As city dwellers give up on the Great Australian Dream and opt for apartment living, men are facing the reality that they may never be the proud owner of a garden tool shed. In response, Generation Cave-Deprived is taking their need for tinkering, building and destruction to the kitchen, with the aid of powerful kitchen appliances and utensils.

“I don’t have a shed to store the loud tools I always wanted”, says Paul Cartwright who owns a unit in Melbourne, “so I take it out on food with my blender, juicer or high carbon knife set”.

Dr Rob Heard, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, believes such behaviour is a result of social learning, “From a very early age, boys are encouraged to focus their energies on rugged pursuits. If men can’t retreat to their backyard shed, they want to at least enjoy some of pleasures associated with it.”

One of those pleasures is to show the new kitchen toy to mates while the womenfolk are left to gossip around the dining table. However, just any machine doesn’t guarantee collective grunts of approval.

“You can’t have a fully-automatic espresso machine. It’s all about being in control”, says Dan Sanger, proud owner of a $500 Gaggia Classic, and resident of the aptly named Sydney suburb of Manly. “To make great coffee I need to tamp just right so the two shot basket runs evenly from each spur. Plus the slip on turbo-froth adaptor makes better steamed milk.”

While knowing that high above Australia’s largest cities, otherwise peace-loving men are cutting, dicing, grinding and crushing defenceless cups of fruit, vegetables and coffee beans may not be cause for concern. That it may not be long until they are strutting around with filters and steam wands dangling from their belt, is something none of us dare contemplate.

Sphere: Related Content

This week there has been much excitement in our household; we picked our own vegetables and ate them for the first time; ok so it was only a bunch of salad leaves, but they whipped the pants off salad in a bag from the shops. What’s more, I only started to grow things a few weeks ago, but have still eaten salad from the garden three nights running. I started by clearing a messy flowerbed, and bought some runner bean plants and a couple of tomato plants from a local gardening shop. I though that this would satisfy my botanical cravings, but then my mum gave me some seeds, and baby lettuce plants, and suddenly it was looking a little more like a real veggie patch.

Before I knew it, I had run out of space, so I used some old wooden fruit crates from the green grocers, lined them with a compost sack, and filled them with earth; now they are housing my herbs, pepper plants and some Borlotti Beans. The little kitchen garden has taken on a life of its own and moved out of the flowerbeds and into every container that I can find. There are runner beans, peas, black turtle beans, borlotti beans, red peppers, chili peppers, basil, parsley, chard, lettuce, spicy mizuna and other hot leaves, 2 varieties of rocket, parsley, tomatoes, little Alpine strawberries for the children, and courgette plants in big pots.

I have really been enjoying my time in the garden; I burnt a good few calories turning over the flower beds, and digging out some stubborn old roots, have spent some beautiful hours in the sunshine, and watering my little plants in the evening is less of a chore, and more a time for relaxation and contemplation. The children have been very excited about the vegetables, and spend happy moments watering or collecting snails in a bucket (to be relocated). There has been great anticipation waiting for the tiny strawberries to ripen, and searching under the leaves to find them.

If you have any space at all, you can rediscover your link with real food by growing something. There is still time to throw some lettuce and rocket seeds into a pot, or pick up some young plants to grow-on. You can put runner beans in a pot, supported by a wig-wam of canes, or grow some chili peppers on a kitchen window. If you have a spare pot, buy some salad leaf mix, the young plants grow quickly and you will be picking your own summer salad within the month. I cannot recommend the experience highly enough; growing your own food is great exercise, the process is educational for children, and the end results give satisfaction and superior nourishment. There is a different time scale in the garden; nothing happens immediately, and you are forced to slow down and relax the pace of life, something we could all benefit from; the complete opposite of fast food.

The crowning glory has been collecting things to wash and put straight onto the plate, so here was my dinner last night to give you some inspiration:

Roasted Vegetable Bruchetta with garden salad:

Roughly cut some onions (red and white) and some sweet pointed red peppers, and roast for about 30-40 minutes in a little olive oil, salt, pepper and any herbs (I love thyme).

Toast some bread (I used home made white) and when it has cooled, rub with a peeled garlic clove (I use the whole thing, but I really love garlic) and drizzle some olive oil over the top.

Pile the roasted vegetables onto the garlicy toast, and drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar.

Serve with lots of leafy salad and rocket from the garden, and some sliced tomatoes; a perfect summer dinner.

Sphere: Related Content

Kitchens, gardens, cosmetics have found immense use of herbs and for many years they have found their use in flavoring, dying, perfume and cosmetics, so much so that some of the herbs holds the power to repel insects, evil and vampires, while others attracted the perfect lover, good luck or bees to pollinate our crops even for curing headaches and burns. And, of course, what would fine dining be without the culinary herbs? So here in this article we give you some tips for herb gardening indoors that will replicate the conditions in an outside garden. For Herb gardening indoors the growing climates need to be pretty much the same as the conditions outside.
Requirements

You have to ensure that you have a sunny windowsill that your herbs will love. Use a container that is at least 6-12 inches deep.

Always procure your herb plants from a good garden center nursery who will have plenty of garden advice to help you with your inside garden.

Apart from the space and herbs you would also require some garden equipment like a small digging garden tool, garden gloves, organic fertilizer and some small gardening containers. You probably already have most of these garden supplies in your garden shed.

Very important factor to be considered is soil and you should only resort to using top grade potting soil with an organic fertilizer mixed in. If you think it is too fine a soil, use a little perlite. Fertilize while potting the herbs and they should be happy until spring. If you have an herb that is not growing vigorously add a little organic liquid fertilizer to the water.

“How to” steps

While selecting a container go for one inch up gardening container. If the plant is in a two inch pot, go to a three inch gardening container. Leave the roots alone and be careful not to bruise the stem.

You should never plant oreganos, mints, lemon balm or bee balm with other plants they tend to “take over” the garden. Pot these herbs in a garden container all their own.

I would advice you to place a small piece of wire screening over the hole to keep it from getting clogged rather than putting garden stones in the bottom of the gardening container as the garden stones take valuable space away from the herb roots.

All herbs must get 4 to 6 hours of sunlight a day on your window sill. If your window doesn’t supply that much light then purchase garden grow lights and hang them three inches above the plants. If you live in a very hot climate shade the herbs during the hottest periods. If you live in a very cold climate keep the herbs away from the cold glass panes.

Never let the herbs dry out but don’t drown them either. Herbs do not like to sit in wet soil. An inexpensive water meter from your garden center nursery will help with this important step in growing your herbs. Always use room temperature water so as not to shock the herb’s roots.

Here are some examples of which herbs to plant together:

* For an Italian selection try Sweet basil, Italian parsley, Oregano, Marjoram and Thyme. * For a lovely scented container use Lavender, Rose scented geranium, Lemon balm, Lemon thyme, and Pineapple sage. * For really great salads try Garlic chives, Rocket, Salad burnet, Parsley, Celery. * And to say “We love French Cooking!” use Tarragon, Chervil, Parsley, Chives and Sage

Give your herbs to grow used to their new conditions. Once you see growth you can start using you herbs. Snip and use your herbs often to encourage them to grow full and bushy.

Sphere: Related Content

[Ruler of Heroes]

Let us not all believe Atlantis and its demonic forces did not have its secrets, and dark powers, for it surely did. And this sketch will bring forth, some of them. (Part VI)

Ephialtes (425 BC) wanted the king’s throne, to be ruler of heroes in Hell and was promised it from Agaliarept, the Henchman and Belphegor, the King of the Demons, should he bring the king of Atlantis to the landing dock, to the pier where these two played their games and ruled Hell from, this would come about. Yes they wanted to see everything, and the pier was the best place for it.

—No one knew where the couple was, and should Ephialtes tell, he would leave his treasure open to other hungry hunting imps and ghouls, demonic forces, and evil spirits—for there was a gallery of these consuming creatures in every direction you looked. And therefore, a hundred years he played the game of building trust with his comrades and he devised his plan, day by day. Yes, he clutched to Anases like an anchor to the ground holding the ship steady. Both Anases and Ephialtes searched for the scrolls, or at least, Ephialtes pretended to, for it wasn’t in his heart; he had betrayed the Greeks to the Persians at Salamis, and on other occasions likewise, betrayed them for gold, or a prize; but no one in the watery grave of Atlantis, the old Port of Poseidonia knew of his reputation.

Somber with inner violence in his heart, his mind, Ephialtes went about his business helping Anases like an apprentice. No one being the wiser; he was joyous at times and placid, he knew he could not bring the old king back by himself, so in his spare time he’d create images in the darkness, and how the plan of capturing him would be on his face. He visualize drawing a map out for the force to come and surround him, capture him—later on he’d actually do it.

2
The Garden

It was at the end of the one-hundredth year, he had his plan all ready. He had for twenty-five years rebuilt the Garden of Poseidon, brick by brick; oh, it wasn’t as grand as it was before, but for being in the shadowy tombs of the mountain, it was an achievement to the eyes. He did not allow anyone to enter it, saying: it had to be completed, and then it would be given to Ais, as a gift to the King of Atlantis. Thus, he would get her to bring him into the garden where the capture would take place. Oh, it was a great plan he told himself, he even pranced about in the garden like an elf eating rotten apples, laughing like a crazy man.

During this time, this last twenty-five years, he chummed up to Amasses so to get closer to Phrygian and his wife, creating a trust, bond of sorts; oh, he was a snake in the grass for sure, but the King was no gentle lamb himself. He implied this was going to be the event of events in the waters of Hades, in the Great Gulf, for all to remember, from one corner of Hell to the other, to the outer limits of its boundaries right up to the surface of earth itself for all the demonic beings to hear and celebrate. Ephialtes even praised this underground haven as his own sanctuary, his prize for being a faithful and good servant on earth; that this was his heaven.

It was the day, the day of his salvation, so he called it. Quietly, like a mouse, Ephialtes crept out of the mountain enclosure, the cave domain, the underwater prison of sorts, and swam into the lifeless, or almost lifeless waters of the gulf looking for the four guardians of Hell, Belphegor, the King of the Demons, Agaliarept—the henchman, assigned by Satan himself; along with Buer and Gywan, both overseers of the Walls and gates to Hell. As Ephialtes saw the underneath of a large vessel, he surfaced, and sure enough it was the Royalty of Hell, the four guardians mentioned before, with twenty rowers on the second deck below in place. Treasures flooded Ephialtes’ mind, and could it be any sweeter for the four in the boat, I doubt it. Within a matter of minutes the five are in the Garden of Poseidon, the four hidden behind a small temple, with four walls, made especially for this occasion to hide the four; it was part of the Garden, part of the plan.

Now Ephialtes calls to Anases to announce to the Queen, Queen Ais, and King Phrygian that the celebration, the jubilee will start in the Garden, and will be handed over to the king and queen as their rightful place, thus as he is speaking grandiloquently, the vague words he speaks give top the four hidden a hazy laughter, odious and simultaneous laughter.

Each and every one of the four meet now in the Grand Garden of Poseidon, like a spider to the fly, they wait for the moment, the queen and king will enter, and as the king and queen do enter, we see Ephialtes standing in front of them, and their friend Anases, nonchantingly bow to the king (unknown to him what is about to take place); at that moment, as he is about to say something, the four hidden beings of Hell, like phantoms of the deep, fly out of their hiding place, and subdue the king.

3
The Capture and the Philosophy

Phantasmagoria circled the boat as the ghostship crept along the waters of the gulf, with the king, the prize of Ephialtes for Hell’s glory, the king framed in a circle with the over head mass of ghostly beasts as not to allow him to escape again, as they rowed the vessel to the Docks of Hell.

The Queen remained in a frozen stance, in the darken silence of the Garden, stunned in quiet horror. Her soft eyes not moving, not seeing, not even crying, or longing, or racing to join her husband any longer in Hell, for surely she could had jumped into the gray- machinated [plot]. But she did not move: but mumbled for once on a philosophers note: ‘…men of power entrap themselves in granite webs of life, dead or alive, they fight battles, only for a way to get out of them later on, and taking with them all who enter their space.’

Standing ideally alone, utterly unaided, lost in the Garden of Poseidon, human evil mixed with cosmic evil was too much to carry for her, for the queen, she couldn’t any longer carry his or be his fancy. Could it be he demanded too much of people, whatever, she stood stone still for the longest time thinking in mid air it seemed.

There was no such thing as death, or dying, for in the mist of all was simply a process of transformation, we were not made to disintegrate into nothingness. Evil did not die, it was simply hidden away onto and into another corner of the world, so the rest of the world didn’t have to go on with it, could forget the damages caused by one man, and thus, have a little peace until the next one showed up. It was like God was giving humankind a break between storms, since Hell wouldn’t. Hell was becoming to Ais, as well as for the King all it was said to be.

Sphere: Related Content

In Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’, Books 11 and 111 The Bower of Bliss and the Garden of Adonis might look similar from a distance; their geographical form is certainly similar, and the tour on which Spenser takes us seems to follow the same kind of route. But their ostensible similarity, and their juxtaposition in two adjacent books of ‘The Faerie Queene’ only serve to highlight their differences. The two gardens represent very different qualities of human life, and Spenser indicates the differences visually in his description of the gardens, verbally in the words he uses in these descriptions, and dramatically in the kinds of activity that take place in the gardens.

The first distinction to be made is between the proportion of Art to Nature that has gone into the construction of the gardens. The ‘Bowre of Blisse’ is introduced as:

‘A place pickt out by choice of best alive,
That natures worke by art can imitate:’ [11.X11.42]

Art itself is not condemned, but the use of art to stimulate wasteful unproductive lust. The artifice of the garden is admired for its skill, but condemned for being used to excess.

‘And them amongst, some were of burnisht gold,
So made by art, to beautifie the rest,
. . . That the weake bowes, with so rich load opprest,
Did bow adowne, as over-burdened.’ [11.X11.55]

The image of the vine bending under the weight of golden grapes illustrates how nature is distorted by artifice, just as human nature is distorted by entering the Bower of Bliss. Spenser’s description of the golden ivy seems to anticipate Baroque sculpture and architecture in that it is more than an imitation of nature; it tries to supersede nature by exaggerating the most pleasing aspects. The result is an excess of sweetness to the point of sickliness. The stimulation of pleasurable sensations is almost pornographic, and Spenser ensures that we get the message by the use of the words ‘lascivious’ and ‘wantones’.

‘And over all, of purest gold was spred,
A trayle of yvie in his native hew:
For the rich mettall was so colored,
That wight, who did not well avis’d it view,
Would surely deeme it to be yvie trew:
Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe,
That themselves dipping in the silver dew,
Their fleecy flowres they tenderly did steepe,
Which drops of Christall seemed for wantones to weepe.’ [11.X11.61]

A modern reader might not pick up the quality of excess implied in this description, but in fact Spenser takes pains to point out the excess. Art in the Bower of Bliss

‘Was poured forth with plentifull dispence,
And made there to abound with lavish affluence.’ [11.X11.42]

‘Wherewith her mother Art, as halfe in scorne
Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride
Did decke her, and too lavishly adorn’ [11.X11.50]

The emphasis on excess is of course most relevant to the theme of Book 11: Temperance.

In contrast to the lavish glittering spectacle of the ‘Bowre of Blisse’, The ‘Gardin of Adonis’ comprises of natural goodness. ‘It sited was in fruitfull soyle of old’ [111.V1.31] and:

‘In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,
Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,
And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,
Are fetcht:’ [111.V1.30]

The arbour is ‘of the trees owne inclination made’ [111.V1.44]. This garden is free of artifice, and in emphasising its natural perfection Spenser likens it to Ovid’s golden world:

‘Ne needs there Gardiner to set, or sow,
To plant or prune: for of their owne accord
All things, as they created were, doe grow’ [111.V1.34]

The quality of life represented by the Garden of Adonis is represented by ‘Genius’ who guards its gates. The Bower of Bliss was also guarded by a ‘Genius’, but not the real one. In keeping with another of Spenser’s themes, appearance versus reality, the Genius of the Bower of Bliss is a fake

‘That secretly doth us procure to fall,
Through guilefull semblaunts’ [11.X11.48]

The Genius of the Garden of Adonis guards the gate through which old people enter and young babies leave, and the cycle of regeneration being represented has the same seemingly-paradoxical combination of transience and permanence as Spenser’s Mutability Cantos [4]. The paradox is resolved by Platonism. While Time is the enemy of life in the garden:

‘For all that lives, is subject to that law:
All things decay in time, and to their end to draw.’ [111.V1.40]

It seems that the people, or perhaps just their souls, are recycled from old age to babyhood. And Adonis himself:

‘All be he subject to mortalitie,
Yet is eterne in mutabilitie,
And by succession made perpetuall’ [111.V1.47]

This is the same conclusion Spenser comes to at the end of the Mutability Cantos:

‘I well consider all that ye have sayd,
And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate,
And changed be: yet being rightly wayd
They are not changed from their first estate;
But by their change their being doe dilate:
And turning to themselves at length againe,
Doe worke their owne perfection so by fate:’ [V11.V11.58]

The garden is an allegory for the Platonic life-principle expounded in verses 36 to 38 of the Garden of Adonis where changeless ‘things’ or ’substance’ borrow temporary physical form during life, decay, and are restored again.

In ’sublunary’ terms this represents the fruitfulness of earthly life and the principle behind the ‘mightie word . . . increase and multiply’ [111.V1.34]. The Garden of Adonis is first and foremost, fruitful. The garden itself is a kind of storehouse for the various forms of life:

‘. . . there is the first seminarie
Of all things, that are borne to live and die’ [111.V1.30]

And its resident lovers, Cupid and Psyche, bear a child. Spenser approves of the pleasure indulged in in this garden, because it takes place between people who are enjoying natural healthy love:

‘But now in steadfast love and happy state
She with him lives, and hath him borne a chyld’ [111.V1.50]

In contrast, the pleasures to be had in the Bower of Bliss are thoroughly disapproved of. Even the word ‘bliss’ itself implies an extreme and transitory sensation compared to ’steadfast love and happy state’ of the Garden of Adonis. The lovers of the Bower of Bliss are indulging in ‘lewd loves, and wastfull luxuree’ [11.X11.80]. They indulge in sex for its own sake, with no love, and no intention of procreation. This kind of activity, according to Spenser, saps the spirit and will-power of a knight, and causes him to lose interest in his true quest.

‘Ne for them [his armour] ne for honour cared hee
Ne ought, that did to his advancement tend,
But in lewd loves, and wastfull luxuree,
His dayes, his goods, his bodie he did spend:
O horrible enchantment that him so did blend.’ [11.X11.80]

The word ‘enchantment’ is important here; the queen of the garden is an enchantress with the power to turn men into pigs, and by implication a mind attracted by lust is a mind under a kind of spell. As with the golden ivy, it takes a man of insight and experience to see through the superficial attractions to the underlying depravity.

‘That wight, who did not well avis’d it view,
Would surely deeme it to be yvie trew:’ [11.X11.61]

Guyon himself becomes enchanted by the sight of the ‘naked Damzelles’ bathing. This long description [11.X11.63-68] is extremely attractive; it is designed to arouse feelings of lust in the reader or listeners. Spenser’s ‘warning words’ such as ‘greedy eyes’, ‘kindled lust’ and the all-important ’seemed’ [11.X11.64,68,65] are few and far between, but they are there, warning the reader of the danger Guyon is in. This is part of Guyon’s education into temperance. The Palmer drags him away.

‘He much rebukt those wandring eyes of his,
And counseld well, him forward thence did draw.’ [11.X11.69]

But not all the pleasures to be had in the Bower of Bliss are tainted with artifice. The ‘lovely lay’ sung in verse 75 simply advocates enjoying life while it lasts:

‘So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre,
Ne more doth flourish after first decay,
That earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre,
Of many a Ladie, and many a Paramowre:
Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime,
For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time’ [11.X11.74]

Sphere: Related Content