Victory Garden Newly Imprisoned Asparagus

The asparagus bed isn't all tidied up yet, the water system needs to get rerouted and the temporary sticks and basket protections will come out, but the rain has been unceasing ( This is a fact, not a complaint. We need all the rain.)and no garden work has been possible since Saturday when we built the removable chicken wire walls. The asparagus has survived several nights safely and is growing tall and fat. Maybe it was too rainy for the dinner parties or perhaps we really have succeeded in discouraging nocturnal feasting.

Greenhouse starts...bush beans and salad greens and basil.



Winters continuing KALE....Cavolo Lacinianto Nero di Toscana Precoce

This is a wonderful green leafy vegetable...in fact I think it deserves a whole post of its own...yes, I will aim to write later today "An Ode to Kale."

But in the meantime let me give a Kale Leaf Award to a woman named Alliee.

She writes a monthly newsletter, Twitters (or is that Twits?)and has valiantly maintained a little shop of used books in Aptos, California. (see companyofsaints.com where You can buy books from her online). She reads and reports on what she sells. Her newsletters are always sprinkled with salient quotes of authors we should not neglect or forget, such as T.S. Eliot who asked,
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
~

She sometimes will refer to what she writes as rants...perhaps that is why she often makes so much sense. I am trusting she won't mind being quoted here by me. Here's an excerpt:

"...I discovered that the Greek root of the word, Economy, is oikos--which means household. Usually when someone references The Economy, they are not talking about a household. Instead they are referring to a monolithic numbers game that exists somewhere out beyond cyberspace; a gargantuan, convoluted leviathan totally out of the control of any particular person or family. While this monster obviously effects our households, there is little or no indication of how we might influence it. Instead, the evil empire whips through the air, causing rack and ruin through-out the galaxy; a modern day tale wagging the dog.
Why is it that The American People are held up as our most important resource when all that we've been asked to do is stay in school and wait for the government to fix things? What happened to victory gardens, volunteer services and hiring a college student who needs to make ends meet? Where is it written that cars have to be bought on credit and business can't function without bank loans? Why has integrity leaked out of essential operations? What are WE doing? How can you and I and the guy down the street impact the economy of our communities?..."
Oikos: Word Shop Newsletter February 2009


Happy Tuesday March 3rd, 2009 to you.
I am off to the many many things I can and should lay my hands to around here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~