Least Favorite Plant: Yellow Oleander (Thevetia peruviana)

...ingestion of yellow oleander seeds has recently become a popular method of self harm in northern Sri Lanka. There are thousands of cases each year, with a case fatality rate of at least 10%. Around 40% require specialised management and are transferred from secondary hospitals across the north to the Institute of Cardiology in Colombo” Native to central and south America Thevetia peruviana made its way to Sri Lanka only recently, with the suicides...

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Mallow (Malva parviflora) an Edible Friend

...ing ideas can be found on Of the Field, maintained by wild food author and self described “environmentarian” Linda Runyan. A Turkish blogger has a recipe for mallow and rice here. We’ve used mallow in salads, and it would also do well cooked Italian style in a pan with olive oil, garlic and some hot peppers to spice it up a bit. Malva parviflora comes from the old world–the ancient Greeks make it into a green sauce and use the leaves as a substitu...

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The kids are all bikin’

...nce they take place in the middle of a weekday, tend to involve mostly the self-employed or unemployed) read Damien Newton’s post on the excellent Streetsblog LA. Elsewhere the fabulous Enci, our actor/cyclist comrade, had another run-in with a particularly angry bus driver and Mikey Wally managed to get banned for life from both Dodger Stadium and CALTRANS headquarters for doing skids on his fixie. Lastly, the group calling themselves the Crimani...

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Grow the Soil

...nts. On the left a vigorous eggplant growing in high-end potting soil in a self-watering container. On the right a spindly, nitrogen starved specimen of the same variety of eggplant, planted at the same time, in our parkway garden. The container eggplant on the left is larger, has greener leaves and is obviously more healthy. The stunted eggplant on the right is the victim of depleted soil. There’s some irony here. With our book release and press...

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