What you control

Avatar photo
Thoughtstylings
18 Comments

Erik cited a Terence McKenna quote deep in his last post on bacon. It’s a good one, and deserves more attention so I’m giving it this space.

If Erik and I have a single message to offer, it is that you can’t control the world, but you can control your life. There’s plenty in this world to be outraged over, or worried about, but those feelings don’t get you anywhere. What you have to do is tend your own garden: Your body, mind and soul. Your family. Your kitchen. Your yard. Your neighborhood. See to those things. In making those things better, you do make the world better. At the very least you’ve improved your own life. Or, perhaps, you might be one of the many pebbles that makes an avalanche.

And here is McKenna saying something similiar in his inimitable style:

“We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. ‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’ And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” –Terence McKenna

(I’m sorry I don’t know where this quote comes from–but I snatched it from Goodreads.)

Well howdy! We’re in the New York Times

Avatar photo
Events
31 Comments

We’re pleased and flattered to be in the Times today, spouting off at the mouth and waving our freak flag (or freak thrysus) high. Michael Tortarello interviewed us, and he’s a helluva a writer. You could spend your time in worse ways seeking out his other articles, like this one on hybrid seeds, which is one of Erik’s favorites. And kudos to Laure Joliet for taking such beautiful pictures.

Bacon Bits

Avatar photo
Thoughtstylings
7 Comments
Van Gogh’s Starry Night rendered in bacon (via Doug Harvey)


With the death of print advertising venues, publicists are, apparently, desperately reaching out to bloggers to hype their client’s offerings. The result? Take a look at this tempest over garden bloggers taking ad revenue and going on junkets. Normally I compost publicist’s attempts to get mentioned on this blog into April Fool’s Day hoaxes. But, at the risk of dispensing free publicity, I had to share this one:

River Run Village in Keystone, Colorado is going whole hog this summer when the Blue River Bacon Tour comes to town . . . Over 3,000 pounds of bacon from a variety of purveyors will be on hand for sampling at the Bacon Showcase alongside live music and bacon lectures compliments of Leo Landis, Professor of Baconology. Yes, that’s his job!

The Blue Ribbon Bacon package is available for $35 and includes admission to the three-day event, a commemorative hat, $10 in Bacon Bucks, a beer koozie, unlimited bacon samples at the Bacon Showcase, live music, bacon educational lectures, and a free drink. General admission tickets are also available for $30 per person.

Keystone’s award winning golf courses are extending special offers to bacon lovers who wish to burn off some of those delicious calories. Tee off after 5pm on June 24-26 and the cost is $55 per person.

While indulging in all things bacon, Keystone Resort is offering rooms from $109 per night.

Bacon bucks? Is this a currency backed by bacon? Will this result in a mass “quantitative easing” at the Keystone Resort after “indulging in all things bacon?”

A note to publicists: While I enjoy your creativity, I’m guided by this quote from the late Terence McKenna. Do a little reading before clogging up my in-box with press releases. I’m not against advertising, but if we ever take on any sponsors they have to gibe with our goals and must be kept separate from our editorial content.

Advances in Gardening Series: Thoughts on The Fan, and the problems of overabudance

Avatar photo
Garden Design, Gardening
10 Comments
The Fan late in the season, about to be pulled out. See earlier photos of The Fan here.

Mrs. Homegrown here:

Last fall we dug up a sort of feral herb bed and replaced it with a more formal, three-part bed that I call The Fan. The idea is to use this bed to plant annual herbs and flowers. While some of these plants are medicinal, it is also a bed dedicated more to aesthetics than the rest of our garden, so it’s also a place where I particularly want to plant flowers and plants of strong visual interest.

The first crop, planted in November, consisted of Calendula, chamomile and poppies. All three grew wonderfully well and provided a nice focal point for the garden. The Fan is right outside our back door, so is what most people see first. It looked professional–like we actually know what we were doing.

The downside of this season’s fan was in fact its abundance. It looked nice, but it provided too much plant material. In the case of both the chamomile and Calendula, I could have done with half the plants for my teas and salves. The poppies looked gorgeous and fed the bees, which is all I care about. I’m not complaining about those. Oh no. Wait. I will. Early in the season, thinning on a big bed of poppies was a real pain. I had to do it over and over again. It was worth it in the end, but next time I’ll not sow seed so thickly.

All in all, the result of this overplanting is that it became a make-work scenario. When I wasn’t thinning poppies, I had to be out there constantly, deadheading the chamomile and Calendula just to keep up with it all. Deadheading (chopping off the spent flowers) encourages more flower production, which is important if you want a continual harvest. It also collects seed, to keep it from spreading everywhere. Despite my efforts, I know a ton of seed fell, and when the rains come next year, I’ll be pulling Calendula and chamomile volunteers.

Moral is, know what you need, and plant no more than that. Unless you’ve got the time and energy to maintain larger, more flashy beds. I’m all about making it easy on myself, so next year I’ll plant less. Of course, it takes experiences like this to learn exactly what our needs are. This is just how it goes.

 What’s next:

The next round of plants in the fan have to be able to stand our hot, dry summer. This is a bit of headscratcher for me. Most of the plants I’m interested in grow best during our cool season. So what’s going in there next is sort of eccentric. One section will be an Echinacea patch. Another will be black cumin, which has historical medical uses, and the other is broom sorghum, because it looks to be gorgeous, and I want to make a broom. You’ll hear more about all these in future posts.