The Friday cartoon is on vacation

Sorry folks... insanely busy week, and no Friday cartoon got drawn.

But I have got another treat for you. I am Ken Druse's guest this week on his radio show/podcast Real Dirt! Head over there, and you can hear us chat. We start on tomato breeding and go from there to... well, just about everything. I had fun doing it, and Ken is awesome, so go check it out. While you are there, do nose around some of the older episodes -- Ken talks to a lot of cool people.

If, however, you  really require a cartoon today, this is one of my favorite older ones. And you can also buy a whole 2011 calendar of my cartoons on zazzle! I promise that 100% of the proceeds will go towards my spring seed orders.

Rice art and cultivar lust.

Have you see these amazing images created in Inakadate, Japan, by planting different colored leaf rice varieties in exacting patterns?

Photo from Pink tentacle (Do go check out the rest of the set. Really cool.)

But what gets me is the varieties they use to create the images, especially this almost white leaved rice:

Photo from this site (in Japanese)

How stunning is that? I want some! I've seen purple leaved rice for sale before, but never the white. Does anyone know of a source? I've been asking my Japanese friends, our friendly neighborhood rice researcher, browsing rice mutant databases... no luck yet. If anyone knows anything about it, PLEASE let me know! I NEED it. Desperately.

A BLUE impatiens!

 I've been wildly, crazily excited about this since I was browsing through the Secret Seed catalog on-line, and stumbled across their listing for Impatiens namchabarwensis.

Okay, drooling yet? A blue impatiens -- And such a lovely shade of blue too! According to Strange Wonderful Things, (which is SUCH a great name for a website) it is a new species only discovered in 2003 in Tibet in a remote canyon twice as deep as the grand canyon! Even more excitingly, everything I've been able to find describes it is very easy to grow, carefree, and even "gently" self seeding!

At this point I was almost jumping up and down. Well: Let's be honest, I was jumping up and down, nothing "almost" about it. My partner is used to this by now and simply asked me what plant I was excited about, to which I replied "A BLUE impatiens! BLUE, I tell you, BLUE!!!"

Finally, I sat back down to put in my order for the seeds, only to see the words "OUT OF STOCK" in big red letters.

Out of stock? Are you kidding me? I rushed to google. Out of stock. Out of stock. Everyone seemed to be out of stock. Finally I went to e-bay and found someone selling 7 seeds. Just 7 of them! On auction, and the bidding wasn't to close for 6 DAYS! I quickly put my bid in, and PRAYED no one else would notice it. Thank goodness, no one did, and the seeds are now on their way to me! Glorious blue impatiens, you shall be MINE!

The good news is that this looks like a super awesome plant you are all going to want. The bad news is that I just bought the only supply of seeds I could find anywhere. So I guess you are all out of luck... (I should feel bad about this, but mostly I'm just feeling smug that I snatched up these seeds in time) But as soon as I get the plants growing, I'll be harvesting all the seeds I can so I can spread the joy around to anyone else who wants to try this amazing looking plant.

Addendum: I just re-read this post before publishing it, and it comes off as a little... extreme. But what can I say. I ALWAYS go completely, utterly, head-over-heels gaga for true blue flowers. If you don't suffer from a similar true blue obsession (Carol, is there a name for this particular gardening disorder?), you might think I'm a little crazy. Whatever. I don't care. It is BLUE.  

Pink Dandelions!

How cool is THIS? A pink dandelion! I have to admit that I love dandelions already (not in the garden, just in the periodically mowed collection of grasses and sundries that I call my "lawn") so I am totally thrilled to discover this pink flowered species in the catalog of the amazing and addictive Plant World Seeds. I instantly added them to my To Buy list, and over dinner tonight was excitedly telling my partner all about how cool they are. He was... shall we say, skeptical. Even incredulous. The words "broad leafed herbicide" passed his lips.

Whatever. They're going to be awesome. 

I'm having visions of pulling up ALL the regular dandelions in my yard, and replacing them with pink ones. I'd just love to see people go by and do a double take: Yard full of dandelions... WAIT! Yard full of PINK dandelions???

I can't wait.