Attack of the killer mold! Aaaaaahhh!!! So far I'm mostly keeping it under control. It's been after my miniature rose and mimosa tree. *grumbles at it* Not anything else.
The wolfberry seedlings fell down and died, =o I have more seeds I can try planting, thankgoodness, but I think I'm gonna try a smaller pot next time so that I can be more careful. I might wait til early summer for them. I'm not sure how well my lemongrass is doing, there's only a few blades. One of which is fairly decent sized. They're stronger than the worlberries were so I'm leaving them where they're at. I'm sorta hoping I won't need to buy more lemongrass seeds and try again in the spring. They're tropical, warmth-and-humidity-loving plants, so I knew it was a little bit of a gamble anyways.
Dandelions are HAPPY. My Goddess. Happy, happy, happy! I'm trying to research more about raising dandy's atm...
Okay, here we are; Dandelions don't need bees to have babies. Well, they're considered weeds, weeds are usually hussies. They don't need other plants to have babies either, they just automatically have them as long as they flower and are happy. They're hard to transplant, which may cause a little panic with me as they grow -- you've seen pictures of their pots. There's at least two plants in each pot, which means they'll eventually get a bit crowded. I wasn't planning on having this planted outdoors, either. I was simply gonna give them a reprieve from the house outdoors in the late spring into the summer and let them have babies (so that they'd float all across the lawn, hopefully and so that I could collect more seeds and make a bed specifically for dandy's.). They're biennials, so they should only live for two years. Also: normally dandy's experience winters, so I'm hoping they don't get too mad at me for raising them through this winter into the next. I know some of 'em grow in places it never gets cold and some people grow them in their apartments, and their beings weeds I'm sure they'll adapt...but that's one other little thing I'll have to think about. Every two years I'll have to make extra sure to collect seeds to plant in pots.
Wikipedia also had this neat thing to say: many dandelions are genetically triploid. An odd number of chromosomes usually is associated with sterility, but dandelions with this karyotype can reproduce without fertilization, by a process called apomixis.[7]
Dandelions have a ton of species, because although they don't NEED others of themselves to have babies, they still have the ability to be pollinated and have babies via other dandy's. Fascinating. (Hussies, I told you!)
I have alot of reasons of wanting to encourage dandelions to populate where I live. I'll list them for you: (1. Bees adore them. We must always try to please our friends, the bees. Us food-loving farmers would be lost without them, surely. (2. Candied dandelions are delicious, and the leaves are good for dinners when you've nothing else. (3. I'm not above spreading the seeds via human beings. They're edible plants AND weeds, meaning they're tough to kill by the average new-grower and they may help keep this poor (probably city-dweller) fed. Heck, I'm developing an adopt-a-tree program next year, I might as well also have a free dandelion seed giveaway should my aim to spread them across our lawn and into a concentrated bed succeed and I suddenly find myself with a ton of seeds on my hands. (4. For these reasons, I'm pretty sure dandelions could save the world.
Oh yeah. Take any one of these reasons and go forth with your own dandelion endeavors!
...In other news, our eldest cat Ozzy was let out yesterday and still hasn't returned. It's been raining and windy, so I'm hoping he just took shelter somewhere and hasn't bothered to try coming back yet. Mom's afraid some hunter mighta shot him, even though he's black and white and obviously not a rabbit or deer.
I also heard this song on tv just a few minutes ago:
Indie rock band. On tv. *whistles*Awesomeness, ftw. I think it was some energy drink commercial or sommat, I wasn't WATCHING the television...I was writing about dandelions on here. Something that doesn't require my eyes, I know, but yes.
Oh? What's it called? Why don't you guess?
...It's My Body is a Cage by Arcade Fire. It easily gets stuck in my head like some of Iron & Wine's songs, lol.
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