Text 132, 97 rader
Skriven 2005-06-12 12:06:12 av Ardith Hinton (1:153/716.0)
    Kommentar till text 114 av James Bradley (1:134/77.0)
Ärende: Gardening
=================
Hi, James!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

JB>  I just finished double digging most of my garden, and
JB>  have quite a bit of seed in.


          Oops... you're ahead of us this year!  Nora & I intend to get serious
about gardening next week, when we're hoping our lives will calm down somewhat.
Nora has become much more interested in gardening since her experience in rehab
with mini-gardens in containers which can be reached from a wheelchair....  :-)



JB>  My, am I sore! Now, I have to keep up with the weeds.
JB>  I hadn't cultivated seriously for quite some time, so
JB>  I have quite a row to hoe sort of speaking...


          Perhaps you're feeling better than you have been for awhile, however,
if you're up to digging the garden.  Hang in there... [chuckle].



JB>  RE: Alder weed
JB>  Is that the weed that doesn't seem to sucker, but rather
JB>  *fires* out roots, and some twenty to thirty feet away
JB>  pops out anew? Purple veins on deep-green leaves???


          People around here seem to call it "alder weed" because it thrives in
damp places... as do alder trees.  I think it's probably what the British refer
to as "ground-elder".  It grows to about two feet in height & sends out runners
all over the place.  No purple veins that I can see... but it has insignificant
blooms which go to seed unless it's severely & frequently cut back.  Assuming I
have identified it correctly, it was used as a food & medicine in England until
the Middle Ages when people got fed up with having it take over entire gardens.
All that's needed to propagate it is a teensy weensy piece of a root... (sigh).



JB>  I'm in need of a source of Nitrogen for my compost,
JB>  and I don't think the neighbors are going to be too
JB>  accommodating. Any ideas there?


          I presume you're already using kitchen waste, grass clippings, leaves
from trees & shrubs, and whatever else comes to hand which does not require any
financial outlay.  According to ORGANIC FERTILIZERS... i.e. a book published by
Rodale Press in 1973... they're about that's really needed in healthy soil with
plenty of dead worms & bugs to add to the mixture.  There are some other things
I could suggest, but unless one lives near the ocean or in the countryside they
generally cost money.  Seems to me the garbage from the produce store, while it
does offer an ample supply of wilted green matter, is probably not very high in
nitrogen.  I'm still using the bottle of fish fertilizer I acquired a couple of
decades ago... when added to the compost, a little goes a long way.  And I make
no attempt to get rid of any clover which appears in the lawn or the garden.  I
find it tends to appear when it's needed, and disappear when it's not....  :-))



AH>  "Do as you would be did by."  It works for me... [chuckle].

JB>  I feel like I've been had. <LOL>


          Birds of a feather flock together, or so they say... [ROFL].



JB>  All this typing about gardening is going to get me out
JB>  in the yard again.


          I was wondering about the weather, since we'd heard about flooding in
the area... and you've answered my question in your message to Perry.  I notice
such things in the news because of your origin line, of course, but there are a
couple of other reasons too.  I went to Calgary on the bus as a child & saw the
most spectacular rainstorm (accompanied by thunder & lightning) en route.  Then
when I was at UBC I had a friend from Alberta who couldn't understand why folks
in Vancouver went about their business as usual when it rained.  I explained to
her that we get sixty-four inches of rainfall a year & if we stayed inside when
it was raining we'd never get anything done!  It seems to me folks in Alberta &
Saskatchewan get much of their annual ration within about twenty minutes.  :-))



JB>  Shoot, I have to realizer my limits. Steady as she goes!!!


          Uh-huh.  One of the things I learned from teaching was the importance
of pacing myself, but I still find it more easily said than done at times.  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver BC, CANADA [604-266-5271] (1:153/716)