A theory on garden disappointment

by | Aug 7, 2012 | Talk Dirt to Me

Guy Clark sings that “there are only two things that money can’t buy….true love and homegrown tomatoes.” I doubt it. Let’s see you buy some giardia. But there’s one thing that comes free with life, and tomatoes: disappointment. In...

Coconut

by | Aug 10, 2012 | Talk Dirt to Me

I favor twitter over facebook as I don’t know the majority of the people I follow. Some are puerile, others knowledgeable in areas that I am ignorant (corporate law), some just funny. No one speaks to me directly, so I can ignore it or pay attention as I choose....

Chicken Talk

by | Aug 14, 2012 | Talk Dirt to Me

We used to have an earthy, ranch-owning president who was connected with the common man. It was said that you might want to have a beer with him, even though he was a teetotaler. As an effete liberal elite, I never wished to spend time with him, nor did I buy his...

Anxiety Dreams

by | Aug 17, 2012 | Talk Dirt to Me

I am not an easy sleeper. I am reminded of a quote attributed to Colin Powell when asked whether he, like his boss, was “sleeping like a baby” on the eve of war. He agreed: “I’m sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up,...

Late blight

by | Aug 20, 2012 | Talk Dirt to Me

Phytophthora infestans is no run-of-the-mill plant pathogen. Given the right conditions it can down a field of tomatoes or potatoes in days. That’s what we saw here in 2009. It did much worse to potatoes in Ireland in 1845. Before the mid-1800’s P....