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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1978-05-24, Page 2Street sweeping A CLEANER VILLAGE — A street cleaner was in Brussels on Saturday working hard at keeping the village a clean place to live. (Photo by Langlois) Behind the scenes By Keith, Roulston Why do we garden? Brussels Post spiussE1.4 ONTARIO WEDNESDAY, MAY 24., 1978. Serving Brussels and the surrounding community, . Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by McLean I3ros.Publishers Limited. Evelyn Kennedy-Editor Good weekend Member Canadian Community Newspaper association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association GNP; Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $9.00 a Year. • - Others $17.00 a Year. Single Copies 20 cents each, To some city folk who are used to theatres; movie • houses and fancy restaurants it may Seem like a village the size of Brussels doesn't have much to offer in the way of entertainment. In fact, some of the local people therriselves may complain, "There's nothing to do in Brussels." This coming weekend in Brussels makes that statement untrue. Carnival Days are coming to Brussels and with them come the fun of street dances, rides, games and lucky draws. Carnival Days are sponsored by the Brussels Business Association (BBA) who are hoping to use the proceeds to purchase street signs. Not only is the BBA promoting tourism and interest in the village of Brussels but it is putting the money toward a worthy cause as well. And it's not just the BBA who are promoting interest in the community but the Agricultural Society in Brussels is also providing some local entertainment in the form of a circus on Monday. Usually in order to take their children to the circus, parents have to go many miles out of town but now the Brussels Agricultural Society has made it easy by having the circus come to Brussels. Our children can have circus memories and mom and dad don't have to make a long trip. It's-a circus that includes animal acts, trapeze acts and clowns. And besides the circus inside the tent, outside on the grounds children will be given pony rides and they can view a Phython snake. This coming weekend there's something for everyone in Brussels. Perhaps, there are a few "sleeping communities" in Huron County. This weekend-thapks to two local groups, the BBA and the Agricultural Society, Brussels won't be one of them. Delegates have Enrich at the WI annual last week in Brussels What is it about Canadians and gardens? Give people 10 square feet of earth W and chances are they'll be mucking about in it as soon as the snow melts off, dreaming of the hundreds of vegetables they'll be eating when the warm weather comes. It's really amusing to watch people in the city who barely have enough backyard to turn around in, digging and plowing to put in a few vegetables. One package of lettue'e seed contains enough to sew the backyard in lettuce three times over, 'but they buy seventeen varieties of vegetable seeds plus a few boxes of tomatoes and cabb*ages. In the cities they've even come up with the ultimate solution to the problem of over- crowding: highrise gardens. All those apartment buildings with the cement slab balconies which have just enough room to lie down on to get a sun tan start sprouting greenery this time of the year. To somebody who's grown up on the land, it seems like the ultimate in urban idiocy to see little planters with vegetables 20 stories in the sair, but then if you were forced to live in such a building for very long, you'd likely be seized.with the urge for something natural around too. We in small town Ontario are much more sane, of course. We have lar: ge backyards so we can have a garden and still have a little grass too. We plant huge gardens, then have so much produce we want to give some away but all our neighbours have huge gardens too and they're trying to give their excess to you. If you're new in town and don't have a garden. or a friend or neighbour who has one, you may not be able to get fresh vegetables even though they're all around you because the loCal grocery stores hardly stock any. Who's going to buy fresh vegetables that just spent two days being trucked from somewhere else in Ontario when the have fresh, picked-just- a-rnintite.ago vegetables from their own back yard? So for the person without a garden, it's like the shipWrecked sailor with water all around but not a drop that can be drunk. I'm just as crazy about gardens as anybody else. I get the seed catalogue out about the time the first bad storm hits in January and write out my order for, the spring. I've taken to starting my own seeds indoors in 'the last Couple of years. Usually by the time it comes to planting the kids or the cats have knocked the seedli:tigs off the window sill several times and the plants look like ..Orriethirig Hurricane Hazel left behind. I get enthusaiastic in the first warm May evenings(and there haven't been many) and go out to work up the garden. Each year my ideas seem to get a little more ambitious than the last. The size of the garden seems to get larger by the time spring rolls around each year. It's a dangerous trend at our place because we've got three and a half acres. Somehow, though, the enthusiasm seems to wane shortly after the seeds break through the, ground. For one thing, by the time the seeds sprout, several hundred weeds have already made their appearance.' Why is it that weed seeds always seem to germinate twice as fast .as the seeds you want to come up? By mid June when the heat comes on, it always seems there are so many other important things to do that there isn't time to work in the garden; things like sitting, in the shade or reading a book. By early July my dreams of great abundance of produce have produced only great abundance of weeds. By August I''(7e shrugged my shoulders and decided that next year I really can't let myself get so far' behind. As for this year, ah well, it was a nice idea. Pew people are as bad as me when it comes to taking care of a garden of course, but it still seems to be a question of what logical reason we all ,decide we simply must have a garden. M any will argue taht they have to plant a garden to fight food prices. I challenge anyone to prove that their garden actually saves them enough to be worthwhile.First of all, there's the matter of time we spend. Then there's the cost of seed and fertilizer and then there are the tools. Now we could get along with a shovel, hoe and rake.but I haven't seen many who do. Most people at least have a rototiller and many have those cute little garden tractors that cost what a good farm used to sell for a generation or so Ago. From a strictly economic standpoint, a garden makes fulltime fanning look like a blue chip investment. Yet we go on, breaking up little patches of earth to plant a few seeds amdream of coming crops. It's part of the Canadian psyche, I think. We may be generations away from the farni but we still have the urge, deep within us to work the soil, plant crops and harvest, It may not make much sense, but. I think we're better off for it. Better to take out your frustrations on a weed than a neighbour.