Gardener’s Soufflé (in December!)

I’m writing this on my patio while eating some leftover pizza (in December!) after a particularly good turn at composting this morning. Based on some reading and good advice from one of my sons-in-law, I am trying the layering technique: 

I used my phone for these snapshots, which will probably not wind up on Instagram as that service seems to be for photos of more socially acceptable topics than what I use in my compost layering, thanks to my neighbor’s horse down the street.  I even scheduled a time to show up.

Incidentally, while warming up the pizza, I noticed my phone was no longer in my jacket’s pocket.  Considering what I had just been working with, this could potentially be mildly unpleasant.  So I took Bob’s phone outside to call mine, and I followed the ring tone, (conjuring up images of Jurassic Park 3-The Lost World…)

Yes, there it was, thankfully not

Efficient planting, or not.

My son-in-law steered me to a more user-friendly way of gardening know as Square Foot Gardening—a precise way of designing, planting and growing crops that makes the most efficient use of space as well as seed.  In fact, we’re instructed to plant only a few seeds into each particular hole in each particular one-square-foot plot mapped out in the dirt.  This helps eliminate the need for pulling up tender shoots when there’s too much crowding for optimal growth (what a waste!), as well as to prevent wasting the seed.

It all sounds quite logical.  So, naturally, I bought the book, and I’m waiting to put it to use. 

That was several years ago.

Evidently, they didn’t use that method back in Jesus’ day either, to hear

Don’t bother washing the hat

This spring I put in a new garden.  I’ve already blogged somewhere about it, so I’ll spare the details, but to say it’s back-breaking work (fine, I’ll admit it—especially for this aging back) is without question.  I’ve done it, however, with the hopeful expectation of an improved harvest. 

If I’ve learned one thing living in America’s Heartland, it’s that farmers are possibly some of THE hardest working individuals on the planet.  Their hands are not soft, and the ball caps on their heads are not nice and clean.  During harvest, they work dawn to dusk (sometimes beyond that), and it takes not only