Sunday, May 17, 2009

Red Oak

Years ago when I worked with my farmer friends, the vegetable gardener would say that it's time to plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear. Got your corn in yet? :-)



Here are a couple of red oaks. This first one is a youngster without blossoms.


This mature specimen towers over my house.

Posted by at
Labels:

4 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 17, 2009 at 2:05 PM

    LOVE that squirrel shot!
    My elderly (and sadly now deceased) neighbor, an old yankee if there ever was one, used to say the same thing- only he always said it was time to plant peas... wonder if that's because we live further north? But come the first week of July he would also say "Corn's knee high by the 4th of July"-at least up here in NH anyway! He had a ton of great old sayings... some of which are not fit to print but were a hoot none the less!
    ~gretchen

    ReplyDelete
  2. JohnMay 17, 2009 at 4:15 PM

    Can't beat the old timers. I was once given the advice to plant peas in the fall--they'll know when to come up in the following spring. Of course, that worked just fine.

    Yup, knee high by the fourth of july. Same down here. I think there were at least two staggered corn plantings on the farm, that being the first one.

    What a wonderful project it could be to research and collect this wisdom and humor. Some things just need to be saved, don't they?

    ReplyDelete
  3. sharp green pencilMay 23, 2009 at 1:20 AM

    Hi John .. I am looking at the oak and the ash here in dads garden. The oak is way ahead.. which is good, as "oak before ash we will have a splash, ash before oak we will have a soak..." and more such learned lore

    ReplyDelete
  4. JohnMay 23, 2009 at 12:43 PM

    Love it, Val! We are keeping the lore alive.

    Without us, these lovely quotations could become "scarcer than hen's teeth." (Also gleaned from the same veg farmer.)

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)