Month: April 2016

The news on the radio, internet, and TV, is so dismal, it’s a wonder the world doesn’t stop spinning and just give up. And yet, every minute of every day, there are wonders to enjoy. The magenta screen have sprouted in the garden. Grow this plant once, let it go to seed, and you’ll never have to plant it again. It’s remarkable when you think about it. In late summer, the magenta spreen drops its tiny seeds, very tiny seeds, onto the ground. These tiny specs survive all winter just below the surface of the soil, and sprout in the spring without you having to do a thing. How do they make it all winter without being eaten or destroyed?

What is more wondrous than picking radishes out of the ground? Or watching a peony flower bud swell?

For lunch, a basket of kale buds, you don’t find these in stores, Pepper’s egg, and radishes. The world won’t stop spinning today. Too many good things are happening.

I will never need to buy rubystreak seeds again. A row of rubystreaks I let grow through the winter are in full bloom. One row will produce enough seeds to last a lifetime.

An eyeopener of growing vegetables is seeing what they turn into when you don’t eat them. Salad greens like rubystreaks, arugula, and lettuce grow taller than my shoulder, sending up flower stalks that soar above my head. The first time I let lettuce go to flower, I was impressed with what magnificent plants they became. The radishes I let go to seed have flowerstalks shoulder high. The kale plants are up to my chest. It’s as fun watching these vegetables grow as it is to toss them in a salad.

Before you can eat an apple, it has to bloom. That delicious apple that goes crunch inside your mouth was once a beautiful flower, dancing in the spring air, and getting tickled by buzzing bees.

Apple blossoms have a delicate, sweet, slightly spicy fragrance.

Hey! How’s this for an earthworm? The chickens would go crazy if they found it. It would be smorgasbord time. The overnight rain brought this large earthworm out of the ground. There are snakes smaller than this earthworm. You can see that it wouldn’t take too many of these earthworms burrowing through your soil to keep it light and fluffy. Have 25 to 75 of these per square foot, and they will do a bang-up job aerating the soil and keeping it very porous. The last thing you want to do is till the soil. One pass with a tiller through a vegetable bed, and you’ll kill thousands of earthworms.

The hens don’t know what they’re missing. Or maybe they’ve all gorged on giant earthworms already and are stuffed. They have been up for several hours. It’s gossip and preening time.