Protecting New Life
I garden.
It's a hobby - but it's also the cheapest therapy around for *those days*! :P
I don't know much about gardening; I just know that I enjoy the digging and the planting and even the weeding. I love the way a garden looks and I love driving home only to glance up and see all the amazing color from flowers.
Because I don't know much about it, I'm trying to learn all I can. I always read the "idiot sticks". You know, those informational plastic inserts that come with a new plant. I even save them to refer back to. And I'm constantly searching online for more information to make sure I do all I can to keep the plant alive and thriving!
What I have learned so far is that a lot of tending to a garden involves a lot of protecting. As the plant matures, it's roots get stronger and it's more resilient to weather changes and watering conditions and anything else that might kill a new tender plant. It requires regular care. Enough food, enough water, but not too much. It requires protection from the elements.
"The goal of winter protection is not to keep plants warm but instead to protect them from factors such as damaging wind, heavy snow and ice, and the alternate freezing and thawing of the soil beneath the plants. "1
The goal is to protect them. Hmmmm.....
"Protection could be offered by planting susceptible plants in a sheltered location and providing additional water during dry periods or prior to expected hard freezes. Foundation plantings are often injured by ice and snow falling from the roof on their frozen branches. It is sometimes necessary to construct a temporary shelter for shrubs in a precarious situation."2
A sheltered location...... Hmmmm......
"Newly transplanted trees and shrubs, divisions of perennials, and hardy bulbs are all growing roots, drawing on soil nutrients and moisture around them."3
Growing roots...... and drawing from around them..... Hmmmm.....
"Protect the tender bark of young trees from gnawing critters by wrapping stems or trunks with wire or commercial tree-guard products."4
Protecting from.... Hmmmm.....
"Screen evergreens, particularly exposed broad-leaved types, from drying winter wind and sun by setting up burlap screens or shade cloth shelters."5
Protection with screening and shelters... Hmmmm......
Great advice for gardeners.....
Great advice for parents, too!
And that is why we homeschool!
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds;
tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Teach them to your children,
talking about them when you sit at home
and when you walk along the road,
when you lie down and when you get up.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, ...
Deuteronomy 11:18-20
It's a hobby - but it's also the cheapest therapy around for *those days*! :P
I don't know much about gardening; I just know that I enjoy the digging and the planting and even the weeding. I love the way a garden looks and I love driving home only to glance up and see all the amazing color from flowers.
Because I don't know much about it, I'm trying to learn all I can. I always read the "idiot sticks". You know, those informational plastic inserts that come with a new plant. I even save them to refer back to. And I'm constantly searching online for more information to make sure I do all I can to keep the plant alive and thriving!
What I have learned so far is that a lot of tending to a garden involves a lot of protecting. As the plant matures, it's roots get stronger and it's more resilient to weather changes and watering conditions and anything else that might kill a new tender plant. It requires regular care. Enough food, enough water, but not too much. It requires protection from the elements.
"The goal of winter protection is not to keep plants warm but instead to protect them from factors such as damaging wind, heavy snow and ice, and the alternate freezing and thawing of the soil beneath the plants. "1
The goal is to protect them. Hmmmm.....
"Protection could be offered by planting susceptible plants in a sheltered location and providing additional water during dry periods or prior to expected hard freezes. Foundation plantings are often injured by ice and snow falling from the roof on their frozen branches. It is sometimes necessary to construct a temporary shelter for shrubs in a precarious situation."2
A sheltered location...... Hmmmm......
"Newly transplanted trees and shrubs, divisions of perennials, and hardy bulbs are all growing roots, drawing on soil nutrients and moisture around them."3
Growing roots...... and drawing from around them..... Hmmmm.....
"Protect the tender bark of young trees from gnawing critters by wrapping stems or trunks with wire or commercial tree-guard products."4
Protecting from.... Hmmmm.....
"Screen evergreens, particularly exposed broad-leaved types, from drying winter wind and sun by setting up burlap screens or shade cloth shelters."5
Protection with screening and shelters... Hmmmm......
Great advice for gardeners.....
Great advice for parents, too!
And that is why we homeschool!
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds;
tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Teach them to your children,
talking about them when you sit at home
and when you walk along the road,
when you lie down and when you get up.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, ...
Deuteronomy 11:18-20
Footnotes:
1,2:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/copubs/news/garden_cleveland/2010-12/2.html
3,4,5:
http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/puttinggardentobed_10222001.xml&catref=SC344
posted by Michele | 6:44 AM
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