According to Sam and Jim Commenting on things that irk us off, make us laugh out loud or just seem too weird too believe According to Sam and Jim: Resolutions Don't Grow Here

Friday, December 28, 2012

Resolutions Don't Grow Here

Sam and I aren’t making New Year’s resolutions. It isn’t likely we would keep them if we did. Lots of publications and helpful organizations are glad to offer suggestions for making and keeping resolutions, though.

For instance, Marianne Binetti, a noted Northwest garden guru listed several resolutions in our newspaper to help us improve our gardening practices/habits. She advocates growing some of our own food in the New Year, leaving lawn clippings on the lawn, adding more houseplants to clean our indoor air, cutting back on garbage and doing more composting, and bringing bees to our gardens.

Thanks Marianne, but Sam and I probably aren’t going to follow any of your advice - as timely and helpful as it is. We’re just not resolution makers, let alone resolution keepers. Besides, your suggestions present a few problems.

First of all, for us to start our own garden would require a lot of work improving our soil. We basically live on top of a thin layer of acidic top soil where the forest prime-evil used to grow and that is on top of a gravel pit of glacial till left behind by the last ice age. We cannot dig in this soil. Shovels take a heck of a beating. We have managed to grow raspberries, but we’ve planted rhubarb twice and it has died both times. We did not know you could kill rhubarb. It’s never died any place else we ever lived.

We realize we could build raised beds and grow food. In fact, Kathleen and I saw a nifty pre-fab bed at Watson’s Nursery in Puyallup just before Christmas. Sam and I almost added that to our Christmas list. But then I remembered hoeing and weeding from earlier days. NEVER MIND! Besides, we would only have a few measly leftovers to eat after the local deer finished off our hard work. It totally isn’t cost effective to build a fence around a garden when we can drive to the local supermarket and buy, say, six cans of corn for a dollar. And I personally don’t care if the corn has been genetically altered.

As for adding more houseplants inside our humble abode . . .please Marianne! Kathleen’s got enough viney stuff slithering down over our fireplace mantel, the toilet tank, the window sills, etcetera. I like compact plants that grow up not out - not cacti though - thus, personally, I feel we have enough greenery inside the house. When Sam and I want more oxygen, we go outside for a walk.

We’ve tried cutting back on garbage and recycling and composting - all with less than stunningly successful results. Even when we recycle cardboard, bottles and the like, we still seem to have a can full of garbage every week. Fortunately, our can is a small one as opposed to a couple of ladies across the street who have babies and large cans full of cloth diapers. Our compost bin is constantly overflowing with grass clippings, which we haven’t left on the lawn because every time we get around to cutting the lawn the clippings are too long to leave laying around. Since we don’t garden much, except for a few ornamental bushes, we don’t really need the compost.

Finally, as to the issue of bringing back bees - let someone else do that. As long as enough of them come from wherever they come from and pollinate our raspberries, we’re good. We have a hard enough time keeping the wasps from attaching nests to our house or clogging up our vents. When we see them all we can think of is KILL!

Thanks anyway Marianne, but here’s a bag of poop on gardening (and I don’t mean steer manure). 

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