Weather Report
I’ve got four little cups of seedlings on my back porch. They’re starting to sprout. Alamo Vine and Morning Glory. July is probably not the best time to start new plants, but I’ve got a relatively shady spot for them, and even if they don’t make it into the ground I’ve learned something from the experience that I’ll put into play going forward, and bless the internet for its help.
Luckily, gardening and growing plants is not an area susceptible to quackery and conspiracy theories, and even if you run across them it’s easy to find decent info. I suspect, however, you might get into trouble with pest and weed control, although I have never subscribed to a chemical approach to the subject. Even with fire ants I tried mechanical removal first. I had a longish piece of PVC with holes drilled in it, drove into the heart of the mound, and poured in boiling water, and most weeds I pulled by hand, and still do.
I was a fan of the Whole Earth catalog, read Space City News (since I lived in Houston), we were members of a vegetable co-op, and I knew how to keep my Volkswagen alive. Those were some bright shiny days. I think we were part of the counterculture, then we became the culture, or parts of it did, and then most of us got jobs and started raising families, Dylan went electric, and everyone wanted to get rich. And you really didn’t need a weatherman to know which way that wind was blowing.