Transplant Shock 🌱

I heard a metaphor on a gardening podcast this weekend, a metaphor for the times. Which is this: When you're raising seedlings, and you transplant them from their first homes to their second (whether bigger pots or the garden), they will, invariably, die. Or at least: they'll look dead. They'll droop, fall over. If you're a new gardener, you'll be like oh wow I 100% murdered them. But this is called Transplant Shock. As the gardening podcast explained: The little plants are basically traumatized. It takes them a moment, but with some water, some sunlight and a little time, they will start to stand themselves back up.

Queer Prepper: Hugelkultur Solves All My Problems!!

W O W okay so yesterday I learned about something called Hugelkultur and now omfuckinggod I'm obsessed with Hugelkultur!!

Hugelkutur is some European-type-language for 'hill culture'. From what the internet's told me about Hugelkultur over the last 12 hours, the idea is: You pile up logs and other yard debris like lawn clippings and leaves, and you just leave it, and it magically turns into a raised super nutrient-rich garden bed! You can make them in little hills or traditional rows or even undulating snaky shapes!

PLANT CHICAGO / CREATIVE COMMONS via

So ~fanciful~! Like if Hobbits gardened (do Hobbits garden?) they'd definitely build Hugelkultur. Given the thoroughly helpless feeling I have — contemplating both the pandemic and the collapse of our economy — Hugelkultur does solve a few of the problems I can try to tackle right now!!

Queer Prepper: Can I Talk About How Much I Love My Compost Pile

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Maybe it’s a cliché but when I moved to the country a few years ago and became an amateur vegetable gardener (aka a queer prepper, to borrow a phrase from my neighbor, a fellow queer prepper), I promptly became obsessed with my compost pile.