!!!! SEPP to Boot: Stephen's Experience (BEL)

Does your mystery plant above have white, sticky sap? Could the buds be flower buds? Looks like prickly lettuce to me.

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:BRK #33
While paying homage at Swamp Castle, I plucked this oddity out of the ground. Another boot remarked that it had been in the ground a bit too long, and they were probably right. I'll eat it as part of tomorrow's breakfast, regardless.

Just had one like that in my stir-fry. Might be slightly past it's prime for eating raw, but doesn't look like it bolted, should still be good.

How very proper of you to have it with ze breakfast...

Jan White wrote:Does your mystery plant above have white, sticky sap? Could the buds be flower buds? Looks like prickly lettuce to me.

No sap I could detect on that one. I'll keep an eye on the stalks and see if any flowers come out of those buds. We typically nab that prickly lettuce before it grows very large, though as I'd been away for the past couple of weeks there's definitely one that could have slipped through. We'll see.

Thanks for the suggestion!

BRK #34

Hot work outdoors today! Things are settling down after six full weeks of events, and I'm grateful for the return of a kind of routine.

When stepping outside after lunch today, I detected movement in the potato patch... Turned out it was a Panda!



Another wilderness sighting... Caleb snapped this image of a Rocky Mountain Hirsute Dipshit, apparently digging a small hole while standing inside a larger one. Their motivations and habits are largely unknown, though it is clear they are attracted by vegan pastries and the sounds of thrash metal music.



Finally: In all seriousness let me wrap up with some of the reading I'm picking through in an effort to quiet-down my evenings and level-up my days. The stonework reminds me of one of my old housemates from years ago, who is an accomplished stoneworker in Baltimore. After trying my hand at dry-stack walls for a BB a week or so ago, I wanted to take it a bit more seriously and add a wall to the hugels of Basecamp 1. Hopefully that book will help.

"Gardening in Cold Climates" can do nothing but improve matters, as I'm not convinced my gardening here these past few months is much more than an embarrassment. But with this guidance and after applying a few techniques my fellow boots have recommended, I know I'll turn the corner.



Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BRK #35

Jan White wrote:Does your mystery plant above have white, sticky sap? Could the buds be flower buds? Looks like prickly lettuce to me.

Jan, all signs point to the idea that you're right. I had a discussion with Dez today about the plant, and we looked at it in detail. Here are a few more snapshots of what led him to confirm that it was a variety of prickly lettuce.

Here's a shot of the underside of the leaves with more detail. Also note that the leaf wraps all the way round the stem.



Dez cut a stalk and sure enough, something that looked and felt like Elmer's Glue seeped out. A few other interesting details: here's a flower on it:



It also had seeds similar to dandelion and salsify (apologies for the very blurry picture here):



Thanks again, Jan!

Other bits from today... Looks like someone moved into Basecamp 1! Maybe it was earlier this week, or maybe even last week and I hadn't even noticed. We'll see if the cats do their job on this one. The only one who seems interested is the kitty Frances, and all she does is shove her entire head and a paw into the hole at even the slightest sound. Will she catch whatever it might be?



Also, speaking of Basecamp 1, I retrofitted one of the patches with mini-terraces. I didn't plant vegetables on there, instead opting for some cover crop: alfalfa, red clover, and hairy vetch. Having anything in the soil with living roots - besides grass, that is - is better than nothing. I just hope the cats stop jumping all over them.



Finally: Caleb, Hao and I took a field trip over to Fred's plot at the Lab and did a bit of dirty work over there today. Here's a photo of the four buckets of gravel that I had sifted out of rubble, then hauled down the hill (at least it wasn't up the hill!) to where Caleb and Hao were digging.



And here's the dynamic duo themselves, Caleb and Hao, digging out the last bits of a three-foot deep hole large enough to fit a 55-gallon drum. Good work, guys!



Thank you for reading, and enjoy your day...!