http://xkcd.com/608/

http://back40feet.blogspot.com/2009/07/marienbad-in-san-francisco.html

What pictures should I post next?

http://feeds.sunset.com/~r/typepad/sunset/fresh_dirt/~3/hfOvNbGntO0/two-more-pretty-ideas-from-urban-plantations.html

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Use a more heat-tolerant green such as collards or Swiss chard or spinach to shade young lettuce seedlings.  Besides stretching the season for the latter, the contrast in textures is nice.

Planting strawberry patches on either side of your sidwalk as  Urban Plantations owner Karen Contreras did creates a lovely effect.  And it sure makes harvesting a handful for your cereal every morning, as her husband does, convenient.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1506

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July 9th, 2009: Shortly after this comic went up, Greg sent me a link to The Odds Of Dying From..., which is very handy if you're an American and you want to know the lifetime odds of dying from, say, a "foreign body entering through skin or natural orifice", which are (just?) 1 in 103,004. As Greg points out, the current odds of dying from being "bitten or crushed by non-venemous snakes and lizards" are at 0! The lesson here is clear, you guys: FEEL FREE TO ANNOY ALL THE NON-VENEMOUS SANKES AND LIZARDS YOU WANT, THEY CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT FLASH UPDATE: A few readers pointed me to the WHO International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition, which enumerates all sorts of problems you can have, more completely than the selection I linked to above. And it's only a hop skip and a jump from there to just reading this list as Tons Of Ways You Can Die. There's no probabilities, but it includes some fun ones like T63.9 ("Toxic effect of contact with unspecified venomous animal"), W.19 ("Unspecified fall") and V97.3 ("Person on ground injured in air transport accident"), clarified on the site as "Sucked into a jet". FUN TIMES AT THE WHO AND DINOSAUR COMICS TODAY – Ryan

http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=6446

I was recently invited by The Garden Conservancy to tour the Alcatraz garden project.  The Conservancy, in partnership with The Golden Gate National Park Conservancy, has spent the past 5 years restoring and replanting the barren and windswept old prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

Talk about Gardening Gone Wild!  It is a truly wild and difficult site.  The fact there are any gardens at all is a testament to the human spirit.  This barren rock had hardly any soil until early Army engineers brought soil in the 19th century for the original military prison and built a Victorian style garden.

Much of what prospers today are hardy Mediterranean native plants that were planted as a beautification project starting in the 1920s.  Notice the Acanthus mollis here with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

The gardens were expanded during the years as a Federal penitentiary, 1933- 1963, when prisoners were given permission to work out of doors.  Other naturalized flowers such as Centranthus ruber grow among succulents under the watchful guard tower.

The ferry ride trip to the gardens is a must do tour for any visitor to San Fransisco.   The prison itself has definite if depressing history, but the very location of this island rock with sweeping views of the city skyline is thrilling.  Below we see Verbena and Achillea on a hillside overlooking the Bay.

More on The Gardens of Alcatraz website with virtual tours.  More of my Alcatraz photos on the Saxon Holt website.

http://rootedincalifornia.blogspot.com/2009/07/yerbabuena-satureja-douglasii.html

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/charity/jackson.asp

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uclick/doonesbury/~3/gC9NsjbhTpI/437250

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/2322

Not sure why this premise never occurred to me before! I wonder how accurate it is.

http://tmousecmouse.blogspot.com/2009/07/hike-along-hetch-hetchy-reservoir.html

http://fromseedtotable.blogspot.com/2009/07/growing-capers-from-seed.html

Caper seeds are miniscule and are slow to nurture into transplantable seedlings. Fresh caper seeds germinate readily - but only in low percentages. Dried seeds become dormant and are notably difficult to germinate and therefore require extra measures to grow. Dried seeds should be initially immersed in warm water (40°C or 105°F ) and then let soak for 1 day. Seeds should be wrapped in a moist cloth, placed in a sealed glass jar and kept in the refrigerator for 2 - 3 months. After refrigeration, soak the seeds again in warm water overnight. Plant the seeds about 1 cm deep in a loose well drained soil media. Young caper plants can be grown in a greenhouse (preferable minimum temperature of 10°C or 50°F).

Germination of caper seeds is difficult, but the following methods have resulted in 40 to 75 percent germination. First, heat some water to 110¡F or 115¡F, and put the seeds into the warm water to soak for at least 12 hours, during which time you can allow the water to cool to room temperature. After 12 hours, discard the water, wrap the seeds in a moist towel, place them in a plastic bag, and keep them in the refrigerator for 65 to 70 days. Then take the seeds out of the refrigerator and soak them in warm water (110-115¡F) overnight. Plant the seed about 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep in a soil mix of 50-25-25 parts of UC soil, perlite and sand, respectively (planting mix can be used instead of UC soil mix). Use 6 inch clay pots or deep flats. Water well and keep in a warm area (70-85¡ F.), in partial to full sun. Do not allow the top of soil to crust over. Keep the soil moist. Germination should start within 3 to 4 weeks and may continue for 2 to 3 months. Not all seeds will germinate at the same time.

A. Really fresh caper seeds have about a 95% germination rate. The germination rates decline as the seeds get older (duh, true for all seeds), year old seeds still have pretty good rates of 75 to 80%.

B. The seeds, whether fresh or dry need to be chilled (cold stratification) but you don't need to take up precious space in the refrigerator if you live in a Mediterranean climate (like I do). Capers are native to the Mediterranean and the seeds sprout and produce plants in the darnedest places there - most notably stone walls. Winter temperatures provide all the chilling that the seeds need, naturally. Just how much cold the seeds need, or can withstand, I haven't figured out. I also didn't find any difference in using seeds that were soaked in warm water first.

C. Caper seedlings really do not like to have their roots disturbed. One of my first experiments resulted in a pot full of seedlings (yeah!) that I tried to separate and pot up. Lots of root disturbance and lots of mortality (oops!).

Sow the caper seeds in 6 packs, 1 seed per cell for fresh off the plant seeds, 2 seeds per cell for older seeds (lessons A & C) about 1/4 inch deep. I use regular bagged potting soil, not seed starting mix, although I suppose seed starting mix would be fine also.

Start sowing seeds anytime from September through November (lesson B). Set the sown 6-packs in a shady protected place outside (lesson B again). I like to put them in a black square nursery flat (the ones with the large meshed bottoms) with another flat over the top to keep birds and other critters out. At this point you can almost forget about them until late February or March, just don't let them dry out.

In late February or early March, move the flats to a warmer spot where they will get some sun, not too much, that drying out thing again. The seeds should start to germinate in 2 to 3 weeks. I've even brought some of the packs indoors to my seed starting setup with heat mats and grow lights, which works quite well.

Do not attempt to pot up the seedlings until they have a couple or more true leaves and the roots have developed enough to hold the soil together (lesson C). It can take a couple of months for the seedlings to get large enough. If there are 2 seedlings in a cell you need to cut one of them off at the soil line, don't pull it out (lesson C). When it's easy to pop the plants out of the cells without having the soil crumble too much you can pot the seedlings up into 4-inch pots and grow them on for the rest of the year or longer.

The next winter or spring they can be planted out or potted up into large pots. I've found that pot grown capers bloom best in pots that hold at least 15 gallons of soil. The first flowers may appear as early as year 2. Capers are drought tolerant plants but pot grown plants need regular water and fertilizing. During the hottest months I water my plants almost every day, although their need for water will vary depending on how much sun they get. My pots get full sun almost all day so they dry out quickly. I fertilize almost weekly during the summer, less in the fall, none after October and resume occasional fertilizing in the spring when new growth appears.

http://freshdirt.sunset.com/2009/07/making-it-pretty-tips-for-front-yard-farmers.html

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1505

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July 8th, 2009: Guys Goats has a book out now! Infinite Typewriters. Goats has been online since FOREVER (where 12 years ago equals "forever", basically!) and it's amazing, because you can pick up this book and not be lost in all that continuity! The first few pages of comics give you all the characters and background you need. Goats is kind of CRAZY, in that there's a joke in every comic BUT also this iron-clad continuity BUT ALSO crazy stuff happens all the time. It's almost like a child telling a story, where one thing flows into another, except it all escalates and makes sense and you start at a pub and end up in this universe-spanning epic and it never seems like things have changed. It's pretty rad you guys! Thus concludes my second book recommendation in as many days, now you know that I read books – Ryan