Rock n’ Roll
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 flower of the week: Black Poppy
Rule #2 at the Cracked Pot: any plant, flower, fruit or vegetable that could potentially make you high is definitely Rock n’ Roll, and earns a place in the weekly Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
This week’s winner is the black Papaver Somniferum- the black poppy.
Papiver Somniferum is a sub-type of poppy more commonly known as the Opium poppy. This variety has”double” petals, lending a frilly, peony-type appearance to blooms.
Not only is this baby grown for food-grade poppy seeds, but it`s also the source of opium, morphine and codeine. Dope.
This earns the black poppy a clear place of honour in the Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
Papiver somniferum comes in many different colours, but given Rule #1 at this cracked pot- anything black is clearly rock n’ roll- this one gets double honours for the week.
Rock n’ Roll fruit of the week: Black Krim Tomato
Rule #1 at the Cracked Pot: any plant, flower, fruit or vegetable that’s black is definitely Rock n’ Roll, and earns a place in the weekly Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
This week’s winner is the Black Krim Tomato.
This variety is somewhat rare, but becoming increasingly popular with gardeners in Vancouver. It looks like raw meat when you slice it open, and comes from the Isle of Krim in the Black Sea off the coast of the Crimean peninsula in Russia. Did you catch that?
Not only is this tomato black, but it also comes from the Black Sea. Sweet.
This tomato is known as “Czerno Krimski” (Black Krim) in Russian, which sounds super cool if you slur like you’ve had too much vodka. Or maybe you have? If not, maybe you should.
Rock n’ Roll flower of the week: Nemophilia
Rule #1 at the Cracked Pot: any plant, flower, fruit or vegetable that’s black is definitely Rock n’ Roll, and earns a place in the weekly Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
This week’s winner is Nemophilia Menziesii- or the Penny Black flower.
Nemophilia is a native North American plant that starts easily from seed and grows in hardy little clusters during the spring. Once blooming, this little rock n’ roll variety is covered in black flowers with white edges.
Nemophilia (n. latin) means “woodland-loving.” It comes from the Greek word nemos, which means “grove” and the Greek word philia, which means, “loving”.
It’s also pretty close to the word nymphofilia, meaning “sexual attraction to young women”- definitely the hallmark of Rock n’ Roll. This alone earns the plant a double honour.
The variety shown here goes by the common name, Penny Black. Not only could this easily be the name of a garage punk band started in Seattle in the 90’s, but it’s also the name of the world’s first adhesive postage stamp issued in England in the 1840s. This stamp was black, featured Queen Victoria and cost only a penny. It also looked fuckin’ cool, and could easily be cover art for their first album.
Cracked Pot Pix
