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Recently I have been busy harvesting and drying calendula flowers to use for oils and salves. I have been in contact with the herbalist at SFBMC and consulting Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest and The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook for instructions on how to properly make oils and salves. So far I've got a lot of dried petals, and some more hanging. The calendula are still blooming through the rain - they are actually very tolerant of the cold, but intolerant of dry soil.
I've also been occasionally gardening, mostly watering and moving plants around. I found out that it is bad to repot root-bound plants without first untangling or cutting the roots so that they do not continue to grow in a circle and end up strangling themselves. This all makes sense, because when I repotted marigold early in the summer, many were root-bound. They did fine the whole summer, but some started to die in November. When I pulled out the dead plants, they still had their original rootballs! The roots didnt grow into the new pot's soil. So I can see that I might have some trouble with the fennel I repotted just a couple days prior to reading this chapter in the Master Gardener Handbook. I found useful info on root-bound plants here.
Interestingly last spring's lilies are shooting up - even the ones I killed off in my apartment (not enough light), which is noticeably root-bound. During summer I had removed the dead lilies from their pot to use the container for another plant, and just left the clump of dead lilies by my gardening tools. Also after setting beer traps for snails (who are attracted to yeast), I've noticed mushrooms popping up here and there, where the beer spilled most likely. I dont think the beer traps worked - if they lured the snails I dont think they killed them, and I didnt want to kill them, but teach them a lesson about eating seedlings. I guess I expected the snails, upon contact with the actual liquid, to find the beer so unpleasant that they wouldnt come back. If I feel they are being too destructive, I will construct some physical barriers.
Unrelatedly, Thien and I are selling photos this afternoon at the EastSide Cultural Center on International Blvd in Oakland. It's a community event from 3pm to midnight, with performances and plenty of vendors. We're also taking orders if you're interested in purchasing some prints. See ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) paperofcolor's post to get a list and images of some of the photos for sale.
Well, tomorrow is community gardening today - looks like it might get rained out!
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stringing calendula to dry in dark place
lily emerging from mass of roots
two views of new lilies (buds on plant in right photo)
c-print for art sale today - taken with a then-new holga
fall berkeley 2003
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