Darwin

I'm a Christian, and I believe in the creation. I also believe that Darwin hit some things right on. Evolution happens, things change over time as they adapt to the environment. That doesn't mean that humans evolved from green slime, but we certainly do adapt. Look at the obesity epidemic. Our physical forms are adapting to an abundance of food and lack of self restraint. OK, I don't think that is a good example of evolution, but the fact that kids are more likely to be overweight if there parents are overweight suggests this may be an evolutionary thing.

I didn't want to blog about weight today. I want to blog about my garden. I would take a picture, but my wife took the camera to Washington, so there will be no pictures on this blog until the end of July. Which is good, there should be no evidence of how trashed the house is. Hopefully I can have it cleaned up before she gets home.

So I've been thinking of Darwin while gardening. If I had more land and didn't mind losing my garden, I would do an experiment. I would allow my morning glory and squash to grow together without intervention. I think that Squash can beat morning glory in a fight. As pervasive as morning glory are, whenever they start to thrive, I see that the vines of the Squash plants will grab a hold of the weed. I don't know if the squash can kill the morning glory, or pull it off, but it grabs it, none the less. How long has squash been evolving to develop the ability to weed for itself? OK, I feel that I have to help the squash, so I do (I don't want to lose my crop), but I wish I had an open field where I could let the squash and morning glory duke it out.

I've taken a new approach to weeding. Early in the season I sent garbage cans full of weeds to the landfills, to get it off of my property. I hope that the morning glory are helping things biodegrade and improving the landfills. Now I just pull the weeds and leave them in the garden. Sure, I know that a small piece of root can grow a new morning glory plant, but really, I have made little progress in controlling the weed anyway, so maybe leaving their dead friends around will help discourage young morning glory from sticking their heads up through the ground. I don't think that I can scare weeds, but just think of all of the nutrients and energy contained in those weeds, why should I send that away? So I leave it. I gather it around the plants that look like they need help The weeds bake in the sun and I hope that some of the energy and nutrients contained in the weeds will return to the soil. That is how the earth has always worked. I hope that it will work that way in my garden. I like the saying, "if you can't beat them, join them". I am becoming one with the morning glory and I think they are going to provide fertilizer for the garden.

Last night I had a dinner from the garden. Fried zucchini and onion with garlic and spices and a tossed salad with a variety of lettuce, spinach and peas. It was excellent.