Seeds and Songs

[brightly_lit]

I discovered this morning that my sound card died. :-( It was 17 years old, lol. But I thought of it as my "good" sound card, as it's the only one I ever actually installed rather than just using what came with the computer. Meanwhile, the computer seems to have forgotten entirely about the soundcard that it came with; it doesn't even show up in the hardware list, though it's still physically in the computer. So I bought a very cheap little dongle that just has inputs for mic and headphones, so at least I can hear my old favorite casual games and listen to music if I really want to on that computer. And after 17 years, I guess the technology has improved so much that I hardly notice a difference between it and my fancy sound card! *sigh*

I took a chance on a new seed company that was pretty well reviewed on reddit because they had lots of varieties of something it's kind of hard to find seeds for (sorghum). I bought a ton of seeds for a bunch of different kinds of plants, planted at least fifty seeds, and so far, after six weeks, only two have come up! One of which (a pumpkin) randomly died a few days later, and the other of which is still -- just barely -- alive. I'd say it was user error, except that nearly every other seed I've planted from other sources is doing great. So that's a bummer. I was so excited about those seeds.

Also, I'm currently totally obsessed with this hauntingly beautiful song, and this artist. I already loved the songs he contributed to 86, then when I found out he did the AWESOME theme song for To Be Hero X, I went looking for the rest of his stuff. Turns out pretty much everything he does is amazing:

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[brightly_lit]

Lol, I've thought so many times about chopping down that plum tree, as did the previous owner of this place. But space for fruit trees is limited in the garden, I'm not sure I could eat a whole tree's worth of apricots or sour cherries every year, and there it stands, the perfect "rootstock" for my grafts, so I do hope to turn it into many other kinds of trees, if I can find some good scions. But I might cut off some of the branches that push into the other two trees! Naturally, it splits low on the trunk, with one split heading directly in the direction of the one neighboring tree, the other into the other, sigh.

Your ecosystem sounds awesome! I too love a natural ecosystem on my land as much as is reasonably possible. The land here is very wild, and I've had to let a lot it do whatever it wants out of necessity. I've been amazed this year at the new varieties of plants growing where nothing of the sort grew last year. It's rather beautiful.

I prefer to freeze things, too, but I run out of room in my freezer too fast, so I also can some things. What Chinese and Japanese greens do you grow? I'm growing some mizuna now (and having some success for the first time), and my CSA once gave us shungiku which was interesting, but those are about the only ones I know of besides bok choi.

[abject_reptile]

Arugula (two kinds), senposai, green shiso, tah tsai, garlic chives. I'd recommend senposai and tah tsai. The latter seems less attractive to cabbage worms although that might be due to where I planted them this year. Both are suitable for salads and stir fry and have a mild mustard green/bok choi flavour. It's been very hot the past few days and they've started to bolt.

I feel an obligation about my bit of land because it was part of an endangered ecosystem (Garry oak meadow) and should never have been developed. It should have been part of the eco-reserve higher up the mountain. No doubt whoever comes after me will cut everything back again but for now it's bird habitat. It's fenced to discourage the bigger critters.

You'd need to dry the apricots.