Plant update

[igenlode]

I finally potted up the coriander (the two seedlings left over at the end got a whole tall pot to themselves, so it will be interesting to see how much better, if at all, they do!)

Having got my hands muddy I then proceeded to 'top up', or rather fill in the bottom of, one of the dwarf peas that didn't seem to have a lot of soil depth in its pot, and took the chance to give it a stick at the same time. None of the peas have really grasped onto their various sticks, which is a bit disappointing...

I sowed some more last-ditch chive seed, this time from the old commercial packet; I'm not quite sure why I'm bothering, as I don't even *like* chives all that much (though this may be influenced by the fact that I basically haven't been using them at all for the last couple of years because the plants just haven't been flourishing enough to harvest from!) I did note from the back of the packet that chives supposedly require 15–35 days to germinate -- so the ones sown on the 6th of April won't have come up yet anyway!-- and temperatures of 15-20C, which they haven't been getting either :-P

Also resowed the orange poppy, which has likewise shown no sign of life after a couple of weeks.

Comments

[paserbyp]

In Israel, fifteen desiccated mericarps were found in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B level (six to eight thousand years ago) of the Nahal Hemar Cave, and eleven from ~8,000–7,500 years ago in Pre-Pottery Neolithic C in Atlit-Yam. If these finds do belong to these archaeological layers, they are the oldest find of coriander in the world. The herb is mentioned in the Torah as a point of reference for the taste of manna, implying it was a well-known ingredient in ancient Israel.

[igenlode]

Somehow I always imagined manna as being sweet and not savoury -- probably derived from my childhood ideas of its being 'the nicest stuff in the world', and a child's ideas of what that would consist of :-D

I've just checked what my Children's Bible -- which, my parents being atheists, I read as a storybook -- actually had to say on the matter, and it simply describes manna as 'dew', 'small round things as small as hoarfrost', and 'bread'!

[Edit: oh, I see, later on it talks about manna being the *colour* of coriander seeds -- not that I would have had any idea what those looked like back in those days! -- and tasing 'like wafers made with honey'. So that was where I got the conviction that manna was something sweet from.)