|
|
|
arugula and basil
Wednesday, December 2 2009
I want to stagger the maturity peak of my greenhouse leaf crops, and, since over a week ago I planted a tray of lettuce, today I planted another tray of greens, this time arugula (which, unlike the Asterid lettuce, is actually a member of the Mustard family, that is Cruciferæ/Brassicaceæ). After I crowed to Gretchen about this rare greenhouse-used-as-a-greenhouse accomplishment, she mentioned our need for basil (a member of the mint family), so I immediately went and prepared another pot and planted basil seeds. For both the pot of arugula and the pot of basil, I concocted the planting soil out of a mix of loamy Esopus River floodplain soil, a cup or more of dark brown fecal tea, and perhaps a quart of semi-composted human wastes (I say "semi" because the five gallon buckets of crap collected before the outhouse was built have entered biological hibernation in the cold weather). Bear all this in mind if you should ever find yourself eating a winter salad at my house.
I also went on a minor firewood gathering jihad, mostly collecting wood from near the greenhouse. I plugged my electric chainsaw into the greenhouse's outdoor 120 volt outlet and cut a bunch of dry oak stems into pieces, loaded it onto a handtruck, and then wheeled it up Dug Hill Road, into the driveway, and across the lawn to the woodshed. Though the topographic relief of this trek was greater than the kind I normally encounter along the Stick Trail, bringing it home was nevertheless easier, mostly because the ground and roadway of the route was considerably smoother and there wasn't that schlep up the steps at the end.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?091202 feedback
previous | next |
