...what makes cats vom?

Yeah, I abbreviate vomit. Get over it. Also, I realized just how much insight into my life these posts have~ you can kinda track my little existence here, interests and time line and whatnot. I digress.

So, my cat vommed 3 times today. :X She's been fine since adopting her a week or two ago, but this spurred me to move a LOT of house plants "out of reach" (is anything really ever out of reach for an interested cat?) and to be generally concerned. I mean, that's a lot for someone who usually doesn't vom. Did you know Pet MD is part of Web MD? Here's what they say, which makes sense but isn't super helpful:

"You have probably seen your cat vomit from time to time without much concern. Vomiting can be a result of something minor, like a cat consuming his meal too quickly, or it can be a sign of a much more serious condition that requires immediate medical attention. Usually, a cat vomits because he ate something disagreeable, ate too much or played too soon after dinner. Vomiting can also be associated with gastrointestinal or systemic disorders.

Some causes for a sudden episode of vomiting, or acute vomiting, include:

• Bacterial infection of the gastrointestinal tract
• Diet-related causes (diet change, food intolerance)
• Gastric or intestinal foreign bodies (toys, hairballs)
• Intestinal parasite
• Acute kidney failure
• Acute liver failure or gall bladder inflammation
• Pancreatitis
• Post-operative nausea
• Toxins or chemicals
• Viral infections
• Certain medications"

Cool. So anything can make my cat barf. It's also rather amusing that the only two words Pet MD defines are "cat" and "vomit." Well, I DID clip her nails right beforehand, which she h-a-t-e-d even though I'm really good at and nice about it. And before THAT we played a lot with other little cat. Plus she's been eating his kitten food which is new for her, and she ate her wet food real fast. I feel that sufficiently explains it, but in case it continues and just to check, here are some plants that make kitties sick, thanks to ASPCA.

Shit. I have a mini aloe plant AND a flamingo flower. It seems like the aloe one should be okay since she threw up and is now eating a treat then running around a ton. Back to normal? I'm still moving everything away, however. I'm going to assume she's okay now that I've moved everything, she's eating, and she's running and playing. :X

...what plants grow in JUST shade?

I love old Chicago buildings. Sometimes they mean you get weird nooks and crannies, or a bonus living room. Sometimes they mean you have two windows in your apartment that form a tiny heat wind-tunnel triangle with a brick wall.

There's little to no sunlight here (think Bane's "The Pit" but not in the desert). Some plants that don't just handle partial shade, but complete shade:

Impatiens, Forget-me-nots, Begonias, Lily of the Valley, *wild* Violets, and Pansies.

How Stuff Works has a good list with quick, useful details, but not all of these love complete/full shade.

If you're like, "Hey, what is this planting zone thing? What zone am I?" you can enter your zip code on the USDA Plant Hardiness site and it will tell you the deets.

...how to take a cutting of a plant?

*work with new growth
*healthy dark green leaves (not light green or flowering)
*should be 2-5 inches
*strip the bottom leaves
*a single fluorescent light or indirect sunlight is good. Not direct.

Unshockingly, most of the how-to I found was from the UK. The plants I want to "propagate" are... well, a lot. I'm kinda just experimenting here because I have a eensy bit of garden space for once AND an empty pot or two. :) WikiHow was a big winner here, as it seems to offer the most lazy man's methods. I liked these easy tips on why NOT to root just in water, even though that's what I'm going to try first.

Hydrangeas-->
-Same tips as above. Choose one with a woody base, make it about 5 inches or so. Apparently hydrangeas are easy to propagate, so I'm just sticking them in some water and will change it frequently.





<--Succulents:
-Samesies. Stick a good sized cutting in water, then replant in a planter that isn't much bigger than it. They like cozy homes. *This isn't my hand. In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to get out of doing a lot of work but still do things that usually take a lot of work. So finding a picture that looks like one I'd take and upload was handy. :)


Here's a short (albeit unstable) video that shows you clearly what to do:



All in all, do these things to just about any plant. Some are hardy and will regrow pretty much no matter what, while others are fairly delicate and would do better if you bought root growth hormone and made it a mini green house with a plastic bag or plastic pot cover. I'm not ready to mess with / invest in those yet, but you can also make your own root hormone from willow clippings (don't have one) or from honey... this one is so easy I might even try it! :) Just boil a 1:3 ratio of honey to water, let it cool completely, and then dunk your clippings in it before sticking them in moist (ew) soil. Yay!

...if I can use these squash innards in my box garden?

Which made me think, Hey! We have coffee grounds, too. And I DEFINITELY remember getting pounds of used coffee grounds from Starbucks('s?) in Texas and sprinkling them around the avocado tree (THAT DIDN'T PRODUCE A SINGLE F-ING AVOCADO in spite of me pruning and sprinkling said coffee grounds. Until the year I moved out, and when I went back, there were so many the new people couldn't give them away fast enough. Like, a Midwest-acorn amount. No, I don't care if avocado trees only fruit (verb?) every few years. That seemed personal.) in our otherwise barren backyard.

Let me preface this by saying that composting seems overwhelming at this point in life and I'll check that out later. So, here's what the research told me:

>Soil should have an organic matter (dead plant and animal bits that are in/on soil but haven't decomposed yet, hereafter referred to as NOMs, thankyouWikipedia :P) of 5-8% (1).

>Don't add more of anything until the original amount decomposes (1). 

And then, for god's sake, all people wanted to talk about was composting. Compost, compost, compost! I don't got time for compost! Or interest! I had to really focus my Googling skills and ask for "adding food scraps directly to garden". Enough about my tiresome quest. Reap the rewards!:

>What I want to do, which I think of as "the lazy girl's NOMs", is also called "trench composting" if it's buried or "sheet composting"or, my favorite, "lasagna composting" if it's just thrown right on top (2). The only issue is that animals might be super interested and dig it up.

>The most useful and happiest discovery was this LESS THAN ONE MINUTE VIDEO from Dillon Seitchik-Reardon of the adorably named Little Veggie Patch Co. BOOM:



1Anna@GreenTalk found this out from Dr. Paul Hepperly at the Rodale Institute.
2Anonymous users on OrganicGardening.com had lots to say about the lazy girl's NOMs.