GuardNGuy.blogspot.com

  There are so many quotes about gardens and gardening. Most of them have lots of flowery (pardon the pun) language about being one with nature and such. Here are a few quotes that resonated with me, and I thought you might like them too. “A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.” -- Doug Larson   “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.” -- D. Elton Trueblood   “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”   -- May Sarton   “Weeds are flowers too -- once you get to know them.”   -- A. A. Milne “Gardening is not a rational act.” -- Margaret Atwood “What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.” -- Charles Dudley Warner ...

I belong to a few Facebook garden groups.  It's fun to see what people are doing with their gardens, what kinds of successes they're having and the failures. It seems like the biggest failure comes from animals or insects eating things up.  We've had that problem from time to time, but on a smaller scale than people who go out in the morning and see that one or more garden crops are just gone.  Discouraging! I've been gardening long enough now that I know the answers to a lot of the questions asked by inexperienced folks.  That feels pretty good. Of course, I still have questions of my own, like why do my cauliflowers look like this:  So, I posted the photo asking what I should do differently.  The best response was that I should grow something else.  In other words, there was no hope for me! Other responses provide some good tips which I'll try next year, before giving up forever.  After all, when you grow something, it should at least look a lit...

My lovely and charming wife has been setting family records for food preservation this summer.  In  recent years -- make that decades -- this time of year has been too busy for her to commit the time needed to can, freeze, dry, or pickle things.  So, I think she's making up for lost time.  Or thyme.  Or something. Here's something we figured out: if you're freezing things, it really pays to put individual meal quantities into a small sealed bag, and put those bags inside a gallon size freezer bag.  It takes away the "freezer taste" that frozen vegetables can get. There are only two of us at home now, so in many cases freezing makes more sense than canning, but she's done that too.  We haven't gotten the dehydrator out yet, but I'm sure we will. She's also become fond of fermenting things.  Yogurt is fermented, as is sauerkraut and a bunch of other food.  It is said to be good for us, which it probably is.  There is some art that goes wit...