Kitchen Garden Forum

Every time i spot yet another ripe courgette -

Zuchini are terriffic-
like rabbits prolific!

I can't wait to see how many seeds in the one I have allowed to grow to marrow size !

Mura gcuirfidh tú san earrach ní bhainfidh tú san fhómhar.

If you do not sow in the spring, you will not reap in the autumn.

When gardeners garden, it's not just the plants that grow, it's also the gardeners themselves.

My favourite is;

"If you look after the soil,
The soil will look after you."

JB.

Another quote that strikes a chord for me -
I think the true gardener is a lover of his flowers, not a critic of them. I think the true gardener is the reverent servant of Nature, not her truculent, wife-beating master. I think the true gardener, the older he grows, should more and more develop a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit. ~Reginald Farrer, In a Yorkshire Garden, 1909

"One year's seed, seven years weed" - very true, unfortunately.

(Nature's Babe, just for interest: one of our sons is the gardener in Reginald Farrer's garden in Yorkshire where he wrote those wise words. I hope he lives up to them)

That's coincidental Monika, sounds a lovely job, what are the gardens like ?

I might have the values wrong but Geoffrey Smith used to say "Don't put a five bob plant in a half-crown hole".

Hi Geoff,
That I like!
JB.

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."
- Mahatma Gandhi

Hi Alan,
"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."
- Mahatma Gandhi
I suspect that this is one NB will not agree with!
JB.

My late Father was fond of saying. The time to hoe, is when it don't need doing.

Hi Johnboy, I do dig when i make the beds, and I do tend it, mulch and pull the odd weed or two, but then I reckon nature and the worms do a better job of caring for the soil than I can. The soil is loose enough, moist enough, and airated, enabling me te pull any weed roots easily.
Thank you everyone for sharing all these little gems.

A weed in time saves nine.
(Unfortunately this doesn't apply to Oxalis. The more you dig it out, the more you seem to get )

“The more people do, the more society develops, the more problems arise. The increasing isolation of nature, the exhuastion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity’s trying to accomplish something. Originally there was no reason to progress, and nothing that had to be done. We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a ‘movement’ not to bring anything about.”

Therefore to save the world, just do nothing.

Masanobu Fukuoka The One-Straw Revolution

There's meat there for a whole thread of its own!