Kitchen Garden Forum

A certain irony struck me this morning.

I was digging on my allotments, which involved pulling out loads of old roots, many of which were a pristine white in colour.

Then it began raining, but I carried on, at least for a bit.

However, the white roots, which contained no dirt or stains before the rain descended, soon became absolutely filthy whenever I touched them.

How odd that, things we want to get rid of and consister an annoyance, are actually quite clean when growing through the soil. It is only when we interfere with them that they get dirty! To be surrounded by so much earth and not get contaminated by it is such a feat!

Nature will always surprise and amaze us.

Barry wrote:
However, the white roots, which contained no dirt or stains before the rain descended, soon became absolutely filthy whenever I touched them.

I wonder if the roots have lots of invisible hairs that cling on to soil. My little oddity is that I sowed grazing rye in two places, in one place the seeds didn't germinate yet in the other it was 80% success. Easy to blame the seeds but I used two different packs of seed and the failed area had both types.

This gardening lark isn't easy.