Terrifying Mutant Carrot Discovered; Wife Claims It's "Normal"

Sunflowers & Beans Progress Post

Sod

Every spring, the University re-sods this stretch of grass, and every winter, they kill it again with salt from the sidewalk.

It's things like this -- and also resolving the University's budget problems by taking educational opportunities away from the lowest-paid workers while continuing to pay the basketball coach over a million dollars per year -- that make me extremely disinclined to ever donate to the U as an alum.

Sunflowers and Beans

This past weekend, I finished harvesting my sunflower seeds saved from last year and planted them.

Here is the workspace in the kitchen where I separated the seeds from the heads. It made a huge mess. Then, I took them outside and used a box fan to separate the crud from the seeds.

I planted all the crud (which had lots of seeds in it too) in our "sacrifice" bed where nothing likes to grow. We'll see if there's any success.

Here is the result. There are lots left, though sadly I lost my notes on how much exactly I planted. It was a lot, since I was too lazy to look up the actual recommended spacing, last year I followed the directions and didn't get enough plants, and Erin was worried about the viability of the seeds.

Here's the bed, all 130 square feet of it! There are also beans mixed in. Last year, we got back about as many beans as we planted; hopefully we'll have better luck this year. I planted at most 537g of seeds but I think it was more in the 250g range.

Buckeye

This is the buckeye tree that Erin and I planted a couple of years ago in the front yard.

Poinsettia

For some years I've had a poinsettia given to me by an ex-girlfriend (who was a girlfriend at the time). It didn't work out and for good reasons, but I like keeping the plant around because it does have sentimental value. However, it's a finicky plant and likes to drop a bunch of leaves at the slightest flaw in nurturing, so it had become extremely leggy.

Erin's wanted to chop it off and start over for some time, and we'd taken a cutting which hasn't died but stubbornly refuses to root, so I didn't let her do it. However, a few weeks ago, there was some minor abuse and pretty much all the leaves came flying off. It looked to be on its last legs so we took a few cuttings and did the chop.

This is one of the cuttings. It's decided to "bloom". Weird.

If you are bored, you can look up the List of poinsettia diseases on Wikipedia.

I also like that Erin isn't threatened by this memento, another reason I'm glad I'm marrying her and not the other one. ;)

Project 100, #42.

Sunflowers

Today I harvested my sunflowers. They were planted along the fence in front, to provide color for folks looking up or down the block. I had not planned to harvest the seeds, but there were so many that the prospect of free sunflower seeds became very compelling.

Here is the product:



I think there may be enough seeds for myself and about 20 of my closest friends. If you are local and want some seeds, let me know. There are bright yellow and pale yellow, and I know which is which. Both grew to about 6 feet. I don't know if the seeds will grow true.

Here is a close-up on one of the largest heads. Note the many interlocking spirals: