Dear Diary: January 20

[lblanchard]

Although I'd love to have space to grow butter beans, it's also very nice to be able to walk to a store that sells mugs and tea like these. I bought this mug because it reminds me of the illustrations for Monkey Subdues the White Bone Demon, although I didn't find Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy, or the monk once I got it home.

The tea is oolong and not my favorite. There's a tea-shop about a mile and a half from here, but it's not convenient to go to it in the winter because of the short days and the snow. But I just found out that they do mail order! For the cost of two bus tokens I can have my Earl Gray/Darjeeling blend and my Blue Eyes sent to me! The deed is done.

I still only see one swelling bud on the nopalxochia, but it's early days yet. Reading through the entries I tagged "nopalxochia", I was reminded that I had gone on a quest for bloom booster plant food last year. Everybody will get a drink of the stuff this weekend.

There's still no sprouting on the hippeastrum 'gervase' but the bulb neck is greening up nicely. 'Exotica' and its pup are both sprouting. Downstairs the adults have all put up leaf shoots, the offsets are greening up, and 12 bulbs from the Class of 2006 have shoots.

I made three resolutions for the New Year, one of which has already been modified.
They are/were

1. Keep a food journal
   
2. Eat a fruit and/or a vegetable at every meal, including breakfast
   
3. Go outside every day, even if only to the mailbox. This was amended in the first snowstorm, to "do not stay inside on two consecutive days."

Modest resolutions all, and I should be able to keep them.

Comments

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I'm just hopeless at getting an amaryllis to repeat flower. I've tried following all the rules, and it still just doesn't work.

I think I'll stick to begonias...

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

One of mine has been repeating for six or seven years now. Of course, our light is different than yours, but here's my routine:

Bring them inside into our unheated but not freezing back house in early September and do not water.

Bring into the real house around new years and water.

I used to do that whole dark closet routine but I stopped after the year I forgot about them until April and found I had blanched flower stalks. They do what they do when they do it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lblanchard/443505564/

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

My mother's amaryllis was destroyed by the kitty. Kitty thought it would be fun to play with.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

You mean kitty pulled the bulb out of the pot and ate it? I thought they were poisonous...

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

no, the blossom ...is torn now. Apparently it ruffled it bit in a breeze when the heat came on, and she attacked it. The cat.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

That's a disappointment, of course, but the plant itself will live to bloom another year.