gardenthoughts

in my last post, i mentioned that there would be one more regarding the state of the fall rye planted in our back veggie garden .. well, here it is .. with regard to an intriguing incident ..

my friend and mentor, phil, always told me to plant three times as much rye seed as i thought the space required .. there was a little rhyme that he recalled from his childhood about a third for the birds, a third for the ?, and a third to grow .. (does anyone out there know this rhyme .. i’d be delighted to hear it again) .. anyway .. consequent to that instruction, this has always been my habit .. however, this year was the first one i actually saw the results of planting a third, a third, a third ..

we planted up seven beds with rye back in october .. it’s beautifull .. even the weight of snow can’t deter it on it’s mission of growth .. it’s brighter and greener today than it was before the snow last week .. it’s showing full, and lush .. well, in all but one of the beds .. now, this doesn’t work out to the principle of threes, but it does point to the matter of planting a share for the birds ..

now .. in the bed in upper right hand corner of the above photo, and in the last post, you will perhaps notice that not all the seed has come up .. that, in fact, only a strip down the middle of the bed has grown at the same rate as the rest of the beds .. this is the work of birds .. and here’s the kicker, for me .. of all the seven beds planted up with rye on the same day, growing at the same rate, what it is about this bed that drew the birds to feed upon it .. why didn’t they feed out of any, or all, of the other beds .. doesn’t that strike  you as intriguing .. i am simply flummoxed by this bird behaviour .. is it somehow connected with phil’s rhyme .. could it be .. how remarkable .. ! .. however, flummoxed or not, i must say, i am delighted that they kept their feeding to this one bed .. “eat at it,” i say to them .. and “thank you for sparing the rest” .. then, i walk away, shaking my head .. chuckling ..