screamingSushi

Right before the May vacation, we had the opportunity to finally harvest our first herbs from the AeroGarden. We clipped the tops of the basil, trimmed the shoots of chives, and pinched stems of dill, cilantro, and mint. The basil grows VERY well in China and that’s a good thing because we honestly can’t find it at the supermarket. The mint is bit small but tasty. The cilantro has trouble holding itself up but still grows well. The parsley still needs some time – a slow grower. Our first harvest meal was spaghetti. We chopped all the harvested herbs together and mixed with a fresh tomato and onion sauce, added a glass (or so) of Chinese Great Wall red wine, and served hot. Delicious. Next harvest is ready now only a week later! This is fun.

After a long day at the ‘nan （‘南）, I was back home watching another consistently mind-numbing (and consistently censored) digitally-rendered prehistoric animal program on syndicated Hong Kong TVB Pearl.  The weather outside is apocalyptic brown and managing to thoroughly confuse our human thermostats down here in Guangzhou.  One day it’s so warm we’re sweating and kicking the A/C into annual operation and the next we’re back down in the 60s scrambling to pull the space heaters back out of the closet.

Aside from a bit of insight into the way bankrupt state-owned enterprises are able to shock their “businesses” back into profitable operation (more on that later), the day was remarkably amiss of bloggable material (not that any of it ever really is worth reporting to the online masses).  But as I slouch at the table awaiting an overdue episode of Prisonbreak, sipping a fine swig of ‘98 Greatwall Cabernet, and nibbling aged Dubliner cheese (aged I’m sure because of neglect in the fridge at the local Park n’ Shop), I notice a new development in space-age agriculture.  The Aero Garden, our recent urban farming experiment, is showing signs of growth.  The following photos detail the progress of two basil plants who have broken the surface of their sponge planters and given us the first sign of photosynthetic life.  Altogether thrilled to report this newsbreaking progress.  Sorry to waste your blog-surfing time with such drivel and apologies for those that may have linked to this post through some unfortunate creative Google keyword combination.  Now off to “Strange Brew” for some…

Growing an indoor garden in a high-rise Chinese apartment is now possible! Thanks to Mama D, we now have an electronic one! A UFO-like contraption gets filled with tap water and two vitamin nutrient “pills”. A week later “dirt-less” plug-n-grow(TM) seed sponges sprout seven types of edible herbs. And you thought McDonald’s was the best fast-food the USA could come up with?! An automatic fluorescent light maintains an artificial growing environment while a silent pump circulates water through the sponge-pots. It’s like a tanning bed for your vegetables! This agri-spaceship sits next to our dining table and we’ll be watching it shine for the next couple weeks as we wait for plants. We’ve managed to kill every other plant that’s lived in our China apartment so we’ll see how the high-tech version works out. Here’s the setup at Day 0.