Dire Warnings Daily - The Special Sales Are Over - "Your Doom Awaits!" Burpee Wrote Today - "The End is NEAR!"

Wait until Good Friday for pea planting?
Not in NW Arkansas.

Spring has not yet arrived in many places, such as Midland, Michigan, where snow is coming again.

We should be done with snow, and no frost warnings lie ahead. We have temperature ranges of 40 to 70 degrees, with plenty of rain in the forecast.

I bought seeds ahead because I have found myself short in the very types I wanted in the past, such as scarlet runner beans. Favorite roses are always sold out early, including Peace and Double Delight.

Because of my early purchases, the seed companies kept offering me free shipping one more time, in apocalyptic language, over the last few months. That is quite handy, since a last-minute purchase of several packets will not work well if shipping doubles the cost of the order.

Order early, harvest early.

Sow Abundantly, Reap Abundantly
Sizes are:

• Small (envelope within an envelope - don't sneeze), 
• Medium (25 seeds), 
• Large (1500 seeds), 
• Duggar (small cardboard box), and 
• Super Walmart (enough to compost and have plenty to spare). 

I bought thousands of zinnia seeds (called the desert rose) for Phoenix and covered the pool area with a sea of flowers. Old Precious would sit in the zinnias and watch us swim, always ready to sound an alarm if needed.

Once an insurance executive pointed out the problem of small congregations, which are similar to small insurance agencies he helped manage - "People think they are more important than they are." That happens with seeds, although they do not really do any thinking until they are planted. If I have 25 seeds, each one is a jewel and too precious to sow. Placing individual seeds is tough on the back muscles.

If I have thousands of seeds, I feel free to sow them in wide rows, cover the area, and tamp it down gently with a rake or my foot. That does not mean standing on it to squash the soil. I hold onto the fence with one hand and tap the soil with my foot. Secondly, I run the aqueduct for a time, washing the loose soil into the voids. That gives the seed plenty of motivation to establish roots and grow upwards.

Borage is not only a great bee plant (nicknamed bee bread) but also a host for lacewing insects, which are great predators against insect pests. I remember learning in biology class about lacewings, 50 years ago, and capturing some for my insect collection. I earned an A, no surprise. I added a fake insect on a pin and labeled it with some silly name. The teacher broke into a rare smile.

Puncture vine or goathead is attractive in bloom,
but the thorny seeds embed themselves in skin, fur, and carpeting.

Soil Temperature
Soil temperature clearly triggers growth. Sweet corn cannot survive in cold soil, so the Three Sisters garden is still empty. The roses from last year are soaking in the rain and getting ready to bud, but the crepe myrtle bush lacks a single green leaf.

The peas, which I mourned prematurely, are already sending tendrils up out of the mulch that helped protect and feed them. The sunflowers, far more vulnerable to cold, also survived and came out of the mulch. That tells me that both needed a bit more sunshine and warmth to make the big move into the air. I discovered the hardy peas as mere sprouts under the mulch and left them alone, Their recent growth is astonishing, given their shyness in the cold weather.

Wide Row, French Intensive, Square Foot Gardening
My style of planting has several names, listed above. I saw many old style gardens where plants were lined up like soldiers in neat rows, the soil open for weed germination. That gives most of the garden over to weeds and the hoe.

One alternative is to cover the bare soil with mulch, which is far better than weeding. Ruth Stout is the pioneer in mulching.

A gardening writer observed that thick rows of plants provide their own mulch. That is - the plants shade the soil with their growth and reduce the chance of sunlight fostering the growth of weeds.

Double Delight rose -
easy to love, hard to find.

Did Plants Adapt, or Did God Create?
We can see that plants thrive in their own favorite climes. We had puncture vine or goathead growing in abundance in our yard in Phoenix. We collected boxes of them to throw away. Later I hid them in the shade, and they shriveled and composted, never to germinate again.

People see the same data and come to two different conclusions. Earlier, scientists saw the Creation, and many famous scientists were Creationists (a terrible slur now).

Now, everything is explained as Evolution instead. Plants developed a waxy covering to preserve moisture and thrive in the desert. That is why I wrote about thinking plants above. Exactly how does a plant know what to do and how to do it? That fantasy is far beyond my imagination.

Plants do differentiate in their cells, each cell a complicated factory in itself. Try thinking about how that little corn seed turns into a majestic plant with ears of corn, corn silk, broad leaves to capture solar energy, and greedy roots to devour nitrogen for growth. And yet this little corn kernel carries out this incredible transformation without a thought, designed to be a source of food.

Add to that daily miracle the dozens of creatures relating to the plant and the soil.

• Some bring nutrition to the roots (fungi).
• Some mix, fertilize, and sweeten the soil (earthworms).
• Birds look for pests and eat them.
• Squirrels and raccoons search for fresh corn and carry it off.

That summary above is not even a fraction of all the dependencies that make a garden productive, whether we know it or not, whether we plan for it or not.

Silver Queen corn - the best white corn.
As a Dow Ag scientist said - "Like eating mush."
He was staggered by my tall plants growing in four feet of compost.

Seeds and Plants Provoke Comments and Questions

When I posted this photo of Bee Balm on Facebook, one classmate wrote, "That is a hybrid."

She is a fan of native plants, so I asked her, "Do you eat hybrid sweet corn or Indian maize?" No answer has been posted so far. I am waiting patiently.

Another classmate said she grew Bee Balm once, but it was covered with a white powdery growth. I guessed it was mildew from being crowded, and she said, "Yes, it was crowded next to another, bigger plant - in a corner."

Bee Balm likes air circulation and plenty of sun, but hers was planted where it would get neither, so mildew had a chance to take over.

Peas love the cold and sweet soil, and they have shallow roots. I once grew them where we had gravely soil because it did not run counter to their needs. They can be planted as soon as the soil can be dug, not on Good Friday, the common day used (but one that varies wildly from year to year).

Once they are done, beans can take over and growth

Plants that love cold generally do poorly in the heat. Spinach and lettuce are best growing in cold rainy weather and bolt (go to seed) in the hot sun. Spinach grown on hot days is just terrible, bitter and tough to eat. Early spring spinach, planted in the fall, is crunchy and 10x better than the best in any grocery store.

When the spinach fails in the heat and sun, many substitutes can be eaten instead - such as goosefoot, Malabar spinach, dandelion greens (without herbicides, thanks), and beet greens/Swiss chard. Chard is a beet, and growing it is a snap.

Some plants get sweeter or better from the cold - carrots and some root crops, plus Brussel Sprouts.

Weeds, Plants, or Mulch
A patch of soil is either going to grow plants or weeds, or be mulched. If the sun strikes it and rain falls, something will grow.

In the desert, some seeds do not germinate until the rare summer when a lot of rain falls. Then oceans of wildflowers rise up to bloom fast, set seed, and die again. References to plants dying fast in the New Testament are examples of desert growth - flowering fast and dying soon after.

In the rest of the country, something is always ready to grow in a given area. The previous generation lined up their rows of plants in their gardens, used posts and string to mark straight rows, planted them like soldiers being reviewed like soldiers, and hoed the weeds all summer, removing those dastardly weeds and throwing them away.

Some used soil as a mulch, effectively breaking up the fungi strands that were trying to feed the roots. And still the weeds grew.

One alternative is to plant wide rows, crowding the plants. They become a type of mulch, shading the soil and preventing a place where weeds and grow. The same area can produce a lot more food per square foot. Weeds are cut to add to the mulch between rows.

Ruth Stout and Mulching
Ruth Stout promoted the idea of heavily mulching the garden, which creates compost on the spot, holds moisture in the soil, blocks most weed growth, and feeds all the soil creatures and fungi. Moreover, the birds will see a mulched area as a perfect place to feed on bugs.

The mulch has to be thick or be fashioned as Jackson Mulch, starting with a layer of newspapers. Otherwise the weeds are halted at first, then rear up as on steroids, fed by all the goodness of mulch.

Last year we began Jackson Mulch as the solution to planting roses in the lawn. Rototilling was fraught with problems and digging up the whole area was daunting. So we planted roses in the lawn, covered all the grass with newspapers and added wood mulch on top. We enjoyed beautiful roses, almost no weeds, and no insect damage worth mentioning. No spraying, no weeding, no fertilizing except through mulching on top of grass.

Weeds Are Overly Feared
So many gardeners are afraid of weeds. We planted tomatoes and sunflowers in the sunny garden and used wood mulch right on the grass - no newspapers. Yes, the crabgrass roared through it in time. Tomatoes kept growing in the crabgrass and we pulling many good ones out of there. Some pumpkins were planted too later, but they grew happily in the bed of crabgrass. The sunflowers grew, bloomed, and went to seed. I did not like it fancy (but weak) variety and decided to buy the giant sizes ones for the next crop.

When one patch of the rose garden developed a patch of weeds, since we expanded hastily, we added bags of mulch on top of some additional newspapers. We did get some short-term slime mold, nicknamed "dog vomit" because of its looks. But that went away quickly.

Wood in all forms will promote fungi growth, and fungi are good for the soil and plants. The Queen of England's private garden aims at promoting fungi growth for that very reason. Mrs. I says she understands my British heritage better whenever a gardening show is on. Where else can one find 700 year-old lawns and organic gardening expertise?

Seeds Are Arriving
Amazon sells seeds, so it is easy to find rare kinds and get a shipment for a few dollars. I will use the hardware store for ordinary plants, but the right seed is hard to find at any given location. Supplies quickly fade from the Net, too.

Doubtless I have ordered too many seeds, but that will only mean sharing them with others. Who does not want to grow 15 foot sunflowers? Or a few pumpkin vines? Or strange looking gourds?

My most interesting case of the new happened when I bought true Snow on the Mountain as seed, because I wanted to compare that to Goutweed, which many call Snow on the Mountain. Gardeners were always offering me Goutweed (sometimes called Bishop's Weed) because it grows and spreads in the shade. I had my packet of seed of the actual flower (not the shade-weed) but did not plant it. So I opened it and threw the seed into an area where bulb flowers were growing. Later, the most beautiful and delicate flower rose up next to the garage.

Goutweed is found on lists of hated, aggressive plants. Many pass-along plants like Goutweed are shared because they are easy to grow and therefore difficult to eradicate.

Garden Seeds Arrived Yesterday - Is Anything More Remarkable?

The mammoth striped seeds of the sunflower
create geometric patterns in the giant disk they form at maturity,
God's own Spirograph.

The rain was coming down in a slow, cold drizzle yesterday - and the first batch of seed arrived. The fragrance of sunflower came through the package. One variety is supposed to grow to 15 feet, and I will have some special compost filled holes just for them. Overall, the sunflowers will be a screen against the back fence, but they also happen to be a favorite of ours and our neighbor to the right - Mrs. Wright.

Nothing is quite like a seed, because each one is alive and ready to grow with the help of a little moisture. A true bulb is actually a flower with its own energy bar tucked around it. But a seed is far less developed - a baby with just enough food to start on its own in the battlefield of the garden, where birds and mice attack, molds help or hurt, and the early rain may fail.

My first lesson in gardening was learning to provide steady moisture after planting. Germination is not enough. The plants need to become established. Planting in Jackson Mulch is the best way to allow a reserve of moisture nearby, protection against water and wind erosion, and a supply of nutrition for the soil. All the seed and plants will go in mulched beds, except for new roses in the lawn, where mulch will be applied around the newly planted bare root roses.

By Norma Boeckler

Some of you will get out your 10 horsepower rototiller this spring and osterize your soil until it looks like rye flour. Meanwhile, I will just move aside a line of Jackson Mulch (shredded wood on newspapers) and plant in soft soil teeming with creatures. The soil creatures are eager to deliver food and moisture to plant roots, the champion (fungus) delivering the most for carbon credits from the roots.

Watering extra for the new seedlings will assure them a great start, and strength against early attacks by insects and disease. Watering also keeps the mulch rot going, since the decomposition of mulch has the effect as building a compost pile. Why not do both?

Stretch your arms out and make a circle, like you are measuring a bishop's tummy. That is how large the mammoth sunflower disk will be at maturity. The same musky sweetness of the seed will be powerful in the plant and flower. No wonder it drives squirrels and bees mad with hunger.

The variation in cells from the seed to the full grown plant is nothing less than astonishing. They specialize in root formation, stems, leaves, flowers, and seed. I doubt whether many gardeners are atheists, because too many things develop from that tiny seed to think man is the measure of all things.

Multiply this factory by the millions - at work in your yard.

The Word - Living Seed

The Word - Living Seed
The clergy and the denominational leaders - even some laity - are the gardener who received this shipment from the Burpee Seed Company:

• Garden Planning Software - customize for your property
• 10 bags of NPK fertlizer 
• Peat pots - for seedlings - dissolves into the soil
• Collapsing garden hose - 100 feet
• 1 three-toothed hoe
• Books - You Are Already a Great Gardener and Every Day Is Saturday
• 5 cans of insecticide
• 1 bag of fungicide
• 6 bags of herbicide

And one very large invoice.

Didn't you order any seed? To plant?

"I am going to do that some day, but I need to get ready, to make sure my gardening efforts are a big success. They have studied successful gardeners at the Fooler Institute of Gardening - all them have these tools at the very least."

And they do not plant the seed, broadcast the seed, or even think about the seed as the Living Word.

Some sunflower seeds get eaten by birds, squirrels, and rodents. Some seed will be killed off by soil diseases. We do not know which ones will succumb to these threats. No seed is marked. But we buy seed to plant it since one seed can produce a plant 15 feet tall with hundreds of new seeds ready to eat and to plant.

Jesus knows something about gardening and the Gospel, since He is the Creating Word revealed in Genesis 1 and John 1. The Gospel Word is even more marvelous than that living seed, because it works through the power of the Holy Spirit to carry out God's will.

The Word is not marked any more than gardening seed is marked:

1. This one will be eaten by a squirrel. Forget it.
2. This one will sit in water too long and rot. Forget it.
3. This one will start out well but get smothered by weeds. Don't even plant it.
4. This one will produce hundreds of seeds - be sure to plant it.

If living seeds are so effective than a little order can turn a yard into flowers, food, and vines, how much more powerful and effective is the Word?

1. To condemn unbelief.
2. To convert blinded and hardened hearts.
3. To comfort the grieving.
4. To provide grace and forgiveness for believers?