Links that may or may not be related to gardens, food, travel, nature, or heterotopias and liminal spaces but probably are. Sources in parentheses.
essay: The repetition of things: An experiment (Madeleine Dore/On Things). She walks a park loop every day for a month, noticing and reflecting, and she includes this quote: “I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” — Thomas Wolfe.
short article: 4 Reasons to Let Your Lawn Grow Wild: A beautiful lawn doesn’t have to be plain (Angely Mercado/Popular Science). Native grasses & plants use less water than a typical lawn; biodiverse lawns create their own fertilizer and make for tougher, more climate-resistant lawns; and pollinators need plants we call weeds.
essay: Thick-skinned and unpalatable. But enough about me… (Andrew Timothy O’Brien/Bramble & Briar). “[T]he things I want to grow [in the vegetable garden] seem far more appetising to the slugs who live in my soil than anything the garden grows of its own accord, and direct sown plants tend to be mown down by a hoard of voracious slimy things the moment they have the temerity to stick their heads above the soil. I’ve tried beer traps, and copper tape, and I don’t much like the notion even of ‘wildlife friendly’ slug pellets. Neither am I one of those mollusc-murdering gardeners who wait until nightfall before appearing outside with a head torch, a pair of scissors and vengeance in their hearts – I kind of think the slugs have a reason to be here, and a part to play, and getting cross with them for eating your lettuces makes about as much sense as getting cross with the neighbourhood fox for killing your chickens when you’ve plonked an all-you-can-eat buffet in their domain. So, direct sowing is out…” Same here, pretty much.
game: More or Less. Pits one country against another and you have to guess which country has the higher population. Some are ridiculously easy, like India vs. anyone, while others differ by only 10,000 people or so.
photo essay: Misadventures in Container Gardening (Boaz Frankel/Rootbound). Unassuming yet possibly inspiring essay on planting two small container gardens in a somewhat shady spot to “thrill, fill, and spill.” The naturalistic look Boaz is going for includes sedge (Carex pensylvanica), maple-leaved alum root (Heuchera villosa), Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) — which can get tall; it does in my garden — and for more colour, geranium (Geranium maculatum) and fringed bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia).
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