“Good Lord what humus!” So true…
I find that a real gardener is not a man who cultivates flowers;
he is a man who cultivates the soil. He is a creature who digs
himself into the earth and leaves the sight of what is on it to us
gaping good-for-nothings. He lives buried in the ground. He
builds his monument in a heap of compost. If he came into the
Garden of Eden, he would sniff excitedly and say:
Good Lord, what humus!– Karel Capek, The Gardener’s Year, 1931
(Photos from Fall 2011, Larrapin Garden)
—A Larrapin Garden. Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Please subscribe to get the posts in one weekly email. You can also get bonus links, giveaways and recipes by “liking” our Facebook page or following on Twitter.
Read MoreGreat Quote by Carol Deppe
“One of the most joyous things we can do is to find our place,
the land we fit into, the land where we belong.
Having found our place, we snuggle into it, learn about it, adapt to it, and accept it fully.
We love and honor it. We rejoice in it. We cherish it.
We become native to the land of our living.”
—Carol Deppe in The Resilient Gardener.
—A Larrapin Garden. Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Please subscribe to get the posts in one weekly email. You can also get bonus links, giveaways and recipes by “liking” our Facebook page or following on Twitter. Read More
Larrapin Garden Blog Has Moved!
For the holidays 2011, I decided to finally move the blog over to its own domain: www.larrapin.us. Please visit and bookmark! Better yet, please re-subscribe so that you’ll get the posts by email. I hope you will re-subscribe because there will be exciting new soon about the 2012 Dig In! Food and Farming Festival here in Fayetteville. Plus, we’re going to be building a new banty-tractor and a hoophouse here over the winter! To get the new email subscription: It’s a two step process, first click the link above. Then enter your email and the letters shown and click the “subscribe” button. Step two is to check your email box and click that long “confirm” link that you really want to the get post in one neat weekly email. Then you’re in! Welcome back! And visit the new blog at www.larrapin.us. 🙂
Read MoreHappy Accident in the Weedy Pasture…
Sometimes, things get away from you before you can weedeat! Take this tiny pasture which has thin rocky soil and gets half shady in the fall. I’ve had no luck in growing anything I wanted to grow in it. I intended to knock back the weeds all summer, which at the time were about knee-high, with generic-looking green stalks. (Let me note here, that we never needed a weedeater when we had goats!)
Then the brush got chest high and I dreaded the nightmare weedeating job and put it off longer because now it would involve the gasoline weedeater vs. the lightweight electric. But it was funny to let the chickens run around in their own personal chicken maze, completely invisible once they entered, and scratch around to their hearts’ content. And by then it was far too large for even a herd of biddies to hurt.. Finally, it got so close to first frost that I decided to let winter take it all down….sigh of relief.
But before that happened, everything bloomed. WOW! I’m not sure what these little white aster-like weeds are (anyone?) but the flowers cover the pasture now. And I have never seen so many pollinators in one place at one time! There have been native bees, butterflies, flower flies, and of course the Larrapin honeybees have been all over it. Meanwhile, all kinds of songbirds are hanging around the perimeter have a feast on all the various bugs. (Stay away from the bees you guys!)
You can stand in the middle of it be surrounded by a lively buzz and every flower, I mean every one, has somebody enjoying it. Amazing! My bee mentor told me how much-loved this wildflower is (as one of the last nectar sources of the year) because light frosts actually make the plant produce more nectar.
I’m so very glad I procrastinated this time. Now I have a whole different outlook on this particular “weed.” While I’m a farmer at heart, at the same time, I love what nature does to the land when the farmer steps back a bit and let’s the real master-gardener show me how it’s done! Hope you all are enjoying this beautiful Ozark fall.
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page atwww.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. We’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden.
Biggest Hornworm Ever?
Look at the size of this guy and what an amazing pattern. He was happily munching on a privet bush. So we let him keep on munching…
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Don’t miss any—you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page atwww.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. We’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden.
