Yeah, so I’m a day late to hit Monday Miscellany on an actual Monday. But you wouldn’t have had me miss out on the Labor Day sunshine, would you?

Anyway, let’s jump right in to some of the cool stuff happening around the web in the last week.

The North Coast Almanack

Amy Stewart, best known for frightening off potential dinner guests as the author of Wicked Plants, has a very cool new column, the North Coast Almanack. It’s like a cocktail party version of Ben Franklin.

A few of my favorite bits:

The garden is madly, frustratingly in bloom all at once. Cut the flowers down; you’ve got to cut them or they won’t keep blooming. The recipe for homemade flower food consists of a few drops of bleach and a splash of lemon-lime soda, but commercial rose growers swear by a pinch of ground-up Viagra in the water, which works according to more or less the same hydraulic principles in flowers as it does in men.

There are those who believe that European honeybees should be allowed to have their crisis, their colony collapse disorder, their mysterious vanishment or what-have-you. They are, after all, a non-native species, bused in like tourists. Native pollinators — solitary bumblebees that forage for food and nest in cavities in rotten wood — could do the job, but getting them to descend upon a crop en masse is nearly impossible. American bees are individuals and opportunists. They prefer to forage alone, answering to no farmer.

The popcorn sandwich, once reserved only for children and invalids, deserves a revival. The traditional recipe calls for popcorn to be finely chopped and mixed with peanut butter before being spread on soft buttered bread and topped with sliced dates. A more modern version might leave out both the peanut butter and the dates, substituting salt and toasting the bread before buttering.

Even if you’re not lucky enough to be able to walk to your local store and pick up the latest edition of The North Coast Journal, you can now read the Almanack via your RSS reader. Just click here to subscribe.

Is pot a gateway plant?

Garden Rant kicked off this discussion with their commentary on the Garden Writer’s Association’s snubbing of a marijuana-growing manual: Just What is the Definition of Gardening?

Once you’ve read that, go on over to The Blogging Nurseryman’s post about pot, Addressing the 500lb Gorilla. As usual, the best part of the discussion happens in the comments, where people are good and frank about how they feel.

Aaaaand, Kaviani wins best comment on Garden Rant:

A previous commenter had asked: “Does marijuana cultivation lead to vegetables and ornamentals?”

Kaviani: “In some cases, yes. It’s a gateway plant.”

Do you shop for plants at the big box stores?

Andrea over at Heavy Petal is ready to have her membership in the cool kids’ club revoked for admitting she buys plants from the big box stores. She says:

“Big box retailers are known for selling spectacularly crappy plants. Too often, they’ve been sitting around too long and are root bound, spindly, and stressed—a week away from the great compost heap in the sky. And finding a knowledgeable salesperson to help you? (Or any salesperson?) Forget it. I won’t even get into the ethics of labour policy or impact on small, independent businesses.”

Still, she’s digging the cheap prices she gets on disposable plants, and sometimes is even able to find varieties the independents don’t bother with. Good points, both.

I can see Andrea’s point about buying disposables from them, things I would not have splurged on at my independent garden center for $10 but might be worth $3 for a season of interest. But I just don’t care for their business practices (pay-at-scan) or the emphasis on fast results and chemicals.

I’m a gardener, I like to nurture, feed the soil, and wait. I don’t want an out-sized, over-fertilized something that’s gonna keel on me, and I don’t approve of their fertilizer and pest control section. (Do I sound cranky? Last time I was in Target the smell of their chemical section made me woozy. I’m sure I’m holding a grudge.)

Anyway, go on over and put your two cents in.

Five coolest Pacific Northwest blogs

Jim McCausland of Sunset Magazine’s garden blog just featured yours truly in the round up of his five favorite Pacific Northwest garden blogs.

The blog is frequently posted, well-designed, and has a bit of an attitude. I don’t agree with her on all subjects, but hey, she swears by Bahco pruners and regularly thumbs Haggard and Haggard’s Insects of the Pacific Northwest, so I’m a fan.

I’m quite honored and especially tickled to be told I have a bit of an attitude. I shall try and cultivate this matter further. Thanks, Jim!

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend. Me and my holiday weekend sunburn are getting back into the gardening swing of things for the week!