Showing posts with label cotton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cotton. Show all posts

11.04.2010

Cotton

The only way I can describe cotton flowers is: Tattooed. The petals are a freckled complexion, and the husk they emerge from is an ink-speckled scroll.


Matt brought two seedlings home from a friend at the farmers market in the spring. We are well north of the cotton belt, but of course growing zones and geography do not stop the inquiring mind.

The seedlings waited in static perfection under the grow lights, forever. We planted them, and they went out of sight, out of mind, dwarfed by peppers and eggplants. Then one day a flower peaked out, and we were entranced. I did not get any pictures of the pink ones, probably because I was chasing the woodchuck with a pitchfork. Oh well.


I would have loved to see the pods split and the cotton poof out, but our season is apparently too short, even when it's long. So oh well, again.

Weeks after peppers reached their knee-high potential and eggplants slumped under weighty fruit production, the cotton stood up tall, with straight strong stems. It was purple and cream and green, and sort of built like a praying mantis, with slim angles and soldered joints.