Possible Cooperation

Again I made green soup - thick with rocket and mustard leaves! Fry onions, throw in the leaves and stew for a while. Add water and tomato paste, then blend.

While picking the leaves for the soup, I took a look at the spinach plants that I'd only cut the central leaves from 2 weeks ago - normally, the root is cut: fast picking. Yes, the plants grows new leaves. OK, it is more laborious, but those tender spinach leaves are incredibly sweet! And the initial seed will produce a greater total output, but is it worth the extra effort? Another case of cost benefit.

I noticed this season's first Colchicum (naked ladies) last week. Several are flowering in the sheltered dip, away from wind chill. Soon more will blossom on the slopes. Note that Cochicum species have 3 styles and 6 stamens, while crocuses have 1 style and 3 stamens.

North of our land are bare bluish slopes of serpentine stone. Years ago I tried planting couch grass toots, the bane of farmers and gardeners as they just can't be eradiacted. Nothing was growing, and the roots did not grow either... How will ecological restoration deal with such a challenge?

Verbascum, mullein is a biannual plant that does well on tough soils where other plants do not manage to thrive. On the left and right are this summer's plants: in their first year, as the root settles into the soil, the rosette of pale green leaves forms above. In the second year, the stem pushes up, flowering in the summer and shedding seeds around November (the closest to the camera). The darker one further back flowered in 2019. Though the thick stalk and dried out leaves have no function for the plant itself, they are precious pioneers. Still firmly anchored, the crumbling rosette offers other plants shelter if they want to risk the challenge. One ecological restoration technique is to "plant" acorns there. Not acorns, but what about two dozen long thin striped oleaster seeds (Elaeagnus, silverberry or oleaster) seeds? Or some seed balls might have better chances of retaining moisture...

Other places where seed balls might have a better chance, moss under juniper trees which comes to life in cooler months then dries crisp and black in the summer heat. Mosses can grow on unusual substrates, such as bottles or cans.

Our last setting sun of 2020 highlights the top of the staw bale Mandala building.

Who's that in the glasshouse? We're keeping tabs...