rock n roll gardening
A new look for The Cracked Pot
The Cracked Pot has a new look! Just launched this week, we’re going a little more rock n’ roll this time around.
My good friend from Karyo Edelman over at kevinbroome.com hooked me up with the logo and design- thanks Kev! And a huge thanks to Leigh, also at Karyo Edelman and justafrog.net for the refinements and programming to make it all happen. Clear your balcony railing girl- you’re getting a cracked pot planter full of goodies!
To commemorate the launch, I put the Cracked Pot logo to good use and carved a stencil out of cardboard. Armed with a can of black spray paint, I tagged a couple of flagstones to mark my front and back garden patches at home. So now it’s official. It’s a Cracked Pot Garden.
My next plan is to create a similar, but larger stencil out of plastic card and employ the moss graffiti eco-tagging method from over at heavypetal.ca to start spreading the love around, starting with my cement retaining wall at home. Hey, it just power-washes off right?
Tip for clean lines when tagging with a stencil on cement: put a bit of spray adhesive on the back of the stencil to get a tight connection with the surface before spraying. I’m a professional hoodlum now.
Go get your inner green guerrilla on- it’s Earth Day!
Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame: The Grim Reaper
Since it’s harvest time for most gardeners on the West Coast right now, I thought this week’s entrant to the hall of fame should be timely and topical. So while you’re out there digging and picking the last of your crops, keep this week’s winner of the Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame in mind:
That’s right. The Grim Reaper. The original rock n’ roll gardener. Ok, so where do we begin?
- Skeleton? Check.
- Name that alludes to death? Check.
- Gruesome depiction of human hands, feet and heads being harvested with a giant scythe? Check.
- Looks like it was drawn by a stoned high school boy with a black ballpoint pen on the inside cover of a social studies 10 text book? Check.
- Calls upon an ancient power so primal it could only be mistaken for heavy metal? Check and check.
All hail the Grim Reaper, the original rock ‘n roll gardener. Beelzebub be damned, this guy was the original right hand man for Satan- some say Satan himself.
The Grim Reaper has been variously portrayed in Western culture as the personified cause of all human death, or sometimes just the personal escort service for people that kick the bucket.
From Tarot cards to Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure, this guy gets around. Personally, I like this image the best- note the pretty rose bush, setting sun and winding river. The Grim Reaper represents the end of the season, the end of the life cycle, but not necessarily the end, for with every end there comes a beginning. So don’t put those shovels and gloves away for too long.
In the slavic pagan tradition, death was portrayed as an old woman dressed in white holding an everlasting green seedling in her hand. One touch of her plant put a soul to sleep forever. Now if only I knew what she was carrying… I found my Hallowe’en costume.
Rock n’ Roll veg of the week: Russian Blue Potatoes
It’s not quite black, but it’s close enough. And anything this dark and disturbing must be metal to the core. So this week’s winner for the Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame is the Russian Blue Potato.
Russian Blue potatoes live up to their name- they really are from Russia, although, like all potatoes, they originated in South America. They’re an heirloom variety which means they’re totally old school and not genetically modified.
If you can find them at the market or buy seed to grow you own, they make for some fucked-up looking mashed potatoes. This is a great prank to pull on your family at Thanksgiving: Your parents won’t say a thing because they’ll assume it’s just an acid flashback, and your kids will squeal with glee because Barney finally got nailed with a blender.
These potatoes are a late season variety and don’t produce particularly high yields, but they are tasty and versatile , great for mashing and roasting. They also do extremely well as a baked potato-pair it with sour cream for a striking side dish.
Rock on potato lovers. Rock on.
Fried Green Tomatoes
It happens every year. For some reason or another, you wind up with tomatoes that fall off prematurely or that you need to pick while they’re still green.
Green tomatoes suck and you didn’t go to all that trouble just to grow sucky tomatoes, so here’s the good news: there are some awesome things you can make with them, and yes, the famous “fried green tomato” is one of them.
Be sure to share these with a buddy while you contemplate menopause and friendship together.
This recipe is my own adaptation from the one found at epicurious.com.
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