Wes Porter

No-Waste Lawn & Garden

Minnesota's motto reads L'Etoile du Nord--The Star of the North. Indeed to our American cousins it is known as the North Star State. If that is so, to judge by their website, surely one of the stellar organizations there must be the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

Children’s Gardening

Scientists call peppers Capsicum. The word comes from Greek kapto, which means 'to bite.' In different shapes, colours and sizes, they have been doing just that for over 9,000 years. Some South and Central Americans liked it hot.

More Limericks of a Vaguely Garden Substance

Some decried our previous publication of limericks both clean and bawdy, others only the latter. Given the nature of modern clergy, the following addenda certainly might be quoted in their company. Likewise to maiden aunts, in senior citizens homes, at gardening clubs, perhaps even to a bunch of Boy Scouts--most certainly to gatherings of Girl Guides. Only the politically correct must, alas, once again suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune ...

Gardening in September

"The first three men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; and if any object that the second of these was a murderer, I desire him to consider that as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession, and turned builder," according to the English poet Abraham Cowley (1618-67). Somewhat earlier in his play concerning the melancholy Dane Hamlet, Shakespeare opined: "There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers and gravediggers; they hold up Adam's profession." Alas, as the days shorten and high summer turns to low fall, we occasionally reflect upon how others view us.