Hi, James!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

JB>  I just finished double digging most of my garden, and
JB>  have quite a bit of seed in.


          Oops... you're ahead of us this year!  Nora & I intend to get
serious about gardening next week, when we're hoping our lives will calm
down somewhat. Nora has become much more interested in gardening since her
experience in rehab with mini-gardens in containers which can be reached
from a wheelchair....  :-)



JB>  My, am I sore! Now, I have to keep up with the weeds.
JB>  I hadn't cultivated seriously for quite some time, so
JB>  I have quite a row to hoe sort of speaking...


          Perhaps you're feeling better than you have been for awhile,
however, if you're up to digging the garden.  Hang in there... [chuckle].



JB>  RE: Alder weed
JB>  Is that the weed that doesn't seem to sucker, but rather
JB>  *fires* out roots, and some twenty to thirty feet away
JB>  pops out anew? Purple veins on deep-green leaves???


          People around here seem to call it "alder weed" because
it thrives in damp places... as do alder trees.  I think it's probably what
the British refer to as "ground-elder".  It grows to about two
feet in height & sends out runners all over the place.  No purple veins
that I can see... but it has insignificant blooms which go to seed unless
it's severely & frequently cut back.  Assuming I have identified it
correctly, it was used as a food & medicine in England until the Middle
Ages when people got fed up with having it take over entire gardens. All
that's needed to propagate it is a teensy weensy piece of a root... (sigh).



JB>  I'm in need of a source of Nitrogen for my compost,
JB>  and I don't think the neighbors are going to be too
JB>  accommodating. Any ideas there?


          I presume you're already using kitchen waste, grass clippings,
leaves from trees & shrubs, and whatever else comes to hand which does
not require any financial outlay.  According to ORGANIC FERTILIZERS... i.e.
a book published by Rodale Press in 1973... they're about that's really
needed in healthy soil with plenty of dead worms & bugs to add to the
mixture.  There are some other things I could suggest, but unless one lives
near the ocean or in the countryside they generally cost money.  Seems to
me the garbage from the produce store, while it does offer an ample supply
of wilted green matter, is probably not very high in nitrogen.  I'm still
using the bottle of fish fertilizer I acquired a couple of decades ago...
when added to the compost, a little goes a long way.  And I make no attempt
to get rid of any clover which appears in the lawn or the garden.  I find
it tends to appear when it's needed, and disappear when it's not....  :-))



AH>  "Do as you would be did by."  It works for me... [chuckle].

JB>  I feel like I've been had. 


          Birds of a feather flock together, or so they say... [ROFL].



JB>  All this typing about gardening is going to get me out
JB>  in the yard again.


          I was wondering about the weather, since we'd heard about
flooding in the area... and you've answered my question in your message to
Perry.  I notice such things in the news because of your origin line, of
course, but there are a couple of other reasons too.  I went to Calgary on
the bus as a child & saw the most spectacular rainstorm (accompanied by
thunder & lightning) en route.  Then when I was at UBC I had a friend
from Alberta who couldn't understand why folks in Vancouver went about
their business as usual when it rained.  I explained to her that we get
sixty-four inches of rainfall a year & if we stayed inside when it was
raining we'd never get anything done!  It seems to me folks in Alberta
& Saskatchewan get much of their annual ration within about twenty
minutes.  :-))



JB>  Shoot, I have to realizer my limits. Steady as she goes!!!


          Uh-huh.  One of the things I learned from teaching was the
importance of pacing myself, but I still find it more easily said than done
at times.  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+