Horticulture and Gardens
Vegiforms
Back in the 1980s, Richard Tweddell III invented a way to grow vegetables into shapes such as faces, hearts, pop bottles, etc. by using plastic molds. As he wrote: "Just plant regular seeds in your garden, in the usual way. When the young vegetable forms, place it into the two part plastic mold and watch it grow to fill the mold. That's all there is to it."I don't know why his invention never caught on. If I had a vegetable garden, I'd use them. But perhaps the idea of vegetables shaped like small human heads didn't appeal to enough people.
More info: archived vegiforms website, Tweddell's obituary, vegiform patent
Tweddell with a vegiform
Posted By: Alex - Tue Dec 12, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Horticulture and Gardens, Patents, Vegetables
How We Do Things in Kansas
I love this genre of postcards that feature oversized common things like fish and various crops. This is one I had not seen before.
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 19, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Agriculture, Enlargements, Miniatures, and Other Matters of Scale, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Horticulture and Gardens, Humor, Regionalism, Surrealism, Twentieth Century, Postal Services
Trimming the Largest Yew Hedge
According to The Telegraph, they use a cherry picker nowadays to trim the thing. It produces almost a ton of clippings, which are sold to pharmaceutical companies who use yew extract as a key ingredient in a chemotherapy drug, Docetaxel.I can't figure out how the guy is just standing on top of the hedge. Can it really support a man's weight? I guess so.
Honolulu Advertiser - July 24, 1990
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 10, 2018 -
Comments (6)
Category: Horticulture and Gardens, 1990s
Hedge Laying Championships
Their homepage.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Aug 04, 2016 -
Comments (1)
Category: Boredom, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Eccentrics, Horticulture and Gardens, Europe, Natural Resources
Vertical Farming; Its A Jersey Thing
A facility being built in New Jersey is going to be the world's largest vertical farming plant. AeroFarms is set to be 3 times bigger than the next largest place of its kind located in Japan. Water usage is much lower while yield is substantially higher than standard farming operations. It looks like something that would be used to grow food in a Mars colony or in an underground bunker after Armageddon. But perhaps we will find that solving world hunger is a Jersey thing.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jun 07, 2016 -
Comments (4)
Category: Agriculture, Food, Vegetables, Horticulture and Gardens, Nature
The TomTato
There's such a thing as a TomTato, which is a hybrid of a tomato and potato plant. It grows tomatoes above ground, and potatoes below. It was developed by horticulturists Thompson and Morgan. From their website:I told my wife about this and she still refuses to believe that it's real. But it is.... I think.
More info: Greenock Telegraph
Posted By: Alex - Fri Jun 03, 2016 -
Comments (5)
Category: Horticulture and Gardens
Sculptures of Bernard Jepson
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 29, 2013 -
Comments (5)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Eccentrics, Horticulture and Gardens, Outsider Art
Lampy, the Multimillion-Dollar Garden Gnome
Read about Lampy here.
More Gnome history here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jun 21, 2013 -
Comments (5)
Category: Annoying Things, Cult Figures and Artifacts, Horticulture and Gardens, Foreign Customs, Europe, Nineteenth Century, Fictional Monsters
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |