The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

In praise of flowers

Flower bed and chicken tractorFlowers tend to be at the very bottom of my gardening list, and I only managed to toss some seeds in the ground around June this year.  I ignored them for a month, then gave them a half-hearted weed.  Flowers.  Whatever.

But in the middle of September, the first brilliantly red zinnia popped open.  Our deer deterrents were up and running, so a couple of sunflowers kept their leaves, opening huge yellow heads.  The Cocks' Comb from Mark's mom pushed up brilliant magenta combs and the marigolds turned into a hedge of orange.

Suddenly, my half-hearted flower bed is the heart of the garden.  Why didn't I plant more?  Why didn't I plant them sooner?  I guess next year I'll have to pay more attention to flowers!

Note the homemade chicken waterer in the middle background.


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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