Monday, July 05, 2004
Random blog, random site. The blog appears to be a bizarre selection of means to waste time.
And we're not commenting on how long it took me to get this one:
OK, so I don't have much to write about right now, hence the randoms. So what's going to be the next sporting upset? First a Williams not winning Wimbledon, then Greece winning the European football competition.
And now onto our long-running feature [cue: crackling theme music that sounds like the tape has stretched]: Plant News!
Having moved my banana plant outside after repotting it (it literally outgrew the pot), it's now got really badly scorched leaves (rain and sun at the same time, great for rainbows, not so great for plants). Is this because the exposed leaves formed when it was protected indoors, or will it continue to happen? Does anyone out there know? The only references to leaf scorch in bananas I can find all assume one has temperatures hovering about the 38oC mark. This is England in June. It was really hot a while ago, but recently anything above 20oC has been a reason to celebrate. While I'm at it, does anyone know the correct term for when the leaves ooze water or weep? [something which the plant has long since ceased to do]. Hmm, as the CIA state bananas are used to protect Coca [cocaine] crops from scorching, I'm guessing this the leaves turing silvery-brown isn't supposed to happen. Elsewhere someone suggests that leaving the roots too wet causes it. Roots wet, leaves frazzled, that makes sense. I'll go and check anyway.
And did you know how incredibly easy it is to grow an avocado tree? You can either faff around with cocktail sticks and jars of water, or do what I did, and just stick the stone half buried in wet compost [I put the seam parallel to the surface of the soil]. It sprouted a few weeks ago, and already there are several leaves, growing in a spiral. Very pretty dusky pinky reddish when they come out, gradually getting greener as the continue to grow. The oldest leaves are still bronzy. The main root is already out through the drainage hole and trying to lift the pot. The plant overall has the split stone at the base, with the plant growing through the split, a straight stem about 6 inches long to the first leaf. The stem is maroon with occasional leaflets [about 3 mm long] and slightly hairy. The leaves are quite narrow, and pointed at both ends. The veins look like most deciduous trees - there's a middle straight vein and subdividing branches that interlock [unlike the herringbone banana leaves]. At the moment the longest leaf is 4 inches long, with half an inch of stem to the main stem.
Given how easy it was to grow, I'm now wondering how many feral plants there are. They probably wouldn't get through the winter unaided [though lots of hot places where they grow have cold winters, don't they?], but in some city alley there's probably one somewhere in the country. [Do areas of high avocado consumption correlate with areas of littering, and areas of sufficient neglect required to allow the plant to grow? Or in more stereotyped way, are Waitrose shoppers cavalier people who live in slums?].
Other plant news:
The onion I stuck in a pot because it already had masses of leaves in the larder, is nearly flowering. Unfortunately due to the windy weather recently it got blown over and left like that for a while. So now the pot is back upright, the flowering spike if surging off at a 45o angle halfway along [the bit around the bend is much thicker than the rest of the stem]. A bit like the vapour trail of a rocket leaving Cape Canaveral.
Inherited strawberries grow better than bought strawberry plants. Despite frantic efforts to grow strawberries in all manner of contrived means, the plants that produce fruit first, and continue to do so longest [way into December last year], are the wild strawberry plants that have always grown in a washing up bowl full of spent compost [and moss, and rosebay willowherb 1, and weird grey upright trumpets of lichen]. Admittedly they're not very big strawberries, but they taste nice, and the proper strawberry plants only ever seem to grow runners.
[1] Because I've finally got round to figuring out the which name applies to which small pink flower. Rosebay Willowherb is the upright slender plant with willow-like leaves [and pussy-willow-like seeds as well, I think]. The one I think is Ragged Robin is in fact Herb Robert. Ragged Robin doesn't grow round here [so god knows what my mother was talking about then]. Herb Robert is the spreading one, with thick, brittle, hairy, red stems, and reddish ragged leaves. The one I've heard referred to as Stenchwort, because if you touch it at all it does. Usually has remarkably few, weakly attached roots. And just to confuse you, all my brother and I always used to think Wallflower meant Verbena [because they were flowers that grew in walls. Although applying that logic round here would make you think the same of Aubretia]. Just as well the Linnaean system exists [hands up if you have problems spelling words derived from Latinised Swedish names].
The tubular trumpet funnel lichen thing: Apparently it's Cladonia. The red fruiting version grows as a lawn on the flat garage roof. It's nice to know bits of where one lives look a lot like Lapland.
Anyhoo,
And we're not commenting on how long it took me to get this one:
Q. What does DNA stand for?Warning, if you do go to the site above, beware of the dire puns.
A. National Dyslexics Association
OK, so I don't have much to write about right now, hence the randoms. So what's going to be the next sporting upset? First a Williams not winning Wimbledon, then Greece winning the European football competition.
And now onto our long-running feature [cue: crackling theme music that sounds like the tape has stretched]: Plant News!
Having moved my banana plant outside after repotting it (it literally outgrew the pot), it's now got really badly scorched leaves (rain and sun at the same time, great for rainbows, not so great for plants). Is this because the exposed leaves formed when it was protected indoors, or will it continue to happen? Does anyone out there know? The only references to leaf scorch in bananas I can find all assume one has temperatures hovering about the 38oC mark. This is England in June. It was really hot a while ago, but recently anything above 20oC has been a reason to celebrate. While I'm at it, does anyone know the correct term for when the leaves ooze water or weep? [something which the plant has long since ceased to do]. Hmm, as the CIA state bananas are used to protect Coca [cocaine] crops from scorching, I'm guessing this the leaves turing silvery-brown isn't supposed to happen. Elsewhere someone suggests that leaving the roots too wet causes it. Roots wet, leaves frazzled, that makes sense. I'll go and check anyway.
And did you know how incredibly easy it is to grow an avocado tree? You can either faff around with cocktail sticks and jars of water, or do what I did, and just stick the stone half buried in wet compost [I put the seam parallel to the surface of the soil]. It sprouted a few weeks ago, and already there are several leaves, growing in a spiral. Very pretty dusky pinky reddish when they come out, gradually getting greener as the continue to grow. The oldest leaves are still bronzy. The main root is already out through the drainage hole and trying to lift the pot. The plant overall has the split stone at the base, with the plant growing through the split, a straight stem about 6 inches long to the first leaf. The stem is maroon with occasional leaflets [about 3 mm long] and slightly hairy. The leaves are quite narrow, and pointed at both ends. The veins look like most deciduous trees - there's a middle straight vein and subdividing branches that interlock [unlike the herringbone banana leaves]. At the moment the longest leaf is 4 inches long, with half an inch of stem to the main stem.
Given how easy it was to grow, I'm now wondering how many feral plants there are. They probably wouldn't get through the winter unaided [though lots of hot places where they grow have cold winters, don't they?], but in some city alley there's probably one somewhere in the country. [Do areas of high avocado consumption correlate with areas of littering, and areas of sufficient neglect required to allow the plant to grow? Or in more stereotyped way, are Waitrose shoppers cavalier people who live in slums?].
Other plant news:
The onion I stuck in a pot because it already had masses of leaves in the larder, is nearly flowering. Unfortunately due to the windy weather recently it got blown over and left like that for a while. So now the pot is back upright, the flowering spike if surging off at a 45o angle halfway along [the bit around the bend is much thicker than the rest of the stem]. A bit like the vapour trail of a rocket leaving Cape Canaveral.
Inherited strawberries grow better than bought strawberry plants. Despite frantic efforts to grow strawberries in all manner of contrived means, the plants that produce fruit first, and continue to do so longest [way into December last year], are the wild strawberry plants that have always grown in a washing up bowl full of spent compost [and moss, and rosebay willowherb 1, and weird grey upright trumpets of lichen]. Admittedly they're not very big strawberries, but they taste nice, and the proper strawberry plants only ever seem to grow runners.
[1] Because I've finally got round to figuring out the which name applies to which small pink flower. Rosebay Willowherb is the upright slender plant with willow-like leaves [and pussy-willow-like seeds as well, I think]. The one I think is Ragged Robin is in fact Herb Robert. Ragged Robin doesn't grow round here [so god knows what my mother was talking about then]. Herb Robert is the spreading one, with thick, brittle, hairy, red stems, and reddish ragged leaves. The one I've heard referred to as Stenchwort, because if you touch it at all it does. Usually has remarkably few, weakly attached roots. And just to confuse you, all my brother and I always used to think Wallflower meant Verbena [because they were flowers that grew in walls. Although applying that logic round here would make you think the same of Aubretia]. Just as well the Linnaean system exists [hands up if you have problems spelling words derived from Latinised Swedish names].
The tubular trumpet funnel lichen thing: Apparently it's Cladonia. The red fruiting version grows as a lawn on the flat garage roof. It's nice to know bits of where one lives look a lot like Lapland.
Anyhoo,
oi! watchoo mean 'random'? and 'waste time'? we waste time in a variety of directed and complicated ways. or maybe not. but anyway, thanks for the linkage and the love, and there'll be some in return
yrs
da poorly controlled croo
yrs
da poorly controlled croo
# posted by 
: July 12, 2004 4:13 am
: July 12, 2004 4:13 am
yeah, fully.
It's philosophizin and political and stuff.
Chuh! Obviously you're not seeing the layers BENEATH the time wastin and stuff
-Ricky Poorly Controlled
It's philosophizin and political and stuff.
Chuh! Obviously you're not seeing the layers BENEATH the time wastin and stuff
-Ricky Poorly Controlled
# posted by : July 12, 2004 7:20 am
: July 12, 2004 7:20 am
Oooh, commenting on my own blog - how egotistical can you get? (probably quite a lot more).
I only said it was random as I couldn't remember how I originally found it (I think it was at the end of a long haphazard blog-based chain - which I wouldn't be able to find again). As for wasting time: well, if you're using up time by time-wasting, then you're still using time, so in fact there is no such thing as time-wasting.
Which still doesn't get me out of using that description...but I didn't say wasting time was bad [or necessarily bad].
Anyway, ta muchly for the reciprocal linky stuff.
Anyhoo,
Post a Comment
I only said it was random as I couldn't remember how I originally found it (I think it was at the end of a long haphazard blog-based chain - which I wouldn't be able to find again). As for wasting time: well, if you're using up time by time-wasting, then you're still using time, so in fact there is no such thing as time-wasting.
Which still doesn't get me out of using that description...but I didn't say wasting time was bad [or necessarily bad].
Anyway, ta muchly for the reciprocal linky stuff.
Anyhoo,
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