So, here is the news. After making a few cheeky enquiries, I have the assurance that my allotment, originally given to me on a six month "trial" basis, is now mine. I can pay my £50 annual fee in the new year, at which point I become a fully fledged, official allotmentier. This makes me HAPPY, and I hope it makes you happy too.
The possibilities! Sarah, my incorrigible friend and fellow plant enthusiast, and I have already met to talk about seeds and make various plans for the future, as alluded to in a previous post. Now that this is all "official" though (or as official as it can be, allotment people are a very laid back lot) my imagination is really starting to run wild.
Let's talk about the shed. A humble, and deceptively simple artefact is the garden shed but even a little digging about online reveals a rich subculture of enthusiasts and an enticing niche history of its own. Here is George Bernard Shaw modelling his very own "rotating writer's shed", which sat on a turntable so that he could rotate it through the day to keep facing the sun (image courtesy of Apartment Therapy).
Other literary figures with a fondness for sheds include Roald Dahl (nicknamed "mouldy" by his family for this very reason) as well as Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf and other dignitaries.
Here is the shed that currently sits on my allotment, outside:
Pathetic.
and in:
Mouldy.
It's barely worthy of the term "shed" if you ask me. For starters, it's made of plastic and I think we can all agree that all sheds must of necessity be made of wood. What's more, it's full of holes, only one of which was ever a window; the other is a door (frame, with no actual door) the other is just...a hole. This is no good. It'll have to go. So the question becomes, what to replace it with? And here the adventure begins.
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These are, according to the supermarket, "marvellous misshapes". I beg to differ. While nobody could be more in favour than I am of any initiative to present food realistically and - dare I say it - naturally, and in the interests of reducing waste, I'm not convinced that these decidedly uniform potatoes really qualify as misshapen. I'm inclined to wonder whether this might be just another example of consumerism commodifying a genuine concern. It would not surprise me in the least.
Oh well, never mind.
Topping up the wormery this morning I come across this curiosity; a potato I've left to chit over winter, experimentally, hoping perhaps to be able to plant it in the early spring.
Left entirely to its own devices, and the little blighter's making a jolly good go of things. Let's take a closer look
The mysterious and perhaps even sacred beauty of life is here, bursting from a shrivelled potato, the likes of which inspires me to use adjectives I'm not sure really exist. The word "spangly" forms on my lips. A spangly potato. Those shoots, with - can you see - embryonic new potatoes forming on them? I can't even find a sound that describes them. I gaze, idly enough, in silence and wonder.
This is just what life does, without us.
And, a whole world away, in many senses, supermarkets.
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The heart of the simple life is time. No, time is not money - and would you want it to be? - but it is a luxury. So: luxuriate. This week I perfected the art of roast potatoes. It's something I never would have found the time to do still working full time. A simple pleasure, and a simple art. Here are some tips, things you may already know but which I can confirm from experience are effective.
1. I'm using British white potatoes. Nothing fancy, 99p for 1.5kg at the Co-op. Slice roughly into quarters. Do not peel. The skins will add to the crispiness, which is what you want.
2. Bring to the boil for about 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat a pan/tray of olive oil in the oven to at least 200 degrees (C). I use a large perspex dish, the kind you might use for a casserole. Be generous with the oil. You need enough to be able to drizzle every potato.
4. Drain the potatoes. Shake them around in the pan to allow a little flakiness to emerge. Again, this provides further crispiness, which is what you want.
5. Remove pan of oil from the oven and add the potatoes. Use a spoon to drizzle the hot oil over every potato so that no surface is left unglazed. This part is very important.
6. Heat at no more than 180 degrees for about 25 minutes. Halfway through that time, turn the potatoes to ensure the developing golden crispiness is spread evenly across every potato.
That's it. Delicious, simple, cheap, marvellous. You can spice things up a bit with some rosemary and garlic or even - a new discovery - butternut squash seeds. Add these at the mid-way roasting point when you turn the potatoes.
I really can't stress enough how wonderful it is it if you can find the time to cook for yourself. What you're cooking doesn't have to be complex or unconventional; it just has to be a joy to prepare and to eat. In doing this, you forge a connection with your ancient ancestors who discovered fire, and created civilization. Cooking was essential to this: necessity united with pleasure. You might want to read a book called "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human", which I have recommended at least once here before. It's a good read. Read, eat, sleep.
Morrissey gets it, too.
"Stop watching the news, because the news contrives to frighten you, to make you feel small and alone, to make you feel your mind isn't your own"
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I received a lovely message the other day from a redditor pointing out that it's been quite some time since I posted anything here. Indeed it has, and thank you for noticing. It's funny how you can go from being unhealthily preoccupied with something to forgetting about it almost entirely over the space of just six weeks. This blog has shifted from the front to the back of my mind as winter has drawn in, and I find myself contemplating various things I won't go into just yet, fighting the will to boredom and complacency and - most of all - sleeping.
I have been sleeping a tremendous amount, but really, why should that be anything to be ashamed of? The more I ponder it, the more it seems to me that many of the ills of human life are caused by a lack of sleep. Imagine if we all went to bed whenever it got dark, and slept until the sun rose again, every day, no matter what our waking commitments. Imagine if society were set up to allow for just such behaviour. I see no good reason why it shouldn't be.
Naturally, sleeping more means "doing" less, and that includes blogging, and it also includes allotmenting. This too is as it should be: it's getting to cold to do much digging, though I have found the time to begin my second, re-purposed bookcase raised bed.
Yesterday, however, I spent the afternoon at Sarah and Jon's, and while Jon was at work Sarah and I started planning how we might use the allotment space next year. I don't know for certain yet if the allotment will actually become "mine" after February when my "trial period" ends, though I'm optimistically working on that assumption.
Sarah remarked several times how she was "jealous" of my having an allotment, and is full of enthusiasm for growing edible things, as I am. I am also keen to grow in edible things too: as I remarked before, I'd like the place to be as much a work of art as it is a farm. Anyway, nothing to be jealous about; what's mine is yours. Property is nothing at all.
I even like the idea of just getting a load of seeds of as many varieties as I can find and throwing them all over the place, with no planning of any kind. That would be a lot of fun, and the result could be a remarkable sight, but not an edible one. So some planning is probably for the best. Here's what we've put together so far:
This isn't perfectly to scale, but it gives you a rough idea of the dimensions of the plot. Blue is planting space, white is walking or otherwise unused space. The gate is at the bottom right of the diagram, with the path running between 6 and 7/8. Here's what we plan to grow where:
1. This is my "acidic bed" where I've been dumping all the orange a citrus peels I can get my hands on, in the hope that they will acidify the soil and make better conditions for growing fruit. Thinking raspberries, and maybe other more unusual things like loganberries or some kind of cherry here.
2. The first raised bed, measuring approximately 8 x 3 feet. Broccoli, mustard greens, spinach, cress, rocket and other salad ingredients.
3. The second raised bed. Sweet potatoes, squash, courgettes. May require a polytunnel or some other covering.
4. Blackcurrant bush. Pruned back and trimmed and ready to go next year.
5. What I call "bed 2". At the top end, near to the blackcurrant bush, I have my rose bushes, in and amongst which I've included some cat mint as a companion. Sarah isn't so keen on these because they're not edible. But roses look nice, so they're staying, at least for now. I've dug out the rest of the space and did try some broccoli and onions from seed back in September, but nothing much seems to have happened here. The plan now is to use the space for peas, beans and sweetcorn, using rosemary, dill and marigolds as companion plants.
6. "Bed 1". It began as my herb patch, and that's how I'd like to expand it. Currently growing sage, rosemary and chives. Will add thyme, dill, borage, tarragon and any other herbs I like the look of. Mint will be kept in pots so it doesn't take over everything else undemocratically, as mint is wont to do. At the top end, near the gate, I've planted some garlic, which is coming on very nicely indeed. Down at the other end, some spring onions have established themselves, to my delight. In and amongst I hope to find room for more onions, cabbages and kale.
7. The greenhouse. Fairly dilapidated at the moment, but there's a strong frame that's staying put. I'm thinking of getting a large plastic sheet to drape over and tie in place, rather than going through the more laborious work of replacing all the panels. Inside the greenhouse: tomatoes (of the cherry variety, probably) various peppers, cucumbers/gherkins and basil. I'll need to get some kind of shelving in there too for starting things off in the early spring.
8. Outside and around the greenhouse: lawn chamomile. Another herb that apparently deters the sort of pests that might take a liking to pepper and tomatoes.
9. The shed.
10. The "inedible bed". Where I plant things that you can't eat, but look nice. Foliage, and my acer tree.
11. The space above the fruit bed has still to be cleared out, as has a fair bit of space along the back end, where bind weed, brambles and various other invasive greenery still claims territory. But that's for another year. You have to take things slowly. Don't worry. Get plenty of sleep. What else would you rather be doing? Be honest.
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It's been a very wet week, and with that, and one thing and another, I haven't been able to spend much time on the allotment. This is not what I want. Being on the allotment makes me happy. Thinking about it makes me happy. Doing and thinking about most other things, less so. An opportunity for some reflection.
Here's another one I took the other day, standing in the same spot:
Highly satisfactory, I think. The overgrowth from the second bed has been removed, and I now have two functional beds sowed with herbs, onions, broccoli and various other inedible contenders, in anticipation of a glorious spring.
The onions I sowed earlier in September are showing great promise.
Even the broccoli seeds, some of them, have shown some promise, with a little help from me.
I planted some garlic last weekend, but there's no point showing you that, because there's nothing to see yet. Your patience is required, and so is mine.
It's been a great pleasure to meet some of the insects and other tiny life making its way in this little green world
One edge of the plot, marking the border between mine and my meticulous neighbours', I call the inedible bed, which I am populating with shrubberies, vines and other evergreens I like the look of. I'm hoping the sickly acer tree I've planted there will last the winter and bloom next year.
Wild strawberries are everywhere. I pot them up as I find them. I have yet to decided what to do with them. Plenty more where these came from, so I will probably give some away. Or sell them, and become a strawberry millionaire.
Here's the blackcurrant bush, too, newly pruned and ready for the winter:
I'm pleased with my first raised bed. There's space and wood for another one in front of the one pictured here. I think I will probably use these for potatoes, which means I need to fill the space with compost and hopefully work out a way to acidify the soil slightly so that conditions are right. So much more to learn.
Gardening is happiness. That's just all there is to it. Find a way to garden, somehow. Get closer to plants. Get dirt beneath your nails. Get spider webs in your hair. Joy is there, I promise.
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There are two television series I've had any interest in watching this year (which is two more than in your average year, so well done The Media). One was Twin Peaks ("The Return") which was, and I think we can all agree on this, a masterpiece, up there with David Lynch's best work (namely, Mulholland Drive, his best film; and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, please don't hurt me, his second best). 2017's Twin Peaks pushed the boundaries of television, again, as much as did the original series in the early 1990s. Television as we knew it back then doesn't really exist any more, hasn't for a long time now, but Twin Peaks is one of the few works in the medium that actually recognised this. It luxuriated in non-linear, multi-level storytelling, toyed with the viewer's expectations, sense of reality, emotions and comprehension in the way that only David Lynch can. Lynch is a true genius - the Picasso of cinema - and the incredible 18-hour epic that was "The Return" will take years to appreciate and comprehend. It was written and filmed as a single entity, an 18-hour movie, that just happened to have been split into 18 parts by the convention of weekly serialisation, or possibly because to sit and watch the thing in a single 18-hour stretch would make your brains explode, opening uncloseable doors to worlds darker than we are yet equipped to navigate. Even if you're well-versed in Lynch already, and bring plenty of snacks.
I, for one, prefer not to comprehend it at all: Lynch's work is best understood subconsciously, indescribably - and slowly. The new Twin Peaks told its tale very, very slowly indeed, even without the delightful, Pynchonesque diversions into subplots of dubious relevance (whatever that means). In one typical scene, Albert Rosenfield waits patiently as Gordon Cole's unknown ladyfriend - never seen or referred to anywhere else in the story - puts on her shoes, adjusts her make up and kisses Gordon goodbye over the course of three full minutes before any meaningful dialogue is exchanged, the advancement of the actual plot, such as there is one, tacked onto the scene's final minute. In a time of cinematic universes and joyless encyclopedic fan theories - a time when television has long ceased to be a disposable, episodic distraction and become an immersive world, even a source of individual identity - Twin Peaks was the perfect antidote to the stifling nerd logic of consistency and sense.
The other series was Star Trek Discovery, whose first episodes aired over the weekend. When it comes to fictional universes, canons, excessive nitpicking, and "fandom", nothing surpasses Star Trek. It's an epic in a very different, more classical sense than the postmodern Twin Peaks, one which spans 50 years here in reality, multiple television series and movies, with several time lines, alternate realities, and a narrative spanning several hundred years in its own universe. That narrative, more from the weight of its own legacy than out of the artistic vision of a singular genius (Gene Roddenberry, visionary that he was, was no David Lynch) has been told in an increasingly non-linear fashion, ever since its last incarnation on television, Star Trek Enterprise, made a passable effort of filling in some gaps between the original 1960s series, set in the 23rd century, and our own reality of the late 20th to early 21st century, skimming over the twentieth century itself - what was the future when Star Trek was first written, but is now the past.
Star Trek Enterprise wasn't terrible, but it's not up there with The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, or Voyager - the so-called "golden age" of Star Trek (from 1987 to 2001 when those three series were on the air continuously) set in the same period of the 24th century, and enjoying a continuous look and feel that is as of its time (the 90s) as the original Star Trek was of its own (the 60s). Enterprise jumped back in time to the mid-22nd century, made some inventive additions to the backstory and sat plausibly enough within the so-called "canon" of Star Trek as a whole but in a more impatient, ratings-driven time, was cancelled after only four seasons, just when, arguably, it was starting to get good. And it never really shook off the feel that it wasn't quite, somehow, really Star Trek. If it was set before the, why did it look so much more advanced? The future isn't what it used to be, is the obvious answer, and there's nothing anybody can really do about that, but it was never going to be quite satisfactory. By contrast, consider the Lynchian penchant for setting his stories in worlds that are not quite real, but not quite fictional either, and even when ultra-specific in their cultural context, can never quite be pinned down inside a single decade. "But who is the dreamer?"
Now comes Star Trek Discovery - set, to the relief of most fans in the "prime" timeline (as opposed to the "Kelvin" timeline of the stupid, stupid J J Abrams "reboot" movies) but once again, it's a prequel. Well, it's sequel to Enterprise, but a prequel to everything else, taking place 10 years before the events of the original Star Trek series, i.e. sometime in the early-mid 23rd century, from which we know Captain Kirk, Spock, Dr McCoy, Scotty, Uhura and most of the other characters you've heard of even if you don't give two shits about Star Trek (in which case maybe you'd like to skip to the end of this post, where I actually get to the point). Hope you're getting all this.
So, several big "whys" hang over the series from the get-go. First of all, why set a new series of Star Trek here, and not chronologically after all previous Star Trek? It's science fiction after all, and one thing science fiction is about is the future, so why revisit the past? A second, related "why" - why did the creators choose to creatively restrict themselves like this? When you've such an enormous canon, and such an obsessive fanbase - the most vocal faction of which loves to discuss ad nauseum questions of consistency and continuity - why run the risk of upsetting them by making the "mistakes" you inevitably will? Although the first episode made sense to a more casual fan such as I - with Vulcans, Klingons, transporters, Starfleet and so on behaving more or less as you would expect them to - no doubt the hardcore Trekkies will have already been able to rip the plot to pieces, and, well, good luck to them. Everyone needs a hobby, and it's not like the creators weren't asking for it. But they could just have easily picked up sometime after Voyager left off - with whole new regions of the galaxy to explore, unencumbered by previous plots. Star Trek's greatness is pretty easy to pin down - take the modern, liberal society with all its pleasures and pains, stick it a few hundred years in the future on a frontier immeasurably more vast than the American frontier from which it draws its initial spirit - "Wagon Train to the stars" as Gene Roddenberry first pitched it - and use that as a context for satire, parody, and social commentary, all tied up in the comforting and conventional bundle of weekly, episodic television. Also, be really silly of the time. Simple, and therefore brilliant: modernist pop culture of the same calibre as Twin Peaks is as postmodernist pop culture.
Now perhaps if you're a regular reader of this blog you're wondering what any of this has to do with my usual concerns. It's this. Star Trek is about an optimistic vision of the future: something which, despite everything, I share. It's a particular type of optimism: Utopian, and unashamedly post-capitalist. (Communist, some would even argue, but let's not go there). It's not something you see a lot of in popular culture. In The Rebel Sell: How the Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture, authors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter elucidate the appeal of this vision:
"In Star Trek...the impact of information technology, markets and consumer goods...is almost completely ignored. Did Jean-Luc Picard ever hope that a short, decisive battle with the Borg would restore consumer confidence within the Federation? For all his vanity, did James T. Kirk ever show the slightest interest in fashion? ... It is tempting to view the absence of consumer products and consumerist values from the series as just bad writing and failure of imagination on the part of the show's writers. But that would be too quick and easy a conclusion. Another way of looking at is is as political allegory, of an enlightened future in which the citizens of the Federation have found a way of being individuals without being rebels, of wearing uniforms without succumbing to a deadening existential uniformity...We live in a society that is the exact opposite. We are all, to an unparalleled degree, self-conscious about what we wear, and the counterculture has played an enormous role in heightening this self-consciousness...The competitive structure of this self-presentation is never far from the surface. Each item must be acquired at an exotic locale, or in an offbeat manner, or for an exceptionally low price. Each item must be unique; it must have its own special story".
Star Trek at its best is about the human race having overcome its urges to dominate and conquer, a society "no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things", where "things" also pertains to money and political power as well as material possessions as such. It's about a humanity that's learned from past mistakes; something which in 2017, when even being an actual Nazi is a hair's breadth away mainstream political position, seems fantastical to say the least. The "final frontier" of Star Trek is not something to be conquered and civilized, as with the American frontier, but only to be peacefully explored. Where the wisdom of liberalism can be shared for the benefit of the less "advanced", it is, but never imperialistically; and as often as not, with the negative consequences of such an imposition equally in view. In the Next Generation episode, First Contact, Captain Picard - the archetypal cultured explorer, diplomat and gentleman, the antithesis of the more gung-ho, excessively macho (but nonetheless good-natured) Captain Kirk of the more confident, liberal 1960s (or 2260s) - shares the following exchange with the leader (called Durken) of a less technologically advanced planet who is suspicious of the Federation's motives. Their conversation runs as follows:
DURKEN: You speak the language of diplomacy very well, Captain. It is a language I appreciate and understand, but I have learned to not always trust it.
PICARD: Trust requires time and experience.
DURKEN: My world's history has recorded that conquerors often arrived with the words, we are your friends.
PICARD: We are not here as conquerors, Chancellor.
DURKEN: What do you want?
PICARD: A beginning. But how we proceed is entirely up to you.
DURKEN: And if my wishes should conflict with yours?
PICARD: There'll be no conflict.
DURKEN: And if I should tell you to leave and never return to my world?
PICARD: We will leave and never return. Chancellor, we are here only to help guide you into a new era. I can assure you we will not interfere in the natural development of your planet. That is, in fact, our Prime Directive.
A thousand light years away from any honest exchange you can imagine taking place between leaders in the real world, today. Which is of course the whole point: Star Trek is about hope. Hope for a less violent, aggressive, arrogant, domineering, self-destructive future. A hope some of us hang on to even while our extinction looms.
So what I was anticipating in Star Trek Discovery had little to do with whether it took place in the "prime" timeline, why the new Klingons look very different to how they "should" look, or to what extent the story it told would be consistent with canon. I was just looking for a Star Trek that retained some of the original vision of its creators: a less violent, materialistic, humanity. One less prone to interpersonal conflict. In time of box-set aficionados - I've never watched Breaking Bad, or The Wire, and I'm not going to so stop telling me to - I need the escapism of a truly idealistic entertainment. Star Trek seems to my best bet. But the signals I received from the first episode were...mixed.
The series begins with a personal confrontation, the sort Gene Roddenberry would never have allowed, on the bridge of a star ship between the protagonist Commander Burnham and her captain, Georgiou over an apparent "mutiny" by Burnham. Each points a weapon at the other, but no shots are fired. Burnham is confined to the brig. Then there are lots of special effects, and we meet the new Klingons, cast once again as aggressors and villains. Captain Georgiou attempts to reassure the Klingons that Starfleet come in peace. It's a fairly promising start. Later in the episode, their conflict (sort of) resolved, Burnham and Georgiou beam onto a Klingon ship and they fight. It's bloody and violent in a way that classic Star Trek very much is not. Georgiou is impaled and killed. Burnham survives, and is stripped of her rank, and sentenced to imprisonment for her mutiny. The stage is set, if the teasers for later episodes are anything to go by, for a story arc on Burnham's redemption under a new captain on board the eponymous star ship Discovery. Other stuff happens too. A stand-out scene involves Burnham reasoning with the ship's computer to release her from the brig, on ethical grounds. It's an encouraging nod to several key Star Trek themes: humanity vs. technology, the value of individual life, and classical heroism.
Still, the whole thing felt a little bit too slick. Heavy on visual detail, but low on character, in several senses of that word. Of course it's too early to make those kind of judgements but I'm not holding out much hope of seeing much of another of Star Trek's strengths: silliness. Silliness is vital component of any serious art form, but there just doesn't seem to be much room for it in television series that are made to last. It dates quickly, and seems flippant. Science fiction (and fantasy, I think, though I'm not interested in that - no, I'm not going to watch Game of Thrones either) today has to be "dark", serious, woven seamlessly with CGI but only, it would seem, as an afterthought, fun. Fun is the key to serious and important truths. So is silliness. So is your fat mum.
Twin Peaks is silly, albeit in its own twisted way. It's "dark" and serious too - remember that its tragic core is the tale of a teenage girl abused and eventually murdered by her deranged and possibly demon-possessed father - but it's never, in the flattening sense of that term, realistic. Fiction isn't supposed to be realistic. The real world is a pretty awful place at the moment for most human beings; it's perverse to try replicate it for entertainment purposes. I'll give Star Trek Discovery a fair viewing, but once it's over, that's it. No more new television. I'm going outside.
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I've enjoyed reading articles that have appeared over the weekend about sleep, and how about most of us don't get enough of it. It's one of those things that we all know, but barely talk about. How often, when asking someone how they are, do they respond, after the obligatory "fine" with some derivation of the word "tired"? How often, in fact, do people tell you they're "knackered"?
How strange that we accept this; that most of us are tired, most of the time. In some contexts we even respect it: to be tired indicates a person is busy, and there is no greater honour than being "busy". Or being seen to be busy, which amounts to the same thing.
Neurologist Matthew Walker of the University of California at Berkeley has just written a book on the subject, which is the source of the recent media attention. The Guardian posts an excellent article on the man and his book today, with a title that gets to the heart of the matter - The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life - as does the Independent, although with an inferior headline.
Coincidentally, I happen to have been reading a book called Counting Sheep: the science and pleasures of sleep and dreams, a charming read on the subject of sleep deprivation, dreams, erections, torture, and health. The author notes how sleep deprivation has been used as a method of torture since ancient times. He passes on an anecdote of a "Chinese merchant who was sentenced to death for murdering his wife. Sleep deprivation was deliberately chosen as the method of execution, on the grounds that it would cause the maximum amount of suffering and would therefore serve as the greatest deterrent to potential murderers...[T]he prisoner eventually died on the nineteenth day, having suffered appalling torment".
One reason I gave up working full time was to spend more time in bed. I wonder if the fact that that may sound ridiculous is indicative of the problem our society has in placing value on a good night's sleep. I worked night shifts - three blocks of twelve hours a week, often more - and for three and half years, not once would I have described myself as rested. Staying awake all night is an ordeal, and being paid to do so makes it no less painful. So perhaps I was more attuned to the value of proper, natural sleep than others; but even so, as has also been widely reported, starting work before 10am is "biological torture", which means anyone stuck in the 9 to 5 (plus sweaty and exasperating commute) ought to pause for thought and ask whether their work matters more than their health.
Of course, most of us have no real choice but to work five days out of seven, wrestling ourselves out of bed before our brains and bodies are ready for it, gob down coffee and sugar and junk through the working day just to keep ourselves "productive" (which is, incidentally, one of the most disgusting words in the English language). The late, great David Foster Wallace illustrated the "petty frustrations" of ordinary life brilliantly in his classic "This is water" speech. I've linked to the relevant time code here but if you've not already heard this, start from the beginning.
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A little while back I decided to try and propagate a succulent in a teapot I was no longer using. Here is the post about that, and here is what the plant looks like today:
Satisfactory, but I think you'll find what's even more satisfactory is using any empty juice cartons as plant pots and propagators. I love tomato juice, so I've acquired a few of these recently.
Since they're designed to be water proof, they make ideal receptacles for soggy soil, and therefore for plants. Simply cut out one edge, fill with soil or compost and that's all I need to say about that.
It works better for some plants that for others. For instance I've also tried to grow some baby leaf spinach, but this has been less successful. Though perhaps, if you've a keen eye, you can spot a tomato seedling in there too. Tomato seeds seem to get everywhere. I really don't know how they do it.
Succulents are remarkable things, propagated into a new plants from a single leaf, as you can see here:
A couple of tips:
1. Gently prise off a leaf from the base of your plant, rather than the top. Don't force it; just wobble it back and forth until it comes loose.
2. Lay down the leaf on some dry soil and spray lightly with water. Leave for some time (at least at week). This allows the edge of the leaf that was severed from the plant to form a dry "callous", from which you want your roots to sprout.
3. Check back on the leaf every so often until you see roots or new growth forming, at which point spray again. Wait until the surface of your soil is completely dry before spraying again. Succulents like to hold on to their water, but too much of it will not be welcome.
4. Off you go. Makes a lovely little Sunday afternoon project.
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