POV Your Trauma Memories Start To Add Up And You Start To Put Together A Timeline

Punk Gardening!

It’s that time of year again where you are all out there planting gardens and being anxious about how none of your seeds have come up, or they’re “leggy” or there’s too many weeds or you didn’t water them enough.

And I’m here to say screw all that. You’ve been sold what a “garden should look like” by pesticide and herbicide companies. To be perfectly honest you’ve been sold that about your lawn too, but that’s for another post. It's time to take back gardening and grow some delicious, nutritious food!

So let’s talk about some things that can make you grow a happy, healthy, gnarly-butt garden that’s gonna grow a lot of food and take very little actual effort.

First: Weeds

There’s no such thing. Weeds are a myth. There are plants in your garden that weren’t the ones you planted? Great. Plants like to grow in your dirt. That should make you happy. It means the ones you want to grow will probably also like your dirt and want to grow their fruit/bodies there.

You’ve probably been told non-planted plants take nutrients from the plants you want there. They don’t. Seriously. For one thing, plants need different things, and clover isn’t going to want the same nutrients as your tomatoes, and it’s also probably not going to out-compete your tomatoes for sun. In fact, “weeds” also contribute good things and generally work together with your other plants.

Good plants to see growing in your garden:

Clover: A nitrogen fixer, meaning it will help your garden self-fertilize year to year. You want as much of this as possible in your lawn, too. It’s killed by a lot of major herbicides though, so to justify it’s use, you’ve probably gotten told you want a monoculture of bladelike leaves for the “perfect lawn”. A perfect lawn like that is both really hard to keep alive if not the exact correct type for your yard, and also generally needs added nitrogen fertilizer… because you removed the clover with your herbicide… sigh.

Dandelions: These are great because they have a really deep taproot that breaks up ground and brings water and nutrients to the surface for your other plants to enjoy. This means less watering, less fertilizing, and less need to till the soil before planting! Plus, young dandelion greens, while bitter, make a great topping for a salty sandwich or pasta dish. Their early-season buds can be pickled for capers, and if you’re vegan, cheap, or just want some variety, you can make dandelion “honey” by using dandelion flowers to flavor a sugar syrup.

Henbit: not going to hurt anything, gives good root mats that can help keep water in the soil around your plants, and is also edible, if bitter.

Grass: Similar to henbit, it creates a root mat that aerates soil, keeps in moisture, and prevents erosion.

Plantain: There’s not as much I can say about this one, but it’s not going to hurt anything. And you can make tea out of it if you like.

The only plants I would really take out are the spiky ones (that might make it hard for you to access your food come time for harvest, and are easier to remove when small) and really tall ones with large leaves, which genuinely may shade out smaller plants, especially at the beginning of growing season. If you have a bed near a tree that produces a lot of seedlings, you may also want to be selective about which ones you keep, if any.

Second: Choosing Seeds

You can go the cheap/free way (link), and make yourself a nice dumpster garden out of discarded food scraps. If you’re particularly daring or broke I recommend going to an actual dumpster, since a lot of the discarded produce will be overripe and most plant-able. If you’re gonna invest in seeds, though- make them ones that are native to your area. As my dad found out after several failed years of 2-fruit harvests- growing lemons in Ohio is expensive and futile. Something like sweet potatoes or squash though will be a much better use of your energy.

You can easily recoup your investment in good seeds if you get heirloom and save the seeds for next year, limiting the number of times you’ll have to buy them in a lifetime. A lot of time it’s as easy as letting a few plants/fruits “go to seed” or overripen, then remove and dry the seeds. This is especially easy for brassicas, lettuces, and greens, but can also be done for tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, and others with a little research and strategic planting to ensure minimal inopportune cross pollination.

Third: Planting and Care of Your Plants

Historically, nature has been pretty dang successful in growing things. Even things humans have decided we like to eat. The biggest thing you can do for yourself here is think “what would nature do?”.

Nature doesn’t till. Generally you can help root veg (carrots, beets, potatoes, etc…) get a little bigger/more uniform by roughing up the soil, but you don’t have to do it for anything else. Not tilling actually helps plants grow longer and more complex root systems, which decreases the need for watering and fertilizing, and they’re more likely to survive high winds.

Nature doesn’t plant things in rows ¼ inch deep. She dumps a ton of seeds in one area, half of them get eaten by birds, the other half sprout and beat each other up trying to get sunlight. A few nice, hardy, delicious plants remain. You can take some advice from this, but also help nature in this regard. I recommend dumping a ton of seeds in a section, then scrabbling your hand through them and the dirt over the area you’d like them to grow. There. Planted. Some will grow too close to each other and may stunt each other’s growth. You can thin to an appropriate distance, and generally eat the sprouts whole in a salad. You’re just gonna have to assume that some of the seeds will be eaten by birds/squirrels and be okay with that. Seeds are cheap and a renewable resource- especially if you got them from a dumpster.  

Nature doesn’t start seeds indoors. Just plant when it says on the packet outside.

Nature doesn’t water things regularly. If the soil is super dry when you plant, you may want to dampen it with some tap water. Other than that, water only when it’s been dry for a week or so, or the ground is exceptionally dry despite your clover and grass cover.

Nature doesn’t use petroleum-based fertilizers. She uses composted organic material (vegetable food scraps, yard waste if you’re on a 1-year compost cycle, plus pet waste, meat and dairy scraps if you’re on a 3-5 year cycle), and urine. Yes your urine. It’s great. High in nitrogen. Very free. Add it to your compost or use it directly by mixing it with about 3 parts water. You can either apply it in the rain or just try not to get too much of it on the leaves- pee plus sun will burn leaves.  

Finally, nature doesn’t neatly harvest on a particular schedule. Leave a tomato plant out and watch a deer go to town on it. We actually had all of our tomato plants last year eaten down to nubs early in the season, and they came back and gave us one of the best harvests ever! I don’t recommend this as a strategy, per se, but if you’re picking something like greens or basil, harvest by just grabbing handfuls and ripping it off the plant. Our basil and other greens LOVE this and grow massively when we do this.

Fourth: Miscellaneous Tips

Move your plants around year to year. Crop rotation isn’t just a big farm thing. Tomatoes are going to take what they need from the soil but leave the rest and add something back with their own decomposition, which might be something your squash wants next year, etc.. You don’t have to be perfect about it, just try to put things in different places from the year before.

Speaking of which, once you’ve gotten what you can out of them, just chop the plants up and cover them with a little topsoil or mulch at the end of the season. Saves you time and returns everything you can back to the soil. You may get volunteers next season, but really the more the merrier!

Also- some plants you can eat a lot more of than others. For example, the only thing edible on a tomato plant is the tomatoes. But radishes? You can eat the root, the greens, the flowers, and the seed pods, and they are all great! Look into other things you have growing and you might end up with more food than you thought!

Your plants will look weird. That’s okay. Some of the leaves may rot or fall off. The tubers will be weird shapes because they grew next to a rock. Some of them will get eaten or break and be a little behind because they had to grow back. Your tomatoes may have a crack or two in them. Just eat those first. Produce isn’t supposed to be as perfect as it is at the store, and it’s not a problem that it loses a few leaves or is “leggy” at first or other things people worry about. Plants grow, sometimes weirdly. That’s really, genuinely, okay. It very likely won’t harm the end product at all.

Hello I'm Izzy and I drowned in Dolorosa and Singless feels again aksjaksjakks

I wanted to save this for 413 but I'm really proud of how this thingy looks! So I'm working on something else for 413... For now, have this lil snippet of thoughts Karkat has when he's out shopping with his mom Kanaya

I will forever treasure the fact that the Vantas and the Maryams always have this mother/son love going on. It's the real definition of love that goes beyond quadrants imo.

💕 Ko-Fi

💕 Commissions: OPEN

"Treat others how you want to be treated."

That phrase is one I've heard all my life growing up, yet it's clear how my family wants me to treat them.

My uncles want to be left alone, even in the worst circumstances,

my grandma wants to keep in touch and love me always,

my dad wants nothing to do with me (same as my sisters apparently) my brothers want space and nothing but space and for their annoying younger brother to stay away

and my mom.. well,

if she wants to be treated as how she treated me, then surely I should kill everything she loves, throw her to a rap!st for 1.5 years, bring men around that will treat her like shit (oh wait she already does that herself), betray her repeatedly, destroy her room and let crackheads sell everything/destroy everything she has, tell her no matter what she is to upkeep the majority of the house chores (yes even with fresh SH! cuts), tell her her medical problems are not only a burden but a detriment to how I'M living MY life and that she needs to think of the family when she complains about anything, call her a bitch, cunt, monster, manipulative, etc., call her just to scream at her for manipulating my friends into helping her get necessities out of life, neglect her in a trap house for 6 years with no outside support except begging neighbors for essentials like hygiene products, drivee with her in the vehicle but almost crash it about 5 times each time, demean, aggravate, punish, abuse her as she's abused me.

...And then tell her that she's not allowed to seek outside help or support, and not even utter a single fucking word about what goes on in the house, because as she's told me over and over, what happens in the house stays in the house.

And she still thinks she deserves forgiveness? She treats me like a criminal not knowing she's a serial killer of souls and hope.

I've forgiven her actions of the past, but that doesn't mean the pain and absolute agony of a life I once knew just disappears.

knight of life

knights over compensate for their self perceived lack of aspect by getting balls deep into their aspect, surrounding themself in their aspect. they do that, but not enough that it would raise any red flags to anyone who they didnt let in, who they didnt trust enough to say “hey what do you think about how i do this? am i bad, good, okay? even half decent at it?” the kicker is, they dont trust anyone like that for a long LONG time.

Those bound to the aspect of Life are the universe’s healers. They are concerned with the betterment of themselves and those around them, as well as the onward march of positive progress. Deeply empathetic, they have an intuitive understanding of other’s suffering and the best way of righting those wrongs. If you’re poisoned, chances are the Life-bound have something for what ails ya. This applies to both physical and mental suffering, though it might not be a cure you’ll like. They also have the tendency to put other’s needs before their own, which never ends well for anyone, because the Life-bound can grow bitter if they feel their own self-care has had to be shunted aside. At their best, they are great listeners, caretakers, and nurturers. At their worst, the Life-bound are passive aggressive, and pushy-they’re certain they know best.

a knight of life is a go getter with charisma. if they were a dnd character, they would have minimum a +4 mod on charisma. people automatically like their attitude and energy. if someone were to look at this knight, theyd be like “yeah, this guy seems like they know what theyre doing in almost any social situation.” but in reality, this motherfucker got crippling social anxiety that they hide behind a very WELL put together front. after a big party where they were the shining star, they hide in the bathroom and cry. i mean ugly cry. motherfucker got snot dripping down their face while their head is in their hands and maybe a little bit of rocking back and forth while they over analyze every little thing they did. no one knows about their freak out, though. they did it behind closed doors after everyone at the party left. they didnt tell anyone a word of this meltdown. what happens in the locked bathroom at 2:27 am stays in that locked bathroom. this knight is a perfectionist. they could be getting so many pats on the back about this big project they made. say they have jut finished an animation project. everyone is telling them how wonderful it is, how fluid and beautiful the art is. but they remember the several panels that were rushed and look sketchy as fuck. yeah, its during the biggest motion in the whole project. but if someone were to pause at 32.3 seconds and started walking the animation frame by frame, they would see the shaky lines, the wobbly circles, the weird pen pressure thing when their pen was fucking up. and someone seeing those mistakes would be their undoing.

Still one of my fav Meme of all time

#narciss

“This user is a Knight of Space” - 🩸

If it's still available, Knight of Light

The Knight of Life

The Knight of Life is someone who is kind and optimistic, always putting others first and taking the step back to allow others to pass them, even when it can be harmful to them.

The Knight of Life is someone who will encourage everyone around them to try their best and if you don’t succeed the first time, try again until you do get it right.

The Knight of Life will help others get past their fears, encouraging them to do things that they’d only wished or dreamed to do one day because the Knight is trying their best to bring out the Life within others.

The Knight of Life at the same time doesn’t really do anything that they’d hoped to do because they believe that they’re not worthy or that they have to work harder to earn their right to do fun things, when really they’ve been going above and beyond the whole time.

The Knight of Life can be seen as something like a perfectionist, always having to do better then they had before, even if they’re already doing the best they can, because they’ll never be satisfied.

The Knight of Life needs to learn to take things down a notch sometimes and to care for themselves more often because while they may be taking care of everyone else’s lives, they’re neglecting their own and that’s never good.

@a-heir-of-aspect-goes-here here is your analysis for an Heir of Life Taursces.

An Heir of Life passively changes Life or changes with Life. You may struggle with leading rather than being led by Life. You’re likely to not let things go and keep striving for change, even at times it may be better to let things be. Maybe you focus too much on wealth or staying youthful. As an Heir, Life probably makes up a great deal of your identity, but you also easily evolve yourself.

You likely find yourself naturally gravitating to Life. This means you may have many interests that are related to Life, including picking up on interests from others. This covers a wide range, such as baking and growing plants to engaging in games that allow you to liberate others. It also means you are probably surrounded by Life constantly - maybe this is Life symbols, such as money, nature and food, or perhaps you’re surrounded by people with high optimistic energy.

Combined with being a Derse dreamer, you probably appear more active than many Heirs. A Derse dreamer Heir of Life would constantly strive for liberation. You’re also likely to do this carefully - thinking things through to determine the best way to rebel. You may be more pessimistic than some Heirs of Life and break rules more often due to dissatisfaction rather than just because you can. Agency is also likely an important part of Life for you. You don’t give up and are resilient against any challenges thrown at you.

This is then combined with your Bronze blood caste. People are likely to perceive you as arrogant and hedonistic, even if in truth you are much more friendly and care about ensuring others’ lives are comfortable more than your own. This may be people’s misconceptions or you may feel you have to act this way. You may at times feel you have to act more friendly in certain situations, or perhaps even act more stubborn as well. You’re also likely to have been expected to value certain parts of your life, such as routine and family. However, as an Heir of Life, you may naturally break many of the expected traits of a Bronze blood and hence seem more like you belong to another caste. 

As for abilities - you’re likely to focus more on changing or controlling Life rather than adapting or influencing it. This could be more abstract, such as changing who has agency or not. It could also be something more like changing the rules of Life and allowing people to survive for longer. It’s also likely that you would have the Bronze-blood trait of animal commune.

Hope this helps! If you’re especially interested in any of parts of this, ask and I can go in more depth.