The Gothic Homesteader

 Gardening inside, that is what I must do if I am to keep growing items past October in the high desert of Northern New Mexico.  Last fall I bought a greenhouse , but for some silly reason I never opened it or used it.  So it safely made the move from Arizona to New Mexico. A few weeks back, before our first snow on November 5th (a dusting), I moved my Purple Queen Setcreasea and the healthiest of my Purple Sweet Potato Vines inside for the winter.  They joined my Shamrocks and Robby's baby Barrel Cactus inside the greenhouse. Currently, we have no herbs, but I'm looking to fix that. How did I make it from a plain, boring greenhouse into a "Gothic Greenhouse"?  First, I used purple and black pots for my larger plants for both inside and outside use.  Then I gathered fun items from the Halloween, Day of the Dead, and Party stores, and combined them with a few black dragonflies from last Christmas, giving the greenhouse a whimsically Gothic feel as u...

As I have been studying Black, Purple, Blue, and other "dark" Gothic Plants, I would like to introduce you to a personal favorite:  Navajo Blue Corn, also called Hopi Blue,  is a variety of Flour maize grown in northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, particularly in the states of Arizona and New Mexico.  One of  the “Zea mays” corns  domesticated by Meso-Americans along the Rio Balsas of Mexico by at least 6,700 BC.  Corn is a staple food and has many ritual uses.    In my studies, I have found that Navajo Blue Corn was originally developed by the Hopi, and remains an essential part of Hopi and Navajo dishes.  Blue Corn Kernals are gound to make meal, and has a sweet flavore.  Blue Corn is also a staple of New Mexican Cuisine, where it is also known as Zuni Blue Corn.  The Navajo dry farm this corn below their canyons and mesas (near a flood plain to catch natural monsoon rains), thus making it a nice drought hearty...