The Natural Navigator» plants

Chilli Compass

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:25:50 +0000

Trees are the easiest plants to read to find direction, but one of my chilli plants is also doing a fine job. It has been growing in a greenhouse and so shows only the effects of the sun and no combing from the wind. It could not be much clearer.

The plant is dramatically heavier on its southern side and it is also displaying the ‘Tick Effect’ across its stems – more vertical growth on the northern side, more horizontal on the southern.

Great Lettuce!

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:59:01 +0000

There is a good photo of the Great Lettuce, Lactuca Virosa, with its leaves aligned north-south on the Adur Wild Flower website. If you do use this to find your way then make sure you don’t eat too much of it as it is reputed to have psychotropic qualities. You are likely to head off in the right direction, walk in a circle and then find yourself back in the same spot, shouting something like, ‘Great Lettuce, Batman!’ I digress.

A Shock in the Garden

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:07:47 +0000

Taking a short break from final edits and unsubtle plugs for my book… I ventured into the garden. Something moved where there should have been no movement. My eyes focused through a wire fence to our algae and moss peppered greenhouse. The chickens were up to something. They had somehow (they have clipped wings, a mystery) got up onto the shelf where I was in the final stages of drying this season’s chilli crop on the vine and, well, gone mental. Clearly enraged that they were not able to eat the chillis themselves, they had ransacked the place, overturned the pots and then stumbled across my beautiful little citrus and kiwi plants. My lemons, oranges, kiwis and passion fruit saplings, all grown from supermarket-bought fruit seeds. Planted with my son in the kitchen in spring. The little ******* had stripped all the ones they could reach bare. They cannot protest serious hunger: they get the kilogram of porridge from the pot that we have failed to finish off each morning on top of their usual bloated diet of greens, corn, bread… They are overgrown, spoilt, fat ne’er-do-good feathered rats in my book this morning. The cockerels were mainly responsible as this photo shows and they don’t even lay eggs. I have asked the two cocks for a full written report on my desk by tomorrow morning or they may learn the lengths we go to to keep Mr. Fox at bay.

Heat, Wind and Chillies

admin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:50:00 +0000

When talking about heat and wind in the context of chillies, there is a risk that we might start to think some very un-navigational thoughts…

… however, this is a risky business, so here are two jalapeno chillies. One lived its life in a south-facing greenhouse, the other lived near it, outside near a south-facing wall. They both received identical amounts of sunlight. They both grew in the same soil and received plenty of water. The only serious differences to their environments were the temperature and wind exposure.

It is not too hard to see that nature is quite fussy about its environment and it is this fussiness that can give us a helping hand. It is sometimes possible to deduce useful things about the elements from two examples of the same species. One big example of this can sometimes be found in the different look and feel of two sides of the same hill or mountain.