The Weeder's Digest

Yes, you read right. The Weeder's Digest. That's the subtitle of a little magazine know as: GreenPrints. Their website says: "Only GreenPrints magazine shares the human side: the joy, humor, frustrations, and heart in fine prose and fine art . . . It's the best personal garden writing, old and new . . . It's funny. It's tender. It's truthful, It's inspiring."

This little magazine found it's way to my home through my Mom's friend, Mary. Once again she sent over something to read that I'd never heard of before. It's a cute little magazine that comes out each season, and occasionally special magazines like The Weeder's Reader which is GreenPrints greatest stories.

The first article I read, My New Year's Garden, shares the heart's desire of the author to grow enthusiasm, harmony, patience, love, etc., instead of anger, resentment, frustration and judgment. It was a cute little story to remind us of what's important in our life.

I really laughed at My No-Grow Azaleas where Robert Christensen shared how his azalea hedge wasn't growing any bigger the third year. He asked people everywhere if they knew what he could do. Then, when he began digging them up after frying them with nitrogen, he found a metal identification tag that said: Dwarf White Azalea. It gave me my laugh for the day.

Of course, I enjoyed the article: A Grown-Up's Snow Day. I liked what Michelle Bobier said: "I like to watch my garden while it sleeps . . . annuals are simply dead . . . Perennials are about endurance, and they are about hope. They are the ones that see me through the winer."

A cute little rhyme by Rudyard Kipling showed up in an article: "Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees; That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees. So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray; For the glory of the garden, that it may not pass away."

I liked the title: To Be Happy, Play in the Dirt, of one of the articles. This was a scientific lesson by Alexandra Schiller that spoke about how the brain triggers serotonin, a hormone-like neurotransmitter that eases tension and elevates mood. When we dig in the earth, we release and breathe in action-packed hormones that enter our body, quicken our senses, and give us a feeling of bliss. I think I need to dig in the dirt more. To think, I could have overcome all those years of depression by digging in the dirt!

Dorothy Gilman said: "What continues to astonish me about a garden is that you can walk past it in a hurrt, see something wrong, stop to set it right, and emerge an hour or two later breathless, contented, and wondering what on earth happened."

Check out GreenPrints at www.greenprints.com. It's a cute litte magazine bound to give the gardener in you some laughs and lessons. It's a Mom and Pop operation out of Fairvew, North Carolina.

GreenPrints—like gardening—offers hope, joy, encouragement, peace, humor, beauty, friendship, and so much more. And who couldn’t use those things, now or anytime? It’s a much-cherished present—for yourself and your gardening friends and family!