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Show Sttle Creek Now they tell us. After raising gardens on the same plot of ground for 40 years I have just found out what I should have known before hopefully putting the first seed in the ground four-decades four-decades ago. Not content with exploring the subconscious of the human animal, an-imal, the professors are now turning their test tubes, microscopes micro-scopes arid galvanometers toward to-ward probing the innermost secrets se-crets of the vegetable kingdom. To date they have come up with . the following: a. Cucumbers can have their feelings hurt easily. b. Beans may suffer heart attacks. at-tacks. c. Peas often die from strokes. d. Wounded tomatoes suffer extreme pain. e. Many vegetables may feel neglected and frustrated. f. Potatoes don't need fathers at all only mothers. To begin with, a sincere apology apol-ogy is due ithe custom sprayer who squirted some sort of concoction con-coction on my thriving cucumber plants last summer. They promptly prom-ptly turned up their toes. Over the telephone, I accused him of using weed killer instead of earwig exterminator on my innocent cues. Now I know that they doubtless died of embarass-ment embarass-ment since they and the poison-squirter poison-squirter had never been formally introduced. My string beans have always been unpredictable. Sometimes they bear and bear from mid-July mid-July until frost. Other times after af-ter a rather stingy picking or two they have had It The sci- i entists say it could be heart trouble. So, it looks like I must add a stethescope to my garden equipment. Last year my tomatoes looked wonderful, early in the season, that is. Never had so many green ones. But few of them turned red In desperation I took a grass hook and slashed away at the vines so that the fruits would get more sun. It didn't help very much. Was it because they suffered extreme ex-treme pain?" as the professors say? It's something to think about, anyway. Many April and May gardeners usually reduce their efforts when the hot weather comes. As a result re-sult the weeds takevover. A thick and heavy weed infestation in-festation means a weak vegetable vege-table crop. The common concensus concen-sus was that the "weeds crowded crowd-ed the vegetables out. Now, say 'the eggheads, "the vegetables feel neglected and as a result become frustrated and refuse to grow at all. Has another an-other age-old theory thus been knocked in the head? If all this isn't confusing enough a professor, who does a little preaching as a side line, declares that growing vegetables respond favorably to sweet music mu-sic and prayer. All this may be true if the prayers bring rain, which at this writing we could do with considerable of, as the farmer said. If things continue to get more complex, I shall do what I have often threatened in recent years. Raise our vegetables from the tables at the roadside stands. So long 'til Thursday. |