Little Good Things Growing

One of my favorite sayings of Amanda’s was always “invest in things that grow”, and it just so happened we left our high rise apartment dwelling in the winter after she took her own life, and for the first time in my life I owned outdoor space. Now every growing season I tend to my tiny urban patches daily, and it’s one of the most rewarding undertakings I have ever known.

In July I harvested beets for the first time, from what I call my $0 garden. Alpine Mignonette Strawberries are in their second year and were grown from seed. Golden beet seeds from a seed exchange with an old schoolmate. The cherry tomato is a volunteer from my compost.

The beets and tomatoes were incorporated into this lovely salad. One day I’ll grow the carrot, cucumber, ginger and lettuce too!
My basils’ (Genovese & Purple Petra) haircut got turned into pesto with some old chopped walnuts sitting in the pantry. When I grow sunflowers again I’ll be using sunflower seeds instead.
I trimmed yam leaves from the grocery store and rooted them in water. Once the roots were several inches long I transplanted them into soil. Now I have yam leaves to eat from my own roof!
I also bought a kabocha pumpkin many months ago and saved and germinated the seeds. This may be my only fruit from the endeavor, but we’ve enjoyed the blossoms all spring and summer so far.
Another “volunteer” tomato. This one is apparently not a cherry variety.
I saved a pineapple top from a pineapple from the grocery store. I was able to get it to root in water and then I transplanted it in soil. Due to the fact that this method only produces a single pineapple in 3-5 years. I have taken to calling it “Mini’s (High School) Graduation Pineapple” ??
This is a volunteer morning glory that got carried to me by the wind or the birds. There is a diner down the street with a whole wall of this stuff so I think of it as a gift from them.
The last harvest of July: I plucked some tomatoes and trimmed a little basil for upcoming pizza night. I also found a single All-Stars Strawberry which is another variety that I have but isn’t a very productive bunch. The kabocha blossoms I nip because I rarely see female blossoms that can be pollinated to produce fruit, so we end up just eating all the mostly male blossoms.

Trying Something New

For months now, maybe even close to a year, I’ve been gently nudging Mini to post some of her really wonderful poetry on here (don’t worry, she’s fairly compensated!) but she’s understandably shy & rather busy too. So I thought why don’t I take the first plunge and stop being a hypocrite. I am in fact going to be a plagiarist and also title this, in Mini’s style,

 

Some Sort of Poem

for some reason

I am afraid

someday it might be like

I’ve just imagined you

all along

*

we’re all familiar

with the old adage

that you die a second death

when someone utters

your name

one final time

*

What of the living?

Do we all

lose you again?

When we forget

When we might not even

register

that we’ve said what

made us think of you

one last time

without

meaning to

*

if our voices were

so powerful

that we could

(even unknowingly)

deliver you into oblivion

why have I not

been able to

speak you

into existence.

 

That’s all, that’s the whole post.

Elizabeth Holmes

Andrea Circle Bear

Diana Sanchez

If your feminism doesn’t acknowledge how gender based oppression is compounded with racial subjugation, then equality is not what you’re really about. That’s all.

For Messy Girls

“Then of course there’s the gender piece of the way that I was shamed for just living in chaos all the time. Because there is this idea, and this is why I’m such a good feminist, because I’m such a bad woman, there’s this idea that if you’re a girl, if you’re a woman, you’re just naturally tidy.” – Kimberly N. Foster

Check out her full video here:

I got dragged on Twitter because I’m a hoarder. Let’s discuss it.