So i got a nice email from a fellow MAN gardener and he had this to say:
"trim the bottom leaves off you tomatoes, they get no sunlight, then wrap the stalk with a bit of bare copper wire. no more slugs. originally I was going to put a loop of cu, and a loop of al. poor mr slug would be a battery. ouch. but apparently mr slug won't cross the copper."
Clearly the man is insane, but who isn't around here... when the going gets fucked the fucked get going...
What i do like is the attitude... the man attitude... as the bible kind of insinuated "do unto others before they get a chance to unto to your tomatoes".
the other great thing about this is that he solved the problem... the slugs won't cross the copper wire, but he never would have thought of that... it came out of a need to damage the culprits. Now as a natural scientist i was wondering about things you discover trying to solve other problems. Our Man Andrew discovered that copper wire will keep the slugs at bay... (until they become really hungry perhaps.. time is the hunter on that dog)... but what if you did set up a current? What affect would that have on the tomato plant in terms of raw yield? We defiantly know that currents from electromagnet forces do have an impact on living beings.
I remember in university taking a course in vertebrates and we did an experiment where we stressed fish with currents... that was until "Seed Corn" a guy who's father was a chicken farmer... he was a king hell riot of a guy and a very dangerous person to be around in terms of freak accidents and other tomfoolery... anhyoo Seed Corn ate our fish on a bet and so when the lab instructor came over to our tank to check out our experiment, we had a bit of a "missing fish" dilemma that never really got properly explained.
What I'm getting at is that the right current could be beneficial to the plant's tomato yield by creating an unnatural tomato growth spurt inspired by the effects of the electrical current... i would guess that unnatural= bad, as things usually work that way, but remember bad can be good if it makes money... a uniquely human trait.
But Man gardening is about producing for yourself... about not going to the grocery store but rather to the garden. And our man Andrew is correct in the management of tomato leave plucking... a few of my friends are Italian and there are many stories of people spending a lot of time pinching off tomato leaves to keep the right balance in the plant.
Plants need space to thrive and sometimes they compete with themselves for that space and your job as a Man Gardner is to help the plant make those decisions. Food producing plants have been "selected" over the years of human cultivation ... actually a form of genetic modification, for traits other than learning to grow properly. it's all about the yield, or in Monsanto's case it's about the yield and the elimination of anything that stands in the way of total market domination... but their plants have a team of corporate lawyers happy to bankrupt any opposition who's position is completely logical and necessary in terms of the propagation of life...
getting a bit off topic... nothing quite like a Monsanto rage... Monsanto is a seed corporation that is one of the clearest representation of the devil on this planet.
I myself don't have a problem with slugs on my tomatoes, perhaps that is because i have much tasty lettuce nearby for the slugs to feast on and they leave my tomatoes alone. Our Man Andrew also mentioned that he is actually a balcony gardener so I'm thinking it might be a good idea next year to go with all new soil... or bake the soil he has in his oven to kill off any vagrant slugs... of course he is going to have to recommend that his neighbours who have garden balconies bake all of their soil as well and sometimes if these people are not MAN gardeners they might foolishly thing that baking their soil in small increments is a waste of time... i guess if copper wire works.
kind of fun to imagine the strata meeting where they tell everybody with a balcony that they need to bake their potting soil because the building is about to be wrapped in copper wire and the slugs will be no longer.
I remember running a garden, or a few of them in our last place and when i suggested a rain barrel to collect water for a portion of the garden that had no water access there was a pack of lunatics that were worried that the rain barrel would encourage mosquitoes to live... and that was around the time there was a malaria panic in the news... so that meeting came to an unfortunate conclusion... i was glad i wore my pyjamas to that meeting... sometimes a strata council president needs to make his point... don't worry they were a nice plaid pyjamas.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
It's all about the kids
I had the good fortune to lead a class of youngsters on a tour of the community garden. It happened that my oldest daughter's class was doing a study on on the concept of "Community", so i mentioned i could lead them on a tour of the community garden... i failed to mention that it would in fact be a lesson on MAN gardening. I had to fail to mention that otherwise the school commissioner would get all squirrely... if you know what i mean.
Perhaps the exam at the entrance of the garden was a bit too much for a pack of kindergarten, grade one and grade two students... but sometimes you have to just roll with the punches. In a number of ways i am against tests, exams and grades for the younger pupils in our society... I feel it puts unnecessary stress on the student to perform at a level that is completely irrelevant to their development at this time... but gardening is different than primary school... it is actually important! And the purpose of the exam was to inspire curiosity with respect to the ways of our food producing friends.
So what was the plan... a pack of kids in the garden = chaos.
Clearly we needed MAN wisdom so i gave a small lecture on spinach and how spring time is spinach time but summertime is coming so it is now bean time. I had talked to the teachers before hand and had them prepare Popsicle stick like items with the name of the child on it and in the end we have beans planted now in the spinach patch. The kids planted a bean seed and put a stick with their name on it next to the seed... i will photograph later for the record.
It's funny how kids are... they hear they get to plant a bean in a MAN garden and they just form a "task based" line all eager to plant their bean seed. I made sure that we had the bean seeds without the poison... some bean seeds are coated in a poison to keep other life from eating them... for sure one doesn't want to be involved in the poisoning of a bunch of primary school students on a mission that was meant to instill a love for gardening despite the exam and all.
Anyhoo, we got the beans planted, which was something i was meaning to do and the kids were very happy and our collateral damage was very minimal... i lost a corn plant a few lettuce and a a couple of sunflower plants but i got 30-40 beans planted so it's all good. and in the end the kids had a great time and they made me a book with drawings of their memories of their experience at the garden, and that's worth it's weight in gold any day.
for the record we did do a small lecture on bees... as we have a small collection of mason bees in the garden. pollination is everything.
Perhaps the exam at the entrance of the garden was a bit too much for a pack of kindergarten, grade one and grade two students... but sometimes you have to just roll with the punches. In a number of ways i am against tests, exams and grades for the younger pupils in our society... I feel it puts unnecessary stress on the student to perform at a level that is completely irrelevant to their development at this time... but gardening is different than primary school... it is actually important! And the purpose of the exam was to inspire curiosity with respect to the ways of our food producing friends.
So what was the plan... a pack of kids in the garden = chaos.
Clearly we needed MAN wisdom so i gave a small lecture on spinach and how spring time is spinach time but summertime is coming so it is now bean time. I had talked to the teachers before hand and had them prepare Popsicle stick like items with the name of the child on it and in the end we have beans planted now in the spinach patch. The kids planted a bean seed and put a stick with their name on it next to the seed... i will photograph later for the record.
It's funny how kids are... they hear they get to plant a bean in a MAN garden and they just form a "task based" line all eager to plant their bean seed. I made sure that we had the bean seeds without the poison... some bean seeds are coated in a poison to keep other life from eating them... for sure one doesn't want to be involved in the poisoning of a bunch of primary school students on a mission that was meant to instill a love for gardening despite the exam and all.
Anyhoo, we got the beans planted, which was something i was meaning to do and the kids were very happy and our collateral damage was very minimal... i lost a corn plant a few lettuce and a a couple of sunflower plants but i got 30-40 beans planted so it's all good. and in the end the kids had a great time and they made me a book with drawings of their memories of their experience at the garden, and that's worth it's weight in gold any day.
for the record we did do a small lecture on bees... as we have a small collection of mason bees in the garden. pollination is everything.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
can't go to sleep without a little bone Man Robertson Gardening wisdom
That's right... what was that idea i had...
Gardening is not a competition... but if it can be turned into one, then perhaps, one might be able to spur on greater yield.
What you have to remember with this line of logic is that if it becomes a competition that you don't resort to damaging other peoples plants in an effort to win by default. Think of yourself in in that lineup after a greatly contested hockey game shaking hands with your opponent... win or lose you thank them for playing hard and thus bringing out the best in yourselves as a team. In a game you need good opposition, but fair play is the kinship of sportsmanship. Does that even make sense? Jesus fucking christ i'm trying to write a serious blogaroo and my own lack of English understanding has gotten in the way of of a fine point.
When i was in University, one could say that my maturity level was not up to snuff, but we had some good times for sure. But the one rule in the house was that always the gold standard was to not to fuck with peoples beds. Perhaps you passed out in the living room and as a result you got your head shaved and a tube of a535 wiped on your groin but when you recovered from that, you had your bed that was guaranteed to be free from fuckery. That's the way men roll, most of life is lived to set up the next practical joke, and the other part of life is to relive those practical jokes.
But as a Man i have to say... don't fuck with peoples gardens... a garden represents life, and life is on it's way out of this planet... I don't make the rules i just call them like they are... you should never garden to be better but rather to bring out a side in yourself that strives for food production... or some other lesser purpose like the crazy kook woman flower garden.
When was in a band called "Roadbed", look it up if you dare, we used competition as a great producer... anything that gets you motivated to rule your domain is OK in the Man book. If one of the members wrote a song then the other would immediately think "fuck you you son of a bitch" and write another. Sometimes stubborn son of a bitches need an obvious motivator but never lose track of the big picture.
gardening tip of the day? Blueberries need acidic soil... think coffee grounds and pine needles.
OK
Gardening is not a competition... but if it can be turned into one, then perhaps, one might be able to spur on greater yield.
What you have to remember with this line of logic is that if it becomes a competition that you don't resort to damaging other peoples plants in an effort to win by default. Think of yourself in in that lineup after a greatly contested hockey game shaking hands with your opponent... win or lose you thank them for playing hard and thus bringing out the best in yourselves as a team. In a game you need good opposition, but fair play is the kinship of sportsmanship. Does that even make sense? Jesus fucking christ i'm trying to write a serious blogaroo and my own lack of English understanding has gotten in the way of of a fine point.
When i was in University, one could say that my maturity level was not up to snuff, but we had some good times for sure. But the one rule in the house was that always the gold standard was to not to fuck with peoples beds. Perhaps you passed out in the living room and as a result you got your head shaved and a tube of a535 wiped on your groin but when you recovered from that, you had your bed that was guaranteed to be free from fuckery. That's the way men roll, most of life is lived to set up the next practical joke, and the other part of life is to relive those practical jokes.
But as a Man i have to say... don't fuck with peoples gardens... a garden represents life, and life is on it's way out of this planet... I don't make the rules i just call them like they are... you should never garden to be better but rather to bring out a side in yourself that strives for food production... or some other lesser purpose like the crazy kook woman flower garden.
When was in a band called "Roadbed", look it up if you dare, we used competition as a great producer... anything that gets you motivated to rule your domain is OK in the Man book. If one of the members wrote a song then the other would immediately think "fuck you you son of a bitch" and write another. Sometimes stubborn son of a bitches need an obvious motivator but never lose track of the big picture.
gardening tip of the day? Blueberries need acidic soil... think coffee grounds and pine needles.
OK
Monday, May 31, 2010
Hobbies are for fun, Man Gardens are for production
As i get older i am slowly able to accept the fact that some people like the idea of doing things better than actually doing them, and doing them right is something all together different.
Gardening has a classic case of this... people come out like gangbusters on a weekend in the spring and plant a ton of stuff, call it a garden, and spend the rest of the summer at social events telling people they are trying to impress that they are indeed gardeners. There is a certain person i know of who for the past 4 years has filled their garden with rows of squash plants. The first year i was very concerned because of course squash plants get very big and for a garden of this person's size i would estimate that 2 squash plants will fill the whole garden. So by planting 30x more you do not actually do better but actually far worse... all the plants fight each other for resources and are overcrowded, are more susceptible to disease, and especially in Vancouver where it is often not hot enough and becomes too rainy for the fruit to properly mature before the blight sets in.
So i pointed this out, thinking that this knowledge could be of use to somebody who was thinking of a squash harvest down the line... they would hear none of it and were emotionally attached to all 60 plants... now when fall came, that plot was a blighty mass of underdeveloped rotting squash plants... on the harvest scale it was a total bust.
So the next year the person did the same thing... i was in disbelief. I tried to remind the person of last years folly but it was if last year never registered and even in that person's memory it seemed, was full of fall squash feasts that never happened. Was i bursting a bubble mentioning this failure? I just wanted to help... no help was needed because their game was to plant 40 squash plants and then spend the summer feeling good that yes indeed they were a gardener. In the second year somebody gave them a nice cherry tomato plant that did great and i watched as the wonderful tomatoes ripened and then fell to the ground and rotted. It caused great conflict in my soul... should i just pillage this plant and eat like a king, but that would be garden theft... and garden theft is for immature scoundrels and McGill Math Professors. In reality i should have done it because that person had got all they wanted from the garden, a licence to walk around with the label "Gardener"... i have learned that it is very important for humans to have labels... it gives a sense of comfort and belonging, and that's fine (hell I'm a MAN GARDENER and fully happy with what that means).
It's all about opportunity... for example a person like this presents a Man gardener with a key opportunity to "silently" tend their garden and have the spoils. A cherry tomato plant (sweet 100) is a perfect one for that (not too much work)... just slip it in a good spot where it will get lots of sun... nail it some water and presto lots of excellent food that you can pillage slowly over time without being noticed. Obviously if you can slip a large tomato plant in somebodies garden without them knowing it's not too hard of an operation. And for comedy, the dream situation would be to attend a party with the said person gulping back tomatoes that you grew on their land as they are explaining to somebody of the opposite sex how they are really into gardening and then you chime in with and I'm loving these ____ special tomatoes (the ___ being the initials of the person)... and then a tumbleweed goes blowing by and people carry on. it's hilarious, nutritious, free and nobody gets hurt and everybody gets what they want.
So the other day who do i see planting a few rows of squash? Un fucking believable... i hope that gardening is just an abnormality in this persons way of life. Is there a word to describe making the same mistakes over and over again and learning nothing. actually that is very human come to think about it... perhaps this person is a politician who gets a tax break if they have a garden... that makes sense. So I threw some basil in the plot and i plan to kill off most of the squash slowly as they grow bigger... clearly i can get away with this as fact retention with respect to gardening has a zero reading with this person... Hell maybe i can make their garden roll and get them into it... but that would cut into my yield... best to let them smile and don't burst any bubbles.
Squash tip of the day... bury a mound of organic material (compost) that makes a hill and plant your squash on top of it (called squash mound). You can even start the plants indoors and transfer them to the squash mound later. Also note that squash like heat... one thing you can do is put black material under the squash fruit... the black will absorb the sun's rays and pump up the temperature to help ripen... but the golden rule is to know your climate... grow the damn food that grows best in your climate. It's like the spinach thing i talked about yesterday... know your plants life cycle and put that plant in it's ideal environment. There are no Mango's in Alaska remember... hell I'd have a mango tree in my yard if it could produce, but it ain't going to happen, but that doesn't mean i don't want it to happen. You have to separate fantasy from reality when dealing with a garden because the garden follows the pure science of growing. That's why i don't grow chili peppers... it ain't right for a Vancouver climate... not that i don't fantasize about one day having a geothermal powered MAN greenhouse... but that is next decade.
Gardening has a classic case of this... people come out like gangbusters on a weekend in the spring and plant a ton of stuff, call it a garden, and spend the rest of the summer at social events telling people they are trying to impress that they are indeed gardeners. There is a certain person i know of who for the past 4 years has filled their garden with rows of squash plants. The first year i was very concerned because of course squash plants get very big and for a garden of this person's size i would estimate that 2 squash plants will fill the whole garden. So by planting 30x more you do not actually do better but actually far worse... all the plants fight each other for resources and are overcrowded, are more susceptible to disease, and especially in Vancouver where it is often not hot enough and becomes too rainy for the fruit to properly mature before the blight sets in.
So i pointed this out, thinking that this knowledge could be of use to somebody who was thinking of a squash harvest down the line... they would hear none of it and were emotionally attached to all 60 plants... now when fall came, that plot was a blighty mass of underdeveloped rotting squash plants... on the harvest scale it was a total bust.
So the next year the person did the same thing... i was in disbelief. I tried to remind the person of last years folly but it was if last year never registered and even in that person's memory it seemed, was full of fall squash feasts that never happened. Was i bursting a bubble mentioning this failure? I just wanted to help... no help was needed because their game was to plant 40 squash plants and then spend the summer feeling good that yes indeed they were a gardener. In the second year somebody gave them a nice cherry tomato plant that did great and i watched as the wonderful tomatoes ripened and then fell to the ground and rotted. It caused great conflict in my soul... should i just pillage this plant and eat like a king, but that would be garden theft... and garden theft is for immature scoundrels and McGill Math Professors. In reality i should have done it because that person had got all they wanted from the garden, a licence to walk around with the label "Gardener"... i have learned that it is very important for humans to have labels... it gives a sense of comfort and belonging, and that's fine (hell I'm a MAN GARDENER and fully happy with what that means).
It's all about opportunity... for example a person like this presents a Man gardener with a key opportunity to "silently" tend their garden and have the spoils. A cherry tomato plant (sweet 100) is a perfect one for that (not too much work)... just slip it in a good spot where it will get lots of sun... nail it some water and presto lots of excellent food that you can pillage slowly over time without being noticed. Obviously if you can slip a large tomato plant in somebodies garden without them knowing it's not too hard of an operation. And for comedy, the dream situation would be to attend a party with the said person gulping back tomatoes that you grew on their land as they are explaining to somebody of the opposite sex how they are really into gardening and then you chime in with and I'm loving these ____ special tomatoes (the ___ being the initials of the person)... and then a tumbleweed goes blowing by and people carry on. it's hilarious, nutritious, free and nobody gets hurt and everybody gets what they want.
So the other day who do i see planting a few rows of squash? Un fucking believable... i hope that gardening is just an abnormality in this persons way of life. Is there a word to describe making the same mistakes over and over again and learning nothing. actually that is very human come to think about it... perhaps this person is a politician who gets a tax break if they have a garden... that makes sense. So I threw some basil in the plot and i plan to kill off most of the squash slowly as they grow bigger... clearly i can get away with this as fact retention with respect to gardening has a zero reading with this person... Hell maybe i can make their garden roll and get them into it... but that would cut into my yield... best to let them smile and don't burst any bubbles.
Squash tip of the day... bury a mound of organic material (compost) that makes a hill and plant your squash on top of it (called squash mound). You can even start the plants indoors and transfer them to the squash mound later. Also note that squash like heat... one thing you can do is put black material under the squash fruit... the black will absorb the sun's rays and pump up the temperature to help ripen... but the golden rule is to know your climate... grow the damn food that grows best in your climate. It's like the spinach thing i talked about yesterday... know your plants life cycle and put that plant in it's ideal environment. There are no Mango's in Alaska remember... hell I'd have a mango tree in my yard if it could produce, but it ain't going to happen, but that doesn't mean i don't want it to happen. You have to separate fantasy from reality when dealing with a garden because the garden follows the pure science of growing. That's why i don't grow chili peppers... it ain't right for a Vancouver climate... not that i don't fantasize about one day having a geothermal powered MAN greenhouse... but that is next decade.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
spring harvest, Mr. Stingie and some other things
I am loathe to admit that we were at a large "big box" type of store today to load up on milk and other items and one of the things we were looking for was chile powder because i was thinking that chile was the thing to have for dinner, but there was no satisfactory chile powder so we re-planned and i got my head around a BBQ.
And then it was mentioned that we had no vegetables and i had to stop, take a breath and remind the youngins that we were in fact the beneficiaries of a MAN GARDEN.
Spinach, lettuce, beet tops, green onions, broccoli and Swiss chard are always a menu option. Truly amazing how people step into a store and forget where they came from, what they want and what they need. Put that one on your wall.
How to harvest:
Always good to look professional when you go to the garden... you need an aggressive look, a look that Say's "don't fuck with my garden you simple son of a bitch".
Takes me back to my Scarborough roots and getting ready for a road hockey match between the Conlins Road Canada Jays vs. the Bobmar Bobcats... if the game was on Bobmar street and our team walked over from our home turf on Conlins road we felt the need to intimidate before the game begins.
Let the kids worry about crazy old man Robertson in his double Mac attack, all barking on about how good it is that it rained today... it can work to take the focus away from the garden... the proverbial gold.
A good healthy spring harvest for sure, somebody is on the ball as a real man should be. But today's harvest didn't come without it's moments. The other day i allowed a woman to harvest from a Man garden and she apparently found a slug in the lettuce... who knows when and where and how, but for sure they are there. (notice the pro redwood tree in our front lawn). I Harvest lettuce and spinach by the leaf for just such a reason... what you are also doing is thinning and plucking mature leaves from the plants where space is becoming harder to come by. the plants will naturally fill space so if you are in tune with your garden you can have this in mind as you harvest. Again this is an example of the "garden needs love" philosophy and love is knowing what is needed... put that on your fridge in those little magnet letter things... unless of course you went all style on the cheap and got an imitation stainless steel fridge which is non fucking magnetic, which undermines the kitchen, which is the centerpiece and activity hub of the whole damn family unit. Don't cheap out on that shit get a magnetic stainless steel fridge or go old school white because a fridge door is a place for high art and quality reminders like "love is knowing what is needed".
The one leaf at a time plan also gives opportunity for proper inspection of quality and presence of invertebrates. Sitting on one of the leafs i was about to pluck was a hornet that looked at me with those eyes that said "sure i know its Sunday but I'm just aching to sting somebody into next week". The lesson of course is focus and being aware of what you are doing when you are doing it, another beautiful gardening/life metaphor. You need that hornet there because that yellow-man is feeding on the things that are feeding on your man plants, the hornet is your alley in the quest to produce produce. Hey man i just did it... i used the same word as a verb and then a noun... not quite as good as my original rage hero's quote "The fucking fridge is fucking fucked", but perhaps more tasteful... did i just work fridges from a different angle again... Whats the score here MULE... has the Man Nanning blueberry wine eroded my judgment?
I never worry about a wasp or a bee out in the garden... they do what they need to do, and i do what i need to do the main thing being not to grab them or trap them in my clothing. It's when a wasp gets inside the house i start to worry... surely all the signs of armageddon are flashing to the wasps reality telling the wasp "you have to sting what you can, while you can" (for smash). That's what glasses and hardcover books are for... or at least i should say that glasses and hardcover books together have a good secondary function of being able to trap (in a sting proof container) wasps so that they can be released back out to the garden.
And now for the Man gardening tip of the day... your spinach is riding high now, but soon the heat of summer will be too much... it's time to plant beans in that space, it will take a while for the beans to take over but then the spinach will be at the end of it's game and it will be bean time. Nothing beats fresh garden beans, and if you are smart you will have frozen some of your spinach for mis-summer lasagna or curries. And then in mid august you can shock in a few more spinach seeds for a fall harvest which will then again overtake the beans.
OK don't thank me just do it for yourself
and the BBQ... they said you can't BBQ in the rain:
fools
this is the Man BBQ central station... taken in early march... the Magnolia tree hasn't even bloomed and now a good beer brewing hops plant is going ape shit to the left of the Man BBQ station... fully weatherproof so that sissery never gets in the way of a proper BBQ. Always do what you need to do... never let the weather dictate your plans.
Etch that one in stone.
And then it was mentioned that we had no vegetables and i had to stop, take a breath and remind the youngins that we were in fact the beneficiaries of a MAN GARDEN.
Spinach, lettuce, beet tops, green onions, broccoli and Swiss chard are always a menu option. Truly amazing how people step into a store and forget where they came from, what they want and what they need. Put that one on your wall.
How to harvest:
Always good to look professional when you go to the garden... you need an aggressive look, a look that Say's "don't fuck with my garden you simple son of a bitch".
Takes me back to my Scarborough roots and getting ready for a road hockey match between the Conlins Road Canada Jays vs. the Bobmar Bobcats... if the game was on Bobmar street and our team walked over from our home turf on Conlins road we felt the need to intimidate before the game begins.
Let the kids worry about crazy old man Robertson in his double Mac attack, all barking on about how good it is that it rained today... it can work to take the focus away from the garden... the proverbial gold.
A good healthy spring harvest for sure, somebody is on the ball as a real man should be. But today's harvest didn't come without it's moments. The other day i allowed a woman to harvest from a Man garden and she apparently found a slug in the lettuce... who knows when and where and how, but for sure they are there. (notice the pro redwood tree in our front lawn). I Harvest lettuce and spinach by the leaf for just such a reason... what you are also doing is thinning and plucking mature leaves from the plants where space is becoming harder to come by. the plants will naturally fill space so if you are in tune with your garden you can have this in mind as you harvest. Again this is an example of the "garden needs love" philosophy and love is knowing what is needed... put that on your fridge in those little magnet letter things... unless of course you went all style on the cheap and got an imitation stainless steel fridge which is non fucking magnetic, which undermines the kitchen, which is the centerpiece and activity hub of the whole damn family unit. Don't cheap out on that shit get a magnetic stainless steel fridge or go old school white because a fridge door is a place for high art and quality reminders like "love is knowing what is needed".
The one leaf at a time plan also gives opportunity for proper inspection of quality and presence of invertebrates. Sitting on one of the leafs i was about to pluck was a hornet that looked at me with those eyes that said "sure i know its Sunday but I'm just aching to sting somebody into next week". The lesson of course is focus and being aware of what you are doing when you are doing it, another beautiful gardening/life metaphor. You need that hornet there because that yellow-man is feeding on the things that are feeding on your man plants, the hornet is your alley in the quest to produce produce. Hey man i just did it... i used the same word as a verb and then a noun... not quite as good as my original rage hero's quote "The fucking fridge is fucking fucked", but perhaps more tasteful... did i just work fridges from a different angle again... Whats the score here MULE... has the Man Nanning blueberry wine eroded my judgment?
I never worry about a wasp or a bee out in the garden... they do what they need to do, and i do what i need to do the main thing being not to grab them or trap them in my clothing. It's when a wasp gets inside the house i start to worry... surely all the signs of armageddon are flashing to the wasps reality telling the wasp "you have to sting what you can, while you can" (for smash). That's what glasses and hardcover books are for... or at least i should say that glasses and hardcover books together have a good secondary function of being able to trap (in a sting proof container) wasps so that they can be released back out to the garden.
And now for the Man gardening tip of the day... your spinach is riding high now, but soon the heat of summer will be too much... it's time to plant beans in that space, it will take a while for the beans to take over but then the spinach will be at the end of it's game and it will be bean time. Nothing beats fresh garden beans, and if you are smart you will have frozen some of your spinach for mis-summer lasagna or curries. And then in mid august you can shock in a few more spinach seeds for a fall harvest which will then again overtake the beans.
OK don't thank me just do it for yourself
and the BBQ... they said you can't BBQ in the rain:
fools
this is the Man BBQ central station... taken in early march... the Magnolia tree hasn't even bloomed and now a good beer brewing hops plant is going ape shit to the left of the Man BBQ station... fully weatherproof so that sissery never gets in the way of a proper BBQ. Always do what you need to do... never let the weather dictate your plans.
Etch that one in stone.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
it was a beautiful day
yes indeed a nice cloudy cool day with a touch of rain on and off... a perfect day for some mature spinach plants to lay down some serious vegetative growth. The kind of day that can put a man at ease knowing that his spinach won't be forced into going to seed (which happens in the hot weather). As a thinking man i assumed everybody would be thinking the same but then some crazy kook lady at the park started complaining about the weather... you know the kind of thing a lot of lesser humans do... complain about things they can't control all the while looking at the negative side of things. I reached for my smashing brick, but then remembered that a smashing brick should only be used on charging bears or fitness club stereo Nazi's who kill good classic rock to put on auto-tune pop bullshit.
I though OK, the woman has a pack of kids so it could be that she is just not thinking straight... that can happen... you get those yappers yipping and it goes to that part of your brain that just shouldn't be violated. So i gently pointed out the benefits of this kind of weather but she was steadfast in her denial and dug into the idea that this weather gave her the green light to subject a professional neighbourhood man to some insufferable winery. So then i pointed out that the lack of direct sunlight could be good in that it could save her getting a sunburn on that beak of hers, but then i remembered that the harmful rays can still get through cloud cover so i offered her some sunscreen, but for some bizarre reason she was through with me. I tried to remind her of all of the good man ideas i had brought to our discussion (proper spinach growth, seeing positive in negative, skin care reminder) i though them to be new age, "green", and sensitive topics but there was no dice.
so i just went and did a little weeding... if you keep on it, overwhelming is not a feeling you need to battle... although it is good to battle and defeat "overwhelming"... it is all about compartmentalizing the battle... like in a hockey playoff series you just go out and focus on your one shift and then the next one... don't worry about winning the game or the series... good things will come if you do the little things you need to do... I'm sure there is some sissy version of the metaphor out there, but this is a MAN garden blog.
Nothing is better than Man weeding... you focus on your area and you pluck the weeds out making sure to get all of the roots and then shake the roots to keep that good man garden soil in your man garden... you work for a while and it feels like you have accomplished nothing but later when you stand back and you see the region that you just weeded it looks clean and tidy with only you pro man vegetables in the soil and the sunlight... and that's a real good feeling and an excellent metaphor for life.
I though OK, the woman has a pack of kids so it could be that she is just not thinking straight... that can happen... you get those yappers yipping and it goes to that part of your brain that just shouldn't be violated. So i gently pointed out the benefits of this kind of weather but she was steadfast in her denial and dug into the idea that this weather gave her the green light to subject a professional neighbourhood man to some insufferable winery. So then i pointed out that the lack of direct sunlight could be good in that it could save her getting a sunburn on that beak of hers, but then i remembered that the harmful rays can still get through cloud cover so i offered her some sunscreen, but for some bizarre reason she was through with me. I tried to remind her of all of the good man ideas i had brought to our discussion (proper spinach growth, seeing positive in negative, skin care reminder) i though them to be new age, "green", and sensitive topics but there was no dice.
so i just went and did a little weeding... if you keep on it, overwhelming is not a feeling you need to battle... although it is good to battle and defeat "overwhelming"... it is all about compartmentalizing the battle... like in a hockey playoff series you just go out and focus on your one shift and then the next one... don't worry about winning the game or the series... good things will come if you do the little things you need to do... I'm sure there is some sissy version of the metaphor out there, but this is a MAN garden blog.
Nothing is better than Man weeding... you focus on your area and you pluck the weeds out making sure to get all of the roots and then shake the roots to keep that good man garden soil in your man garden... you work for a while and it feels like you have accomplished nothing but later when you stand back and you see the region that you just weeded it looks clean and tidy with only you pro man vegetables in the soil and the sunlight... and that's a real good feeling and an excellent metaphor for life.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Man Green onions
So I was putting together a Man sized lunch for the girls and our lunch guests the Hey Rocks.
A little Tuna salad sandwich would go well with the pasta and soup, and what makes a Tuna salad extra delectable... fresh onion greens, or chives.
If you can't grow chives, please go yo your local tattoo shop and get "I am not Man enough" on your forehead. In time you will see the error of your ways and with the help of mirrors and daily man beard grooming, as well as those awkward moments at social events where you keep having to explain why you have a disparaging word tattoo on your forehead... you will find that chive growth is actually very simple.
I send my children out to harvest the chives...its a plant children can't damage and it's good for them to learn. You wouldn't get a child to harvest your sweet peas (for example), because with that overzealous energy and lack of total focus they would probably damage the main vine and put a major dint in the plants ability to further produce fine peas....
our guests are here...
A little Tuna salad sandwich would go well with the pasta and soup, and what makes a Tuna salad extra delectable... fresh onion greens, or chives.
If you can't grow chives, please go yo your local tattoo shop and get "I am not Man enough" on your forehead. In time you will see the error of your ways and with the help of mirrors and daily man beard grooming, as well as those awkward moments at social events where you keep having to explain why you have a disparaging word tattoo on your forehead... you will find that chive growth is actually very simple.
I send my children out to harvest the chives...its a plant children can't damage and it's good for them to learn. You wouldn't get a child to harvest your sweet peas (for example), because with that overzealous energy and lack of total focus they would probably damage the main vine and put a major dint in the plants ability to further produce fine peas....
our guests are here...
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