(Just give a hippy (hippie?) a reason to go gay, and they're on it like a hookah.)
I prefer "hippie." Never met a hookah to this day. [Monsieur Zig-Zag, briar pipes (with appropriate mesh screens) and intriguing make-shift bongs – yes]. Never moved to a commune. Never liked the smell of patchouli.
I did, however, come to appreciate gardening through both my father and my mother. He was a product of Manhattan, she of Wisconsin. I have hazy, fond memories of my father buying and planting a pear, an apple and a cherry tree in our Long Island backyard. He put in a tiered strawberry garden. She coaxed "crops" of spring blooming bulbs and flowering plants, both perennial and annual.
Then there were the tomatoes my father tried to grow year in and year out once we moved to Florida. Not nearly a cost effective expense-to yield metric. Tulips don't like Central Florida.
In his way, my father was playing out ND's experience in recent decades. My mother, too. He: acquire talent. She: remember past gardens.
Without proper soil and climate certain seedlings won't prosper. I'll cut to the allegorical chase: choose the correct plants for your climate, cultivate them properly and you're bound to reap a colorful and bountiful harvest.
What were we talking about?
Oh, yeah. Fireside chats. I was just oxidizing, in my chiminea, some of the twigs and branches that collect in my yard over the winter. The rest is simply what it is.
