Easy Plant: Cannas

As part of my "ridiculous amounts of things to put out on the web in the month of August" ongoing project, I thought I would write on the Garden Blog here about some of my favorite easy plants to grow in your garden.

Living in Texas, I have found lots of plants just die and drown in the heat, and some work very well but not at the times they might thrive in other parts of the country.  Still, there are some plants that are very easy to plant and work with, and can greatly help your landscape.

One of these are the common canna flowers.  Every year I forget that these wait to bloom until July and August, and carry through with beautiful reds into the late summer.  The large foliage also gives a nice tropical flair to your yard.  I have a small spot on the side of the house that we call "the grotto" where I keep my tropical plants, and cannas are a large part of that.  I have found that year over year, it is helpful to keep augmenting the canna bulbs with more and more.  Last year's bulbs will come back, but perhaps later and not as vigorously as new bulbs.

The ones pictured here are "The President" - large red flowers that last a week or two and then slowly die off (like these are doing).

Cannas are easy to plant, just get some bulbs (either at your local home improvement store or from a grower such as Horn Canna Farms) in the spring, then dig a hole about 4 inches deep or so, drop the bulb in facing upward, and cover with dirt.  Then water it in and leave it alone.  Horn's has a ton of varieties selling for about 3 for $4.20 or so, which makes it very affordable to pick up several varieties.

So next Spring, grab some canna bulbs and by next summer, you'll be looking at flowers just like these.

The Month of August - 31 Days, 31 Posts

So, if you are reading this, then it is at least August 1.  As I'm writing this, we're still a few days away.  But if you happen to flounder around between site after site after site after site after site after site of mine, then you may have stumbled across a little challenge that I made to myself a couple of weeks ago.  The thought was that I would basically schedule something to publish every day for a month on some random site that I maintain.  So there would be 31 days of content for 31 days.

So this is the first kick-off post of that whole pile.  It's scheduled to "magically appear" on August 1 at 12:24 PM Central Time on Truckpoetry.net.  And yes, writing a post about the posts I am going to be writing is some sort of a meta-layer-experiment in redundancy, and it is somewhat of a cheating way to get a first post already in and scheduled, I admit.   Still, I figure if I put something meaningful in here, it counts.  So, here's what I'll start with.  I'll let you have a small preview into my "general posting/schedule" as well as some of the stuff that is already slated to come out, and then maybe even look at why I am doing this, though that's obvious, haha.

So as far as generalities are concerned, you will most likely find stuff from me on scheduled days in August as follows:

• Sunday - Could be anywhere, any time.
• Monday - Beer+Wine beer reviews, 6:00 PM Central, starting 8/2 with a review of the delicious Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
• Tuesday - Poems - usually appearing at about 8:00 AM Central, starting 8/3 with a poem about starting new projects and how that's so much fun (somewhat apropos).
• Wednesday - Can't say for sure (not much scheduled yet), but my general modus operandi is to write about writing on Wednesdays.  You might see a cheat meta-post in there, too, but it is something.
• Thursday - If I had a set schedule, Thursdays would probably be write about gardening and yard maintenance day.  But I don't really have a set schedule, so I can't promise that is where you will always find something Thursday.  And given that I will most likely write this stuff asynchronously and schedule it out, don't expect too many tips on what to do to your lawn in August.  Unless I plan it that way.
• Friday - who knows.  Maybe a podcast link here, maybe just a video, maybe a bonus poem, maybe a bonus liquor or wine review over at Beer+Wine, who knows.
• Saturday - see Friday.

So really, the only thing I could tell you to count on would be Mondays and Tuesdays (because those are usually scheduled out months in advance, despite the multi-week poetry hiatus in June/July).  Then you can probably hit the main Cameron Mathews site and check the blogroll on the right to see where I'm hiding on a given day.

Finally, why am I doing this?

• Well, for starters, I like putting things out on the internet(s) and a few months ago I had written quite a bit and checked to see that I had covered maybe fifty percent of the month with posts.  So I wondered if I planned it right could I hit an entire month (and not just any month but a long 31-day month).
• I've also thought about these folks that do daily podcasts and figured that I could give enough time to produce fifteen or twenty minutes' worth of content on a daily basis.
• I'm also not going to be online as much (or at least that's my prediction) in August, or at least not necessarily online as much when other people are awake.  But I could be wrong.  Remember, all this planning and thinking is occurring pre-August.
• It's a GIANT PUBLICITY STUNT.  No, really, I don't have a book coming out (yet) or anything like that.  But I still think it would be interesting to see how much (if any) traffic comes from more frequent updates of content.  In other words, nobody but the four of you read this stuff normally, but if I put out a whole lot of other stuff, would it potentially draw more people in?  Who knows.
• It's just another challenge in the long list of challenges.  That's right.  Just something I wondered if I could do, and so I did.  Kind of like building a bookcase, writing a novel, growing tomatoes, or any of those things.  Can I put out 31 straight days of content in some variety?  Maybe.

And all that said, there's still the chance that I run out of time before any of this actually occurs!  Which means that since this post is already scheduled to post (at 12/1/2010 12:24 PM CT), it will post and nothing else will (or certainly not daily stuff).  So it's a surprise!

And don't get me wrong, I fully intend to write a small note to wrap up on September 1 (Wednesday) if I happen to have made it all the way through the month with a ton of content.  So stop in often, comment often, play along, and have a nice month!

Writemonkey

Writemonkey is the program that I used to write all of my NaNoWriMo novel for 2009.  It markets itself as "zenware" and it's really little more than a souped-up version of notepad, but it definitely has some neat elements, particularly for a free-writing person who does not like to overplan and have their software try to tie it all together.  Best of all it is free, and the creator likes NaNo participants.

http://writemonkey.com/

Good Podcast

So, since this is my blog for actual blogging, and not really talking about projects (because I have like 20 other sites for talking about specific things), I thought I might throw random interests and things on here.  Yes, because I'm blogging like it's 1999.

But, as you may or may not realize, I have about a 30-40 minute commute every day back and forth from work.  That's a lot of empty driving time.  So, I choose to fill it up with podcasts.  That said, I thought I might throw some recommendations to a podcast or two from time to time.

Today's Podcast recommendation: The Scotchcast - Since I like Single Malt Scotch Whisky, these guys are interesting to listen to, if not just to get a little bit of the pretentious talky-talky about what flavors are hidden in the nose of various drams.

I will say, that they have, in fact, even influenced my purchasing decisions on one occasion, when I went out and purchased the Caol Ila 12 Year - an Island malt that got an average 8.25 score.  While I was a bit surprised at first based on their description, I did find that I liked it after a few attempts.

I may have to pick up the Dalmore 12 Year on their recommendation, too (especially since it is not particularly expensive).

Listen on!

Newest fun project

Built a bookcase last weekend for the nursery... still working on the stain/varnish options....but it is dark walnut stained now...  It is based on one I found over at Knock-Off Wood.  However, I chopped it down to a 2-shelf unit, and then had to make some adjustments because the home improvement store person kind of screwed up the ripping job on the plywood back.  So I had to shave a 1/4" measurement off here and there to adjust the plan. Here are some fun pictures:

Here's the finished project (paper's there for a week or so to protect the carpet just in case, but it should be dry.  Waiting on varnish to cure entirely and then I'm going to polish it with furniture wax).