redbud popped up too. We will see what other volunteer shows itself soon. Gobs of rain here.
Love the “volunteer tomato”.
I do though “grow” the hell out of spouts inside the house, mostly alfalfa and broccoli. The best method I have found is in 1 quart wide mouth mason jars and green sifter lids from amazon. I get the seeds in bulk from Todd’s Seeds.
Fill the jar with room temp water, install 1 tbsp of seeds, lid, shake like hell, empty water out in sink, roll jar around to get the seeds sticking all around the inside, lay it down sideways on paper towels in the sun. Change the water morning and night and in 3 days (depending on sun) that jar will be slammed with sprouts.
I put a big gob of sprouts on a sando with the other usual things, put a gob in soup, in salads. On and on. I think of them as scrb brushes for the pipes if you know what I mean. “They scrape ya kleen” and you’ll sleep like a new born babe.
These are like the lids I use:
https://www.amazon.com/Picowe-Plastic-Sprouting-Strainer-Canning/dp/B07SDGBB3B?th=1
Jars like these:
https://tinyurl.com/y92tvtmn
Oh dear.
“Ribbed for Xtra pleasure”
I seem to recall seeing that on a machine in a gas station bathroom around 1971. Another one looked like a balloon with a rubber rooster head on the end…. “My memory is trying to KILL me!!!”
“Ooh LaLa”…there is something sooo wrong there.