Easy Gardening: Just Throw the Darn Seeds Out There

Those are the words of my dear friend Kerensa. And, it's exactly how she gardens.

Her yard is ab-so-lutely magical. With railroad ties, rocks and tons of colorful, water-loving plants, the woman even makes her front ditch* look like she wanted it there all along. Her father was a landscaper. I figure she knows what she's talking about.

I, on the other hand, am known to kill every indoor plant I've ever had. I'm forever defending myself against such charges from my husband. "I keep children alive, not plants," I contest with my head held high. My front ditch had cat tails in it for years.

So, naturally, I wanted to heed Kerensa's advice.

Not because I didn't trust her completely, but because I just invested a small fortune in seed packs, I conducted my own quasi, so-not-an-expert experiment first.  Here are my completely non-scientific results: 

Scenario 1: Just as I've always done, I nursed the baby seedlings growing on my sunny window sills since the beginning of spring. After all danger of frost had passed, I transplanted them all to the garden area in my backyard, watered, and treated as usual. 

Scenario 2: I took the extra seeds (and I always have them...they give you so many...you can't possibly use them unless your entire yard is a farm) and scattered them in somewhat organized fashion in a dirt patch just outside my kitchen door. I watered them and treated them as I did my other green offspring. 


Results:  Wouldn't you know it? Hands down, the darn scattered seeds from Scenario 2 outperformed the pampered, window-hogging, messy seedlings from Scenario 1!

So, there you have it.

All I know, and it's not much, is I like to avoid wasting time. If I don't have to invest time, energy, and space on my window sills to get great produce from the garden, I won't. It's Easy Street for me. I'll take that route anytime.

How 'bout you? Do you tend to take Easy Street or Proper Place? Do you garden? Do you have your own experiment to share or one you'd like me to conduct? Do you just throw the darn seeds out there? 

* A front ditch is an unattractive path--sometimes filled with stone, sometimes covered by grass--carved into the front yards of all those homes in our community without sewers. It guides run-off water to a reservoir, which in my case, is a small lake, from which no one eats the fish.

Did the Earth Move For You, Too?

Ah ha. Got you. I bet you thought this post was about something sensual, something telling, something, well, ANYTHING other than an EARTHQUAKE in Illinois. Who would have guessed?

In light of all of Haiti’s recent earthquake troubles, I suppose it’s pretty tasteless to even joke about such things.

But come on. I live in Medinah, a small, unincorporated town--my friend Colleen likens to Andy Griffith’s Mayberry--west of Chicago, and I felt it. Unusual things like this just don’t happen around here...unless, of course, you count the mom fight at the school art fair, but that’s another blog.

Anyway, I woke up about 4:30 Wednesday morning to the sound of my windows rattling and because it felt like everything around me (including me) was vibrating. I remember wondering if it was, in fact, an earthquake, but once I heard the airplane engines overhead (we live in the flight path of O’Hare airport), I figured I was being rather ridiculous...and went back to sleep.

Go figure that it actually was a quake and registered 3.8 on the Richter scale! I do notice that some books on a top shelf of one of my bookcases looks a bit disheveled, but aside from that, nothing seems out of the ordinary. In all fairness, the messy books could be the work of one of my cats or kids. It’s also entirely possible that the books have been that way for days and I am just now noticing.

Realistically, I shouldn’t see any damage from such a minor shake...not until magnitude 5.0, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). For more kid- or adult-friendly information, visit http://www.fema.gov/kids/quake.htm. I just love websites and books for children. They’re so easy to understand.

Since, obviously, I am so-not-an-expert, let’s find out what in the world you should do during an earthquake? Not fall back to sleep, you say? Correct. If you’re inside: drop, cover, and hold on. “If there isn’t a table or desk near you,” FEMA says. “Cover your face and head with your arms and crouch in an inside corner of the building.” For more tips, such as what to do if you happen to be caught outside during a quake, visit http://www.fema.gov/hazard/earthquake/eq_during.shtm.

Just curious...if you live in the Chicago area, did the earth move for you? If you live elsewhere, have you ever experienced an earthquake? How did you cope? This was my first one.