YOU’VE BEEN PRE-APPROVED FOR PLATINUM GARDENING!
You've been selected for membership into the exclusive Platinum Gardeners. Pre-approval is granted only to those who’ve demonstrated a capacity to dig in the dirt, savor fresh vegetables, smell flowers, enjoy sunshine, save kitchen garbage, pray for rain, brave the wind, pick weeds, shovel manure, battle insects, and hand-squish grasshoppers.
CAUTION:
You may find yourself flaking off while in the garden. Don’t confuse flaking with aphid infestation. They’re two different phenomena. The flaking is caused by Flagstaff’s dry air. The best solution is to lather your body with an organic lotion and eat fish oil capsules. No petroleum based lotion. It increases carbon foot-prints in the garden. The lotion won’t affect the aphids, but it’ll help stop the scratching.
Don’t let the flaking deter you from treating the aphids. Sometimes, aphids reproduce in such a high volume that they form clouds, dropping their “honeydew” on cars, ruining their finishes. Honeydew is aphid offal. You can spray water at a high velocity. This seldom works, but it’ll make you feel good. If the infestation continues, spray the underside of the leaves with neem or a non-toxic insecticidal soap (an oxymoron). Aphids are a furtive lot and hang out on the underside of leaves. You will need to bend over and crouch a lot. After that quit for the day and get a massage with organic lotion.
Don’t forget the lady bugs. The horticulturally correct insist on calling them beetles, but somehow “lady beetle” doesn’t work. Ladies aren't beetles so we’ll stay with lady bug. They’re big time aphid eaters. Namesakes of the Virgin Mary, they’re sadly fickle. They can be bought at commercial nurseries and released in the garden, preferably at sundown lest they fly away.
If you feel dizzy when suddenly standing up, you aren’t having a beatific vision or recovering from a hang-over. You’re suffering from a lack of oxygen which is a common affliction for gardeners. A secret well-kept by the authorities is that the air in Flagstaff is seriously short of oxygen and that they’ve done nothing to correct it by installing community oxygenators, all the while selling water for snow-making rather piping it to gardeners. Wait until the next election!
You can also exercise as a means of increasing your lungs’ capacity to reap oxygen from the air; however, the best remedy is to quit for the day.
You can snare a teenager skateboarding by your garden to pick the weeds, but such a gambit is dangerous. Teenagers’ brains haven’t developed to the point where they can distinguish weeds from plants, which statistically is about 65 years of age. They frequently pick the plants and leave the weeds. It’s difficult to cock a cellphone between the shoulder and the ear while picking weeds. Texting also inhibits weed picking.
Plants inexplicably die. Horticultural nabobs frequently diagnose these inexplicable deaths as the result of too much or too little water, too much or too little fertilizer, wrong fertilizer, wrong micro-climate, wrong plant, or ineptitude. This means that plant death is your fault so that you will feel either guilty or stupid. Consult successful gardeners and accept your losses as a learning experience. Veterans are the best tutors for combat.
Remember the inverse ratio factor. If a plant does well without much attention, it is likely either an invasive weed or a toxic plant. Hardy plants are often dangerous because they have no concept of boundaries and will frequently invade another plant’s space, up-taking the water and nutrients. Remember, robust plants are likely megalomaniacal exotics.
Finally, sunshine is hazardous at 7,000 feet. Not only does it fade colors, it carcinogizes the skin. If you choose to garden outside in the sunshine, wear one of those goofy looking hats and long sleeves, lather yourself with organic anti-sunburn lotion, and wear long pants. In this way you can cut down on the flaking by sweating a lot.
BENEFITS:
Fresh, tasty tomatoes, snap beans that snap, grapes, berries, crisp lettuce, happy daffodils, Shasta daisies, and lots more, like knowing you’re doing something enjoyably worthwhile. Joyeux Jardinage.
Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2012
Dana Prom Smith edits GARDENING ETCETERA along with Freddi Steele for the Arizona Daily Sun in which this article appeared on 8/11/2012. He emails at stpauls@npgcable.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment