- [<] Status Log - created:: 2021-08-19 - status-updated:: 2022-03-18 - current-status:: #articleseed - [S] Marketing - purpose:: do some brainstorming about [[The Konik Method of (Digital) Gardening]] and help build my braind. ## [Tweeted 2021-08-13](https://twitter.com/EleanorKonik/status/1426204381423284225) ``` THREAD START I am a very practical soul. One of the ways my practicality manifests in my #garden is that I have a very firm rule about only planting things that are edible. It’s similar to my notetaking rule of thumb in that I only save things that are useful. --- I really do believe that a lot of gardening practices are a bit silly and impractical. To whit, 90% of the common flowers I see in neighbor’s gardens. Sage and lavender have beautiful flowers and smell amazing, I don't get why more people don't plant them as decorative plants. --- I totally understand why we don’t plant fruit trees in cities – I grew up underneath proliferate walnut and mulberry trees, boy howdy do I understand how annoying they can be. But most herbs are gorgeous, useful and easy to live with. --- My mom likes hyacinths. Their flowers are like snapdragons on straight stems, kinda like a short corn stalk. Hyacinths, grown from bulbs, always seemed lifeless. The first time I saw sage, I was struck by how similar and superior its flowers are. --- Sage has beautiful lilac-purple flowers, smells incredible, & my local bees love it. Unlike hyacinths, it spreads and is easy to propagate. As a bonus, it’s really easy to harvest (unlike thyme!) and the big leaves are comparatively trivial to dry and grind. --- For folks who think that the easy spread of sage is a drawback, cutting back sage is not any harder than deadheading hyacinths every autumn and won’t hurt it one whit. I cut one bush back to two tiny leaves last winter and it’s a whole bush again now. --- Incidentally, sage doesn’t actually have to be carefully maintained for “maximum productivity” to “prevent it from going woody.” A woody shrub isn’t incapable of producing delicious young leaves, and has the advantage of being pretty great at weed suppression. --- Sidenote: sage / garden veg & herb growth & productivity concerns are, in my opinion, really similar to the cultural problems we have with #toxicproductivity in general. People who get overwhelmed trying to follow all the “plant productivity rules” in gardening books – don’t! --- Trying to eke out that last 2% of potential yield in your garden is not worth it and is arguably counterproductive if it makes you unable to sustain healthy gardening practices. Plant stuff that doesn’t need babying. I barely weed or water my garden & it does just fine. --- Anyway, a lot of people near me plant daffodils, which bloom for such a short period of time and in my opinion get scraggly quick. Sage is prettier, even as a bush before and after flowering. I realize this is subjective, but look: --- If you want a pretty ground cover, nasturtiums are the way to go. They're edible in salads and frankly less annoying to grow than lettuce or spinach because it doesn't bolt. Rosemary makes a nice alternative to little trees for hanging holiday lights in winter. --- Thyme & creeping rosemary make amazing groundcover; I’m working on replacing the grass in my kid’s play area with thyme because it’s great at suppressing weeds, smells wonderful, and doesn’t require mowing in all the tight spaces between his toys. --- I only bother to harvest in my garden once or twice a year. Lavender smells beautiful, looks great compared to a lot of grassy decorative plants, and butterflies love it. So what if I only make lavender bread once or twice a year? It’s not like the bush is going to waste. --- To get away from #toxicproductivity in my garden I embraced the idea that I don't have to use everything I grow to its maximum potential. It's enough to have herbs handy when I need them or have time to harvest. If I let stuff go to seed for the birds and butterflies, it's ok. --- I don't have to use every note I take for my "rule" about only collecting useful things to be a good one. If I actually wrote an article all my ideas I would die. But there's value in writing them down, just like there's value in having sage ready-to-hand. THREAD END ```