Non-Fiction

[Sheeana]

You know, the only thing I hate about living in a city apartment is that I can't have a herb/tomato garden. I've never tried gardening in my life, but I'd love to have fresh roma tomatos, and basil. *sigh*

[Lizra]

Someday! Puttering about the plants, sniffing living herbs, it's really calming. Growing some lettuce in the early spring, then making that first salad...a great simple pleasure! Hope you can green your thumb up someday!

[Lizra]

Originally posted by congressmn
wow so much to read for free. those were some handsomely written pieces.

Thank you!

[Baby-K]

Hey, Liz - those were well written! Are those the pieces you submitted to the newspaper you wrote for?

'fraid I'm not much of a gardener myself (it usually ends up in a tug o' war with the dogs - whatever I plant they pull out ), but it's almost time for my favourite flowers to start blooming - sweetpeas! They give the dullest wintergarden such a burst of colour & I love they way they smell (Also love Daffodils, can't wait for them to start blooming either).

[Lizra]

Yes, those are some of my garden columns. Thanks! Though I really like dogs, I don't have any of those hole digging critters! Just cats. Death by dog paw is a common happening in the garden. I try to leave a few open spots, in areas that I notice the cats like to laze in the sun in. Of course, the herb garden, with the catnip patch seems to attract them most. Winter garden? Sounds neat! I'm afraid zone 5 (my zone) has a winter garden of snow drifts! I did sweet peas one year, but didn't get too many blooms. They must not like hot and humid Indiana summers! What season is it where you are K?

[Baby-K]

Well, it's officially winter now, but luckily we don't get snow etc though we have had cases of black frost that have killed my dad's rose garden - it used to be his pride & joy & he had 58 different bushes - all different colours & names, of which the Black Rose and the green ones were my favourites because they're so unusual. I am not overly fond of roses, to me they symbolise formality, which is something that definitely does not suit me.

I should try & get a pic of my dad's garden & post it - 'specially in summer - we're quite lucky 'cos we can grow anything from succulents to sub-tropical plants & in summer the Tibutchina (sp?), jasmine, bougeainvillia (sp?), carnations etc are all in bloom. There's even a cherry-guava, pine-guava and my mom's fruitsalad plant and lemon tree, a peach tree and apricots & gooseberries - it's a bit of a hotchpotch - add to that the veritable zoo they have going on (what with 2 dogs, an avery full of birds and a fishpond) - it sometimes looks like a jungle And there's an open veld around, so there are often owls, wind falcons and all kinds of wild birds around - even get the odd turtle etc making their way into the garden.

[Lizra]

Ooh! That sounds interesting! You must be zone 6 or 7! Sorry about your Dad's roses! I don't grow them, they are too "touchy! The key too sucess is often picking the right plant! Even though it's supposed to be early summer here, It's been quite chilly for several weeks! Our heat still runs of a night! Bring on the 80's!

[Baby-K]

Ye should see that place - the one corner has a rock garden with all kind of succulents and cactii and right next to it he has a fishpond with sub tropical plants (watercrest, palms, ferns etc) going & the weird thing is they all grow, I guess he just has a greenfinger or summin - he always laughs at me 'cos I want to plant all the 'pretty little flowers', but I do it at the wrong time of the year or I forget to water them properly - either too much or too little.

I found out last night the one really funny looking plant in their garden is called a "Mother-in-Law's Tongue", it's a funny little thing that looks like a sharp tongue sticking out from the center of the plant. Haha - plants have the funniest names

Oh,, I wanted to ask you (I forgot) - what exactly is 'mulch'?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I believe it is a compost of decomposed plant material, right?

[Lizra]

Mother-in-law tongue is a common houseplant here. I was just talking about it today. People with "brown thumbs" like to grow it indoors cause it's almost impossible to kill! I guess it got it's common name because it is sharp, pointed plant, sort of like an evil mother-in-laws remarks?!

Mulch is shredded material put down around plants, trees or shrubs to smother weeds and retain moisture. It could be many things, but most commonly shredded wood or bark of some sort. It is used to beautify the yard in suburbia, so attractive nuggets of dark brown or reddish brown bark is usually used. This type is usually dyed. I've seen straw, leaves, wood chips, wood shavings, sawdust, dyed,shredded wooden pallets, shredded newspaper (ugly!) and coco hulls sold as mulch. The coco hulls are very pricey because they are a beautiful rich dark brown and make your garden smell like chocolate!
Any kind of natural material that is available in abundance could be used...puverized corn cobs, pecan hulls, seaweed, whatever was available would work. This type of vegetative organic material should be something that breaks down slowly and doesn't stink or attract animals though. Grass clippings are used sometimes, but they "compost" quickly and tend to steam and stink! Blah, blah, blah! sorry!

[Lizra]

Well, how about a little more non fiction! Sure wish somebody else would post some! This is for Hasty Ent and any other gardeners.

October Garden Friends

There are many seasons in the garden, and one way they can be identified is by their blooming flowers. In early spring, the tiniest bit of growth and green excites us, we watch for crocus, hyacinth, spring wildflowers and little Johnny jump ups. Then comes the traditional spring bloom we all love, redbud trees, tulips, daffodils and dogwoods. These flowers warm everyone's winter weary soul with their cheerful display. Late spring is one of the most beautiful. Gorgeous iris, peonies, poppies, and sweet smelling lilacs and lilly of the valley take our breath away.

As the summer growing season starts, things begin to get a little confusing. Every perennial under the sun comes up, and the stores are exploding with bedding plants. Naturally, I start planting as soon as I see them, and that's when the traditional seasons of bloom start to blur. There's so much blooming and being planted. By the time the petunias, marigolds, sunflowers and daylilies of summer proper are coming on, I take my cue to head inside for a couple weeks of air conditioning.

It's a different world when I emerge in late summer. The vegetable garden has totally gone to pot. I try to avoid it at all costs unless I feel the urge to can salsa or who knows what else. The gladiolus are finished and the clematis has come and gone. After a couple weeks of serious deadheading and cutting back, a new way of marking garden time emerges.

I begin to segment what's left of the gardening season by the bugs. First come the eagerly awaited lighting bugs in middle summer. Little ones delight in the miracle of creatures that actually light up! Fourth of July fireworks and lighting bugs make summer in Indiana the best. Then comes the equally incredible butterflies, also very popular among the young set. There's nothing prettier that a butterfly sailing on a warm summer breeze. I'll just pretend Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles and squash bugs don't exist, so that puts us at our present point in time, early fall.

To borrow a popular joke from my youth, "Why does the wooly worm cross the road? To get to the other side!" Now that I can finally drive down country roads without killing lots of butterflies, these silly wooly worms start running across them. Where are they going? What will they do there? Something to do with winter coming, no doubt.

The praying mantises are getting mighty big and turning brown. My garden is suddenly sporting lots of neat spider webs with big, fat, black and yellow striped spiders. Where did they come from? All of a sudden they're all over the place! Once again, I'll pretend the big ugly grasshoppers don't exist, and the noise from the crickets is tolerable as long as you don't think about it too much.

I certainly don't look forward to late fall's invasion of ladybugs. These Asian ladybugs have really turned into a major nuisance. One sunny day in October they'll start swarming my house. They'll come inside and stay with us all winter. Why, it wouldn't be Christmas without a couple hundred ladybugs all around! The sound of crunching ladybugs underfoot starts to make me crazy by January. Unfortunately, they seem to get worse every year.


(the rest was local stuff) Bugs are fun!

[Hasty Ent]

that was satisfying, Lizra...

you don't like the sound of crickets? I love their 'song' but HATE the sound of cicadas...

more non-fiction would be good, guys! we can't let Lizra bear this burden all alone

I'd offer one of my own contributions, but trust me, only an insomniac would care to read my sleep-inducing prose...

[Lizra]

Yeah, cicadas are icky! They are so scary looking too! They startle the cr*p out you when you disturb them in the trees.

This year we had a serious problem with deer flies in the late spring. They would swarm the car ( you were afraid to get out!) for about a month, also descending on you when going to the mailbox! I got about half a dozen fly swatters and kept two in the car so we'd could come out swatting. My son and I would have competitions with the body count! That was really bad cause they bite, and it hurts! Finally the weather changed and they went away!
Right now, we are having an abundance of sweat bees. Gazillions of them, hovering in place. What are they doing just hovering in their little territories? It's neat how each year the weather dictates a different pattern of insects. I hope the "day of gossamer wings" (those filmy spider webs that float in the breeze) is as stong as it was in 2001. One Saturday, late in Oct, 2001, the filmy webs were floating everywhere! Some people actually thought it was a terrorist thing (!) because the white webs were so abundant! It was awesome! Anybody else have bug stories (you know...non fiction! )

[Entlover]

Those are beautiful, Lizra!
Now it's September, do you have a piece telling us how to put our gardens to bed for the fall/winter? Where/when to plant bulbs? How much to cut back roses?
My poor little garden needs all the help it can get.

[Lizra]

Well, here's part of a November column....jumping the gun a bit, but it's what you request!

November Garden Friends

The annuals in the garden have died, the perennials are beginning hibernation, and the garage sales are going, going, gone. Basically, the party's almost over. Several frosts and a hard freeze have suspended much of the garden. Plants still linger, but most of the flowers are history. I can't complain though, I've enjoyed eight wonderful months of nonstop botanical beauty. Layer upon layer of plants have come and gone.

The warmer days of late fall are the best time for garden work. You don't get sweaty, the kids are in school, and the mosquitoes have disappeared. Watch out for the ladybugs though, they'll fly down your shirt and bite you.

Let's see, dahlias, cannas and gladioluses to dig, newer plants to label so I don't forget them over winter, and lots of dead things to cut down. I like to start out spring planting and dividing, so I try to get most of the clean up work done in late fall. When the tender new spring shoots come up, dead foliage just gets in the way. Some plants are attractive when dead, so I do leave various artemisias, ornamental grasses, and Autumn Joy sedum. Just make a note to get out there very early in the spring to cut them down. Things seem to happen so quickly in spring, it's quite easy to fall behind.

Of course, I leave all the live stuff, which is actually quite a bit. The first year biennials, such as sweet William, hollyhocks, rose campion, and mullein are still growing. Lots of perennials have been rejuvenated by the cooler weather. A walk through the garden last Thursday showed primrose, coreopsis, yucca, chives, columbine, borage, veronica, blue flax, Shasta daisy, garlic, red hot poker plant, calendula, forget-me-not, horseradish, poppies, lambs ear, bishops weed, strawberries, lavender, sage, thyme, catnip, snapdragons, hold it! The garden's not dead yet! It's just too chilly to enjoy it. Unfortunately, all these plants will eventually die back, and my winter interest will become my wood stove.

When you cut the dead plants back, don't leave the ground bare and exposed. Mowed leaves are perfect for covering the open areas and sleeping perennials, insulating them and enriching the soil. My wonderful in-laws have many mature trees in their yard, and they are kind enough to pick up the leaves with their mower and bag them for my garden. The crispy dried leaves look so pretty in all the golden hues of autumn. They smell good on sunny, early winter days. Dried leaves are gold for your garden, if you don't have your own, ask a friend or neighbor for theirs. Remember to save a few bags for mulch in the spring.

SPRING BULBS
I've never planted spring bulbs in my country garden, for fear that the chipmunks and squirrels would eat them. After watching my cats eat chipmunks and squirrels daily, I think it's worth a try. It seems that the first flowers of the season are the most treasured and admired. In the spring, my winter starved gardener's soul thrills at every new green growing thing. The fabulous bulb display at Botanica was all I needed to take the plunge. The bulbs weren't pre-packaged, so I was able to purchase any amount I wanted. The selection was out of this world, and individual bags and planting instructions were available for all the different varieties. Most of our local garden stores carry spring bulbs, so shop around and see what you can find.

The areas where I recently dug up the cannas, dahlias, and glads seems like the natural place to plant my new alliums, tulips, and narcissus. I'm going to plant them in half circles, towards the front, so there will be room for the summer bulbs late next May, in the middle of the half-circles and towards the back. I love trying new things in the garden, and look forward to my experiment next spring.



......So, there's some tips for bedding down the garden, it was fun to add the Entmoot smilies!

[IronParrot]

Now that I'm back in school I resumed writing for The Gateway, the campus newspaper. Last year I mostly did movie reviews and such for A&E, but this year I switched over to Opinion.

Enjoy. Also ignore the editorial errors (some actually weren't present in my original draft, but the section editor mistakenly introduced them... oops).

http://www.gateway.ualberta.ca/view.php?aid=1617

HAL 9000 garbage can accosts writer
Nicholas Tam

Ever since I discovered that certain four-letter words score assloads of points in Scrabble, my mother gave me stern warnings about talking trash. I had no idea she was being literal.

One weekend, while I was down in the tropical resort town of Calgary, I took lunch at a little place called North Hill Mall. What I saw there can only be described as an extraordinary feat of applied electronics. The traditional food court garbage units with the “PUSH” in front were nowhere to be seen; in their place were physically similar receptacles that exhibited marked behavioural differences. For instance, when I lowered a tray in front of one, the little infrared sensor in front detected the incoming cargo of post-taco flotsam, and the deposit door opened—by itself.

In an age when toilets flush better than we do, this was hardly surprising. But here’s the really nifty part: the garbage can spoke to me. And I don’t mean that in the pseudo-philosophical, “that Gateway article really spoke to me” sense. It actually said something profound about the grand environmentalist vision, and come to think of it, the pre-recorded voice did sound a little like former SU president Mike Hudema.

Granted, these semi-intelligent Garbage-Trons might be all over the place by now, but considering that my shopping savvy rarely exceeds a weekly run for Kraft Dinner and the latest issue of The Economist, this was something really special. You just know that somewhere, an aspiring sci-fi aficionado was having a good laugh about how Gene Roddenberry never came up with this one.

A quick search on Google revealed this to be WasteCare Corporation’s revolutionary Smart-Pack, whose primary selling feature is an automatic compaction feature that effectively multiplies its capacity tenfold. Now, if only they could make auto-compacting elevators.

Unfortunately, like all early-adopted technological marvels, the Smart-Pack is not without its shortcomings. Human laziness conquers all, hence the purpose of technology; ergo, no degree of waste-disposal-induced entertainment value is going to stop people from littering. What these beauties really need is a litter deterrent, like a pair of go-go-Gadget arms that reach out and give you a deserved backhand slap in the face if you’re caught leave a dirty tray lying around. Or if you throw out something recyclable, like an aluminium can, it can spit it back out with a curt “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” This might be a bit of a safety hazard if an ejected bottle hits a kid in the face, but the little brats need to learn the hard way nice and early.

Aside from these wish-list recommendations, the real problems with the Smart-Pack are less technological than they are economic. I witnessed a periodic rotation of janitorial employees that were clearly above opening a door and removing a garbage bag every hour. Instead, they were specialists wearing utility belts loaded with screwdrivers and Geiger counters and the like, fiddling around with a nest of circuitry as if defusing a bomb. Budding electrical engineers be warned: the state of the job market in the tech sector is shambled to the point where you are going to end up servicing garbage bins in shopping malls.

At the other end of the spectrum, janitorial staffs are going to see widespread layoffs and skyrocketing unemployment as the Smart-Pack increases in prevalence. Given the level of experience that I imagine is required to maintain these contraptions, we can now strike professional custodians off the list of no-qualification jobs. That means more desperate job-seekers will end up turning to companies like Aramark instead, which will be unequivocally bad for our health in all the ways that tidy public areas are good.

Others might say that this is the first step towards a Terminator-esque future where intelligent waste receptacles will rise up and kill as all, but between you and me, that’s a load of garbage.

[Lizra]

Excellent writing! Love it, IP! I saw one of these talking trash cans at a "Taco Bell" last year. I remeber it burped after my son threw his trash in...he LOVED it!
Actually, there were two machines, but one was already jammed and suffering from severe machine indigestion...broken. (lazy employees allowed it to eat too much? )The second one disappeared later. The trash business is a tough one!

[IronParrot]

Thanks, Lizra. There's going to be more where that came from. Obviously it's in a very different vein from your gardening column...