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| Hollyhocks seed themselves. |
Park Seed sent me an urgent message about their seed being on sale. I wanted more sunflowers to grow, so I bought two kinds. One is quite short with large blooms - for flower arrangements. Another is the giant Russian or striped sunflower, with the big seeds for eating.
My helper came over to do some trimming. He stood on the porch and inhaled the aroma of the rose garden. He and his wife love having the flowers in their house. "Have we cut too many?" I said - "No, we have to prune them to get more." Although the rose garden looked bare yesterday, I had a number of new buds on the hybrid tea roses this morning.
I told him about the new seeds ordered.
The hollyhocks can line up along many places - the fencing, the back wall, and so forth. They take a little time to get established but seed themselves generously without being a pest. (
Feverfew - never again.) I have planted colored ones before, so I decided on white this time - and they were on sale.
Bean seeds were so cheap that I could not pass them up. We decided that each new garden would be opened by mulching rather than digging up sod. I get 5 to 10 bags of wood mulch, spread them out on the lawn, and dig only where needed. This relieves us of digging and rototilling the lawn, plus the dying sod will become the richest possible soil without being osterized.
Behind the house will be good for beans, spinach later, and corn next year.
Some fun plants for children will be:
- Pumpkins of various sizes - far in the back yard.
- Edible pod peas.
- Gourds of various sizes, shapes, and uses - many yards of free support from fencing.
- Sunflowers - so the kids can take home a disk. Some people roast their own seed.
- Giant alium - spring monsters that few people see.
- Hollyhocks - girls like to make hollyhock dolls from them.
- Herbs that smell good. Basil is one - there are many more to enjoy.
- More roses - because roses.
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Sassy is able to understand and ignore
over 50 commands. |
While we were gardening, Little White Mouse showed up to play. He is a Chihuahua from across the street. He has another name, but we call him LWM. This guy wanted to play tag at 60 mph. Sassy gave chase and had a great time. Another puppy appeared from somewhere. LWM stopped to catch his breath and get some water in our self-filling bird-bath. He stood there surveying the battlefield and took off again. Sassy thought it was great fun. Soon we were in the backyard where more trimming was being done.
Soaker hose.
Another time and money saver is the soaker hose. My monthly water bill is only $35, and it will not go up much from watering. Still, a decade plus in Phoenix taught me to conserve water. Sassy and I used to pass small lakes where the same people left the water on far too long, draining the yard into the street.
I use splitters to get soaker hose going to two different gardens from the same faucet. The birds love the puddles formed for baths and drinking, the abundance of insects and worms to eat.
The new sunflowers and pumpkins need watering to get them established. This is what many parents neglect after their children are baptized. They forget that the living seed of the Word, planted at baptism, needs nourishment to grow. Their apathy becomes the children's apathy.
The marketing dimwits of the "conservative" synods have imagined that gimmicks will drawn and keep people in a Word-free church.
The seminary professors should look at the origin of the word - seminary. The school should be a place where the Word of God is nurtured, not scorned. I would sentence the lot of them to five years of gardening. They might start teaching Biblical Christianity again.
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| Basil - ordinary looking - beautiful aroma. |
