Bolting and fungi in a permaculture garden

This morning, before the +40°C weather hit, I put out some more egg shells into the garden to discourage snails from chewing through the leaves, and sprayed the plants with the jalapeño infused water, to deter squirrels. Not five minutes after I have sprayed, a neighbour of the squirrel persuasion came to visit. It circled the garden perimeter on the fence, sniffing suspiciously, and decided the garden did not hold any bounty of interest. I’ll take it as a good sign.

Before spraying, I have poked at a few more radishes on top of Tower 4, and pulled out those …

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First harvest

Wednesday morning, I have spent some time in the garden placing crushed egg shells around the plants in the permaculture towers that showed signs of snails partaking in the leaves. Egg shells also provide minerals to the soil as they break down, so I figured I would annoy the snails and feed the garden in one go.

While in the garden, I have seen a few Easter Egg radishes poking out of the ground ready for picking, so I took the opportunity to pluck those out. Seeing how some of the greens had juicy-looking leaves, I …

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Permaculture tower progress

It has been almost a month, since I have planted seedlings into my permaculture towers, following the garden preparations and the building of the towers. Each day I marvel at the strong green plants sprouting out of the towers. Some are already blooming, a few small green tomatoes have formed, and with each rain things get greener and wilder. Here is a progress update on the plants, with photos on May 27th (day 1), June 10th (day 14), and June 20th (day 24). You can click on the thumbnails to see more detailed, larger photos.

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Puzzle: Grand Canyon, Arizona, U.S.A.

A beautiful puzzle, a pleasure to do. Might be a little challenging for a beginner, due to the large areas of orange rock. The sky is only 4 pieces deep, with a clearly defined bottom boundary with the rock, the sea area is well-defined with two arc shapes of foam dividing it into easily-managed gradient-coloured regions. The trees at the bottom right and the top of the orange rock are darker than almost anything else in the puzzle. All these regions are good places to start.

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Puzzle: The Terrace at Sainte-Adresse by Claude Monet

A beautiful painting, this puzzle would be very pleasant if the makers had left out the “magic effects” of the shiny pieces that change hue based on the viewing angle, and had focused instead on the cut of the pieces. Not only does the shine make it hard to assemble this puzzle in anything but perfect bright daylight, it is not completely clear when the two pieces fit together, introducing a chance of error, especially in the uniformly-coloured regions such as the sky and the sea.

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No summer without Sangria

The last few days have been rainy, so I haven’t been able to do much in the garden except watch things grow. I have been interviewed for the Shop of the Month section on the Keepers of Enchantment blog, have created many a treasury on Etsy to celebrate the summer, and have made some new amethyst belly beads in a children’s size.

As I stepped into the fresh wet outside world this afternoon, right after the rain, took a deep breath …

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Puzzle: All about tea

As interesting as this idea is in theory, I did not enjoy this puzzle much in practice. Sure, learning about the history and making of tea is enlightening, yet I do not think a puzzle is the appropriate medium for this. Putting together the perimeter with the small text was tedious and did not make reading the text easy until the puzzle was complete. The green arrows with headings, and the colour of the small images for each paragraph (that are so tiny it is hard to tell what is depicted on them), can serve as guides to the placement of the puzzle pieces.

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Planting seedlings into permaculture towers

Following the garden preparations and the building of permaculture towers, I have planted different types of large and cherry tomatoes, eggplants, sweet and hot peppers, carrots and radishes, butternut and spaghetti squash, kale and Swiss chard, cucumbers, and a variety of herbs. Below are the photos and notes on each plant’s uses, environmental preferences, and useful plant combinations.

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Puzzle: Buzzard’s Roost, Fall Creek Falls

Buzzard's roost, med
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 67.95 cm x 48.1 cm
Producer: Mega Puzzles, Vibrant series, 2013, No. 51420ABN, A28103LP
Artist: Very unfortunately, Mega Puzzles prints a copyright for the entire series with several names of the artists (as opposed to the name of a single photographer who owns a particular featured image), and even through searching I was not able to determine which artist took this photo. If …

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