Organic Gardening

Correcting or Altering Photos

This is the way purple Coneflowers are supposed to look.

The following were seriously underexposed photos that were corrected as best as I could. It really changed the over all appearance and color compared to the top two photos. Am I the only one that hangs on to bad shots & tries to fix them like this?

Granted, it’s unique and interesting in it’s own way, but they really look “blah” compared to the the top two photos taken. Below are two that I tried with less color saturation so they would look less bright and garish.

Another example of underexposed coneflowers I corrected but would have looked so much better if the exposure was right. I am really not sure what was going on with my camera at the time this happened. Sometimes I manually adjust for the lighting & forget to change it back.

The next photo didn’t have an exposure problem but one that I didn’t notice in the field while taking it. There was part of a plant in the foreground to the left I didn’t notice at the time I took the shot. It ruined what could have been a decent photograph.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers are very striking flowers and fields of them are so impressive to behold.  I have seen only two such fields that I can remember.  I used to grow a row of Sunflowers in my garden along the edge where our small cornfield was.  I really wish I would have taken pictures of that garden and many other things.  Photography was not a priority back then and was expensive to develop.

My post is dedicated to Sunflowers but I am thinking about my cornfields right now.  One year was dedicated to what I believe was the “Silver Queen” late corn, very sweet and tender, and another year we planted hulless popcorn.  Never together because of possible cross-pollination issues.  I have since found “hulless” at markets, but not often and none has ever been as tender as the popcorn we grew so many years ago.  We hung the ears out to dry and then stored them in large mason jars still on the ears, kernels removed right before popping.  Not sure of how to do this at first, we somehow dried them to perfection because they popped beautifully.

Beware the Food Culture of America

It can kill you.

Enough said.

Many of us are killing ourselves with kindness.

We have tons of processed food & are brainwashed into craving it!”

Most of us never learned self-control or self-discipline.
Instead, we are told to be proud of our obesity & we should never be ashamed.
We are expected to wear our fat like a badge of courage instead of over-indulgence.

You can eat quite a lot of foods that grow naturally.

Eating the way nature intended.

Natural foods: Whole grains, dairy, fresh organic meats, fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, nuts, herbs, spices, etc…

Taste better than over processed chemical ridden frankenfoods any day.

 

Warm Weather and the Garden

Weeding was always my favorite garden chore.  My second is pruning.  What’s yours?  I always had tons to weed since I didn’t use herbicides of any kind.  Only Organic gardening for me.  Other than a few times where I did make up a Fels-Naptha soap and garlic wash or just hand-picked the insects off to dispose of them.

I said I enjoyed it, not that I was good at it. Carrots to the left, green beans to the right.

Some love their riding lawnmowers and I get that.  I used to use my mother-in-laws years ago.  She had a lot to mow so I would do it for her cause it was kind of like riding a go-cart.  Depending on how many acres or your physical condition, makes sense.  My mower of choice many years later was a manual lawnmower.  It worked out fine for me.

At this time of year, end of June, I would have planted everything by the end of May, I would have had some harvesting of perennial herbs, lettuce, peas, radishes.  I would have had strawberries if I planted them as well as Black and Red Raspberries.

I would be busy weeding, mowing, watering and daily walk through looking for signs of harvest or trouble.  I always had lots to do if I wanted to.  Sometimes I would mulch a lot to keep the weeds down, other times, I just pull weeds by hand or use the tool I had for the large single root like dandelions.  There was always something very fulfilling about “rooting” through my garden and improving the appearance like that.  Great exercise too.

 

Daily Prompt: Narcissism

That word gets thrown around a lot lately for good reason.  Many are currently wearing this label and more will in the future if our culture does not turn back to Godly ways instead of the selfish worldly ways that our mainstream has made so popular and attractive.  Speaking of “attractive” it is the very definition of the word itself.  Per Dictionary.com the definition of narcissism is “every beautiful, perfect looking superstar you know!”  That’s not really their definition, it’s mine.  Their definition is “inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.  Psychoanalysis: erotic gratification derived from admiration of one’s own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development.”  Sound like anyone you know right now or promoted by various media as healthy and normal?  We all can say Donald Trump and he does not even try to hide it.  I don’t say this to put him down, just stating fact and it’s not attractive.

Narcissus flowers, of a similar name, also the name of a character in Greek Mythology where the term narcissism originated.   So beautiful in springtime!