h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mount Stupid may well have a cog railway or even a long escalator to make it easier to get to the top.

I'm not sure why the onions did that. Are the weird rows next to each other? I do know you can't plant watermelons next to cucumbers, or the watermelons will taste like cucumbers...

Here's a brief guide to companion planting:

http://learn.eartheasy.com/articles/companion-planting-vegetables-for-increased-crop-yield/

Here's some more companion planting advice:

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/onion/onion-plant-companions.htm

You could plant the Three Sisters sometime. That would be awesome.
http://www.nativeseeds.org/blogs/blog-news/how-to-grow-a-three-sisters-garden

I'll send you a pic of our three sisters.

Wonderful!

Speaking of the Three Sisters////

I never had much luck growing corn at all.

Pumpkins or squash I could sometimes grow fine if I had the right liquid fertilizer (which no longer seems to be on the amrket).

Beans were never any problem.

One out of three seems to be not worth the trouble.

Courgette over here instead of pumpkin (bleuchh). First time for us with all three, so have no clue how they'll go... But our corns already over four foot high so thats impressed us enough.

That's really good! And I'd rather have zucchini, too. It's easier to grow and fits a lot of recipes.

Corn requires a lot of nitrogen to do well. I believe that the Native Americans over here used to plant fish heads with their corn, so remember to plant other things in that space in your garden next year or add fertilizer.

Yes, corn is a glutton for fertile soil. The people who lived on my fathers land before he bought it raised corn, and by the time we moved in, the soil was too depleted to grow corn in. So we didn't grow corn.

But if you can get the fertility right, corn is a most desirable crop. In terms of producing calories for human (or animal) consumption, corn leads he way, followed closely by potatoes.

The people (probably native American women, though we'll never know for sure) who developed corn ad potatoes from their ancestral strains were onto a good thing.

A few years ago, I tried growing ornamental corn near the park's entrance. It had lovely foliage, though it never got very tall, nor perhaps was it getting enough light. Anyway, we had the illusion of corn without any ears.

Ears and eyes... Another dumb as a rock experience!

For the last few days I've been squinting to read anything on my phone or computer, must need new reading glasses? But it's only my left eye that's blurry. So trawling through gardening advice, motorbike adverts and obviously here, I've been screwing my eye shut and relying on my right, making myself slightly dizzy in the process.

Today we drove up north to help my son move uni accommodation, my wife reminds me to bring my specs in case we go out for lunch and I need to read a menu (I always forget and am a pain getting the family to read everything for me)

I explain that they're bloody useless at the mo, need a new pair as one eyes gotten much worse reading.
Wife and daughter burst out laughing as she hands me my specs.... One lens missing, its come loose in my work jacket... Two days I've been unaware there's only one bloody lens in them! Jeez I'm never going to live this one down!

Oh, man, that's priceless!

It happens, though.

I'll make you feel better. Back when we were in college, we used to rummage around in second-hand bookshops near Pitt. Lots of fun, ancient and now totally out-of-print oddities we'd find, for a nickel apiece, etc...

One week, I got worried. Every evening, it seemed, the palms of my hands were reddened...I wondered if I had some kind of allergic reaction...no google back then, so I was asking the medical students...

Elektra figured it out. She held up the old, cloth-covered book I'd been reading...red cover...it was dyeing my hands...

Thereinafter known as 'secondhand book syndrome'.

I'm just glad it wasn't anything you needed to worry about!

thanks!

Making a spectacle of yourself?

Half of one at least mate!

Are you beginning to se the light?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_PTpcVgdSM

My youngest daughter's seventeenth at the weekend...how time flies.

Looking at life through my rear-view mirror,
Closer to seventy than seventeen.
End of the road seems to be getting nearer,
Wasn’t like this at seventeen.

Just not cool to own ripped jeans now,
When you’re closer to seventy than seventeen
But the rips and the tears tell you just where I’ve been.
Don’t get that at seventeen.

Ignoring the weeds in my driveway of life,
Closer to seventy than seventeen.
Basking in beauty, my kids, and my wife,
A faraway thought at seventeen.

Blink and you’ve missed it, sleep and it’s gone,
Closer to seventy than seventeen.
Making excuses, too tired to ride,
Oh, how I wish I was seventeen.

But the love that I have, the things that I’ve done
Now I’m closer to seventy than seventeen.
The riding is slower, but still kind of fun,
I’m glad I’m no longer seventeen.

I have more memories now than I had when I was seventeen.

Do memories matter that much? Well, they seem to when you're over 75, and youve outlived a lot of the other people who might remember various events that have happened in your lifetime.

Food for thought, and beautifully said, as always! I love the shifts in perspective.

I find my perspective shifts constantly as the years pass (still got a few more til 60) part of me mourns my youth, another would hate being young again!

I hear you! Nobody would mind youth, if they could only keep the experience.