A Cloudy Eclipse Day, Watering Plants With Coffee, and More Pattern Paintings

We were supposed to get a 75 percent solar eclipse here in Minneapolis, but instead we got 100 percent clouds. Oh well, there's always the next one. In twenty years.

Cloudy, rainy days are good for having our afternoon coffee at home, a tradition we started in the Covid lock-down times and, having become accustomed to the ritual, still do from time to time. There's usually a little coffee left over, even after I've had my second cup, which I pour into my plant-watering pitchers (one of which is an old coffee pot), to be mixed with water before pouring on the houseplants.

And that always makes me think of my Grandma Clausen (whose birthday was April 9!), because she used to pour her leftover coffee on her houseplants. She always had a lot of healthy plants, so I figured if Grandma did it, it must be good.

But one day I got curious and decided to do a little research on the practice. I wondered if anyone else did it, and if it was actually a good idea or a myth. As it turns out, it's a pretty common practice (see here and here), and may even be beneficial to plants, because coffee (and tea) contains some nitrogen and a couple of other minerals. But not all that much, so it's not really a substitute for using regular houseplant fertilizer. 

Both coffee and tea are also acidic, and that could be a problem if poured undiluted on houseplants that prefer a neutral to alkaline soil, so you probably want to look up your specific plants first. Since I usually have about a half cup of leftover coffee, and my watering pitchers hold about a quart, I figure my mixture is diluted enough to make little if any difference one way or the other. 

The really interesting thing about coffee and tea with regard to plants is the effect of caffeine, though. As early as 1911, researchers (link opens a PDF) were studying the effects of caffeine on seed germination, and found it to be allelopathic, which means it suppresses the germination of the seeds of other plants. So I nixed my plan to add the grounds to my seed-starting mix!

A more recent study on caffeine and seed germination (another PDF), concluded that it holds promise as an alternative to chemical pre-emergent herbicides. So maybe you want to be dumping your leftover coffee and tea on your lawn instead.

Meanwhile, My Art Practice . . .

I continue to loosely maintain my participation in the 100-Day Art Project, though in my case, it might more accurately be called a 14-week art project (=98 days), in that I don't really work on my art every day. But about midway through the week, I think about this blog and my self-imposed deadline to post something every week, and then I do a little dabbling with the paints.

At top is a cropped photo of a (shiny) gift bag, and beneath it a painting, using watercolor and gouache; size about 4 x 6.

For my 100-Day Project, which began Feb. 18 and has now reached the halfway point, I started out making mini collages, then moved on to spotting what I have called asemic patterns (in that they resemble writing in an abstract sort of way), taking photos of objects that suggest such patterns, and then interpreting them with watercolor paints. 

A scan of the inside of a security envelope, which had interesting flaws in its printed pattern. Beneath it is my watercolor background on top of which I plan to mimic the pattern.

This one's going to take a few sessions.

Another time (maybe next week), I'll elaborate a little more on the the practice of finding patterns all around us and making art from that, which I learned about in a workshop with Molly Anthony at our local art supply store, Wet Paint. But as this post already contains a bit of a rambler about coffee and plants, I won't add more words about that just now.