Lessons from the Garden

This may be an on-going post, I may add to it as more things occur to me. These are thoughts that occurred to me in the garden, that it seems to me can be applied to other areas of life.

* Pulling out the weeds is easier if you pull them when they are small.

I don’t much like the idea of using weed-killing sprays. So I pull them out. This is a bit tedious, but it’s working out pretty well for me. Little by little I’ve been getting a hold on the weed situation.

I have been learning to identify the good and the bad guys so I don’t accidentally pull up something I want to grow. If I don’t know I leave it be. And I don’t touch the poison oak and ivy. It gets sprayed with a solution of bleach diluted with water and a little bit of dish detergent.

This year I started pulling out sooner than in previous years. Actually I don’t remember much about last year, there was a drought and not much of anything was growing. But in previous years I have let various kinds of weeds get bigger before I tried to pull them and it was much harder to deal with them then. Some are really hard to get out when they get big.

* "If you want flowers you need to plant them."

So said my brother. I was trying to mow around the wild flowers. I like wild flowers and I would like to just let them come up. They just don’t seem to come up where you want them however. I did see someone’s yard once where someone had mowed around a patch of daisies. I’m pretty sure this was done by a woman, I don’t know for sure, but it seems pretty likely. I've know a few people who let the yards (backyards) go au natural. Nature tends to be pretty chaotic. Maybe one lesson that could be learned here is that there is something to be said for both cultivated and uncultivated or unplanned things.

* Even trees start out as little plants.

This is a lesson for life, for sure, you don’t always know what little thing that you start doing that may grow into a really big thing later on.

Small things can make a difference

An old pocketknife was just the thing. That's what I found when I was looking for a spade (trowel*). What I wanted it for was to clean the bricks surrounding 2 flower beds at my house. They were all covered up with leaves, mud and weeds. With just about a quarter inch of mud you couldn't even tell the bricks were there at all in some sections. With the knife I was able to ply, scrape and cut just great. And, I feel rather satisfied with the effort!

9 months. That's how long it took me to use up one tube of toothpaste. I'm just squeezing the last of it out now. I bought several tubes at a great price back in September and I was wondering then exactly how long it takes me to use a tube. So now I know. Of course, I might go through another tube a little quicker or slower, but give or take a bit.

* Do you call a trowel a trowel or a spade. Do you call a spade a spade? LOL

Random Thoughts

My hair comes out in little handfuls (7 or 8 hairs at time) all of the time, several times a day. I wonder if that is normal? But luckily I have lots of hair. I am a real hair factory.

I "recycle" my hair, too. I put it in my compost bowl which I keep in the kitchen for veggie/fruit scraps and I compost the hair along with everything else. I did not think of this idea on my own. LM, a friend from PCC in Hawaii gave me the hair idea. And the composting thing in general was inspired in several places. It always did bother me throwing away the scraps and the hairs!

The tomatoes in my brothers garden are finally coming in. Not too abundantly. I do love to eat stuff that comes fresh from the garden. It always seems so alive.

We did have a wonderful supply of peaches this year. (I say we, but I mean my brother's trees.) My brother's girlfriend "put up" a bunch of the peaches. She froze them individually on a cookie sheet first so they wouldn't freeze together. This is a worthwhile step to take. I froze one batch (one 1 pint container) just putting them straight in. But they were so juicy they froze together into a solid block which was harder to deal with. I like to make smoothies. I can consume a good deal of frozen fruit. I was blessed with gallons of blueberries several years ago. They didn't go to waste. I froze most of them. Ate some fresh and I tried making jelly and syrup, but that uses so much sugar. The smoothies seem healthier. My blueberry source has dried up, so now I am buying them - about a 3 lb. bag every week, plus other frozen fruits!

She also canned some green beans from the neighbor's garden. Since she has gotten to know the neighbor pretty good, neighbor said she could have all the green beans she wanted. And some tomatoes. But she didn't offer any okra. I wouldn't mind having some okra. My brother says a "mess" of okra, as the southerners call a batch, is a mess.

Why is it called canning, when people use glass jars, not cans?

I have been up to my old bad habit of playing games on the computer, again. I heard on Oprah yesterday someone talking about addiction transfer. I could understand that concept. That people could give up one addictive activity for another. I had quit one game recently, but I started another one. It's a word game, so I have all these words running through my head. stop, pots, tops, opts, post, spear, pares, pears, rapes, spa, spar, par, peas, pea, binges, bangles, tangles - my head is all in a tangle. But I keep wanting to try again and try to get better scores and so on.

My friend, Zippy asked her son, a 20-something how long he plays games on the computer when he plays. He said he plays on Friday nights and might play 8-12 hours at a time! She also asked him if he gets sore wrists or anything from it and he said no, but it might give him a headache.

I guess I need to go find something more productive to do. Ciao!