According to a survey of the “Mother Earth News” (“The original guide to living wisely”) the following are the ten weeds that make life for the nation’s vegetable gardeners miserable:
1. Crab grass
2. Dandelion
3. Bermuda grass
4. Bindweed
5. Chickweed
6. Ground ivy
7. Canada thistle
8. Burdock
9. Quackgrass
10. Johnson grass
Add to these another ten plants that I wish I had never planted in my own Massachusetts garden – or that arrived on their own out of nowhere:
1. Wisteria
2. Wild wine
3. Raspberries
4. Blackberries
5. Wormwood
6. Pachysandra
7. Euonymus
8. Deadly nightshade
9. Purslane
10. Pokeweed
I wonder why kudzu isn’t mentioned – we hear that is stealthily covers all of the South, a mile a minute. Why is kudzu not mentioned?? And bamboo??
Let’s sort them alphabetically:
1. Bamboo
2. Bermuda grass
3. Bindweed
4. Blackberries
5. Burdock
6. Canada thistle
7. Chickweed
8. Crab grass
9. Dandelion
10. Deadly nightshade
11. Euonymus
12. Ground ivy
13. Johnson grass
14. Kudzu
15. Pachysandra
16. Pokeweed
17. Purslane
18. Quackgrass
19. Raspberries
20. Wild wine
21. Wisteria
22. Wormwood
But – stop right here! Putting up lists of invasive plants and policing them – that’s not good gardening and not good stewardship of the Earth. Let’s assume for a moment that these plants all serve a purpose – or as Sebastian Kneipp put it: “God lets an herb grow for every ailment we complain about.”
Tomorrow, I will go through the list and try to divine the purpose behind each plant. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Laying It On For The Hard Times To Come
October 7, 2011
Studies show that people put on a few pounds more in the fall – and they lose some come bikini season.
You don’t want to increase your weight even more? Basically, that is a good concept. But laying on the pounds in the fall used to be a mechanism to help people cope with the starvation that inevitably came at the end of the winter.
Now, of course, starvation never comes (we hope!). What is a person to do?
Don’t fight it, is my advice. Count on that you will (and should) gain a few pounds now. Don’t start a diet right now. Eat the autumn goodies like braised meats (in moderation!), the pumpkin pies (better of course is the pumpkin without the pie!) and the berries now. After the holidays in December is the time to naturally slim down.
This is not a free pass to putting on pounds like a whale. My educated guess is that should be one, two, three pounds – never more than five!! But to fight the natural rhythm will only bring you defeat: We are hard-wired for weight gain during this season.
During the holidays, nibble a bit of everything: gingerbread men, plum pudding, stuffed goose, glazed onions, rugelach, gefillte fish, fruitcake, red cabbage with raisins, honey-soaked ham (organic!), cranberry sauce, anise star cookies. Let be all real, fresh foods – no candy sticks, no marshmallows – but don’t pig out on all these because with the winter solstice comes the turn in the year and the turn in your body: Then starvation – or dieting – should set in.
Your body is not a machine, and you shouldn’t will it to go against its yearly rhythm. You will only lose … but not pounds. Go with the seasons’ flow – to a degree. And go for a fall walk and watch the turned leaves. Read More
Always Make Sure Your Tank Is Full, And Your Bladder Is Empty
October 5, 2011
That was a billboard advice in Pasadena yesterday. Certainly excellent advice. But I doubt I would ever had found that kind of slogan on a billboard in Massachusetts. With endless, confusing highways – freeways they call them here – and huge distances one has to do with every mundane task, full tank/empty bladder are imperative.
California is different, I am finding out. It never rains in southern California – and I am finding that is not true, either.
For one thing: The supermarkets: At home, we have a huge natural health food store where I live. Here it’s the size of a railway station. One of the differences in the products is that frozen foods, ready-to-eat-meals and prepared dinners are much more common. Three aisles full of frozen foods alone!
I tried to find rice and lentils. As in rice. and. lentils. Not precooked. Not in a fabulous sauce or in an exotic recipe. Just red lentils and rice. At home, I can choose between about half a dozen kinds of rice: long, short, basmati, jasmine, brown, forbidden, wild (which is not really rice and should not be eaten by people with gluten problems) – you get the idea. Here they have a thousand pre-boiled, prepared, mixed varieties. And a single uncooked variety: long. Happens that I want short, for my congee in the morning.
To cook rice is one of the easiest tasks in the kitchen: You measure a cup of rice, add two cups of water and a pinch of salt, bring it to a boil, cover it with a lid, and let it simmer on low flame until all water has been used up. While the rice cooks, you prepare other dishes. I doubt it is much easier to scrape precooked rice from its plastic wrapping, put it into a bowl and microwave (yuck!!) it. Not to mention that your rice is made in a way you have no influence on: You don’t know the kind of water they use. They might have done the “cooking” via microwaving. And agents from the plastic wrap might have seeped and contaminated your rice. All that for a doubtful gain in “less work.” - Joy of cooking – where did it go?
The one thing I really enjoy so far: the pool. Today it’s cold for San Diego – in the low sixties – and it was drizzling a bit when I did my daily laps. Nobody else dared this kind of weather and took a swim with me. The chlorine smell is but light – I hope my skin will not scream after a while. Rain here is needed of course. It fills the reservoirs and reduces fire hazard.
Red lentils I haven’t found yet. Although I am sure I will find a store that carries red lentils. It’s only a question of more miles, more energy wasting on the freeways. And of course a question of an empty bladder. Read More
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