Country Lore - Readers’ tips to live by
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When the plants were about a foot tall, we loosely tied the string to the base of the plant and twisted the vine around the string. The vines grew all summer long and into the fall. It made a beautiful sunscreen that the hummingbirds also liked.
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Tim, Trina and Phillip Peiffer
English, Indiana
GROW BORAGE FOR BEES
Borage, a cucumber-flavored herb (see photo gallery), is a great addition to your kitchen garden. The plant’s bright blue flowers attract lots of bees, which will help pollinate your crops. Borage reseeds vigorously, so you can leave seedlings in the garden where you want them and pull the rest.
Some people use borage as a tea or in salads. My plants serve clouds of bees all summer long, even some leafcutter bees.
Bees will not hurt you on purpose; they are too busy to pay much attention to you.
Jeffrey Dickemann
Richmond, California
GREAT REASONS TO DRY YOUR LAUNDRY IN THE SUN
Unlike most of our city cousins, many of us country-minded folk still practice the art of hanging our just-washed laundry on clotheslines to dry.
Why do this when a clothes dryer is available? One reason is the lovely fresh scent that lingers on the sheets and the clothes. All the fabric softeners in the world can’t create the sweet smell that sheets carry after they have been blowing in the breeze all day.
Clothesline drying allows the sun to bleach the whites with its ultraviolet rays, while also killing some bacteria. Using no commercial bleaches is great, especially because the majority of us residing in the country are on septic systems and shouldn’t use bleach.
Hanging clothes on a line instead of using a dryer is more economical, as well. Do you ever wonder where all that dryer lint originates? From your clothes, of course! Dryers wear out clothes faster than the more “old-fashioned” method of line drying.
I find it therapeutic to spend time outside attaching a basketful of clothes to the line. The peaceful sounds surround me while I exercise — leaning over to pick up an item, stretching to pin it to the line and removing the clothes when they are dry.
