Besides removing five piles of downed stuff — branches, plants, etc. — and borrowing neighbor Dave’s truck to take two loads of it to Good Earth, we decided to use the rest of our two hours pulling “weeds” — one particular weed: the Spanish needle plant.
Alert: I lift the word “hack” from its new meaning in the internet age, as in “computer hacker.” You’ll soon see why.
Ever since my blogger friend Laura Bruno sent me what she called an “avocado hack,” I’ve been into hacking in the sense she used the word. In her case, the hack was to put ripe avocados in a jar, fill jar with water, and refrigerate. She’s right; they last much longer that way. Thank you, Laura!
On Friday, Green Acres Village podmate Joseph came up with a “Spanish needles hack.” Or, I should say, a “cosmos hack.” We all love cosmos flowers in the garden, but we don’t want the Spanish needle plants. Both of them happen to produce needle-like seeds.
Plants are brilliant; they know how to spread their seeds; not just via wind, or water, or birds, but via people’s clothing, as we walk by on paths.
We were determined to take out most of the prolific Spanish Needles (the name discovered through a phone app).
See the needle seeds above? They get all over our clothing when we walk by. There have been days when I’ve had to spend 20 minutes removing them all.
Okay. Now here’s where the hack comes in.
Joseph decided he was going to take charge of saving seeds this year. I hate to admit it, but we have never, until now, done anything but a perfunctory job of saving a few “favorite vegetable and flower” seeds. This year, thanks to Joseph, we’re not only saving seeds from the plants we want to see flourish next year, but we’re also getting seeds from elsewhere; like me, on my walk the other day with former housemate Dan: Ironweed. I love the ironweed blossom, and the seeds were ready on a plant in a nearby meadow. Okay! Dan stuffed some in his pocket, and we kept on going.
Okay, back to the hack.
Because we were pulling Spanish needle plants, and getting the needles all over our clothing, Joseph decided to pull on cloth gloves. And that’s how he captured needle seeds from the cosmos plants! Brilliant!
Now he just had to remove the gloves, pull out all the needles, and take them down to his seed drying and saving place in the basement. YES!