Help!! My Plant is Healthy!

That’s not a phrase I usually cry in despair and self-loathing, but it was today. I’ve been side-eyeballing my potted ficus on the front lawn in a very un-trusting manner for that last few months. Shiny leaves with a lush and deep green happy vigor and an ever expanding crown reaching towards the heavens are usually a really good sign. But this tree is in a pot that’s way too small for such growth.

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There is a very good reason for such a limiting pot. It’s not because I hate this tree or wish to see it stunted or sad. It’s because the location I chose for this ficus is directly over my sewer lines going out into the street. As illustrated in this high-tech 3D rendering of the “brown line express” (oh, how crass!).

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The poop evacuation route. Well, the second evacuation route actually.

As a homeowner, you can imagine how costly it would be to have some root invasion for this essential poop escape highway! Like several grand to replace these pipes. And the last thing I want is any backing up or flooding in the house to let me know that I have made a grave error! Gross and costly are not my favorite combinations! Gross and cheap is okay in a pinch. Continue reading “Help!! My Plant is Healthy!”

Enter the Dragon: A Time-lapse of a Dragon Fruit Flower Blooming

I may have mentioned once or twice that more times than not, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I write Mind Your Dirt not so much as an expert, but as someone willing to learn and inspired by that learning. Growing dragon fruit apparently is no exception to this rule.

I was given some clippings about four years ago from a friend. I had dreams of eating my own weight worth of juicy dragon fruit (pitaya) almost instantly. This magical and mysterious fruit was aptly named.

Pitaya Cross Section.
Pitaya Cross Section.

It does indeed look like a dragon egg. Not that I’ve seen many in my lifetime, but this is what I would expect to see were that to change. Continue reading “Enter the Dragon: A Time-lapse of a Dragon Fruit Flower Blooming”

Everything in Bloom

After much overtime, and a very intense courier trip to Mexico City, I have finally returned to my favorite pastime of plopping my ass in the garden and tending to my flock. I have returned from my forced blogging hiatus and climbed down from the pyramid of the sun in Teotihuacan to discover that while I was abroad my yard has exploded with growth!

I’ll fill you in on my trip in my next post with some amazing photos! But for now, I wanted to return to simple things. The stuff that Mind Your Dirt is meant to be about. The garden. No more melancholy over the loss of rock stars or pissing and moaning about working too much. It’s the brass tacks y’all. The meat and potatoes (although neither of those are in the content below). In short, I’m back baby! Did you miss me?

Being away from home for a spell truly affords you some perspective. I came in late Thursday night so I didn’t see the changes until I woke up too early on Friday morning (jetlag). When I stepped outside, I was blown away. Things were bursting with buds everywhere I looked. But what I noticed before even stepping out the door was the sweet smell of jasmine. It wafted through the open window and pulled me out of bed in a pleasant dreamlike fervor.

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Continue reading “Everything in Bloom”