Taken from Eclectic Gardener @ http://www.teachinggarden.org/
written by Alan R Hickman

Oh well, at least Peel Teaching Garden didn't crash into the moon. If NASA can dump hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hardware into the Atlantic Ocean and land a spacecraft with a disintegrating thump on some distant planet - all for want of a period, or because of one misplaced hyphen, in perhaps millions of lines of computer code - I suppose it was only a matter of time before something similar happended closer to home.

For 2009, one mention in this column, in October 2008, that registration was open at the Peel Teaching Garden, was enough to fill the winter garden classes. For this year's classes though, applications were really slow coming. By the week of the first class only 14 applications had arrived.

It was not until someone realized that almost all of the applications received had resulted from word-of-mouth recommendations from previous students, and that, in two months, nothing had come via the PTG website - www.teachinggarden.org, that we suspected NASAitus.

Sure enough, there was a glitch in the coding for sending class registrations. Nothing was forgotten; but, somehow, an instruction had been duplicated. Instead of saying 'mail to: teachinggarden....' it said 'mailto: mailto:teachinggarden...'

Computers are like spouses; don't nag them. Tell 'em once and they might do what you ask. Tell 'em twice and they'll do damn all.

The bug was fixed on Monday and by the class, on Saturday, three new applications had arrived using the web form.

It is not that 17 people is a shabby showing, especially as they were mostly encouraged to come by previous attendees; but, over the two months that the registration process was screwed up, there must have been at least a few other people who tried to register and couldn't get through.

Because the first class is so important - it sets the whole foundation for what is to come - it has always been PTG policy not to accept any late registrations. However, in this case, policy, schmolicy.

There was room for another ten or fifteen people so registrations were accepted, on a first come first served basis, fifteen max, so long as the emails arrived before the next class on Jan 23.

First classes are almost invariably something of a trial for all concerned. Everyone is new and in a strange place.

They don't know quite what to expect, except that it will likely involve a lot of formality and 'introductions', and they'd rather skip the whole thing and start with the 'real stuff'.

Well, I'm often glad that PTG is usually the only occupant of the building because, when even a half class starts laughing, they make a lot of noise. From outside the room, it must sound like a bunch of drunks on a Saturday night than a bunch of gardeners on a Saturday afternoon.

Actually, the analogy is more true than it might at first seem, because it is the 'bunch' not the booze which sets the tone.

A solitary drunk, after all, is usually a miserable creature.

Human bodies are quite good at making their own opiates and endorphins, so put together a bunch of compatible bodies, and they'll get a nice buzz going even without the gin.

The last half hour of each session is given over to questions, and someone asked if it was OK to reuse potting soil.

I offered the opinion that, although it likely wasn't a good idea, if push comes to shove and if you got anything else, you would probably have to be quite unlucky for reused soil to cause fatal damage.

And then, for no reason, I thre in, "It's like marrying your cousin. They don't usually come out with two heads."

When you write it down it really doesn't look that funny; but, as they say in show biz, timing is everything.

A throwaway line can bring down the house,just as readily as a stray bullet can blow up a barrel of gunpowder.

Of course, the afternoon wasn't all merriment and mirth.

When discussing the meaning of 'natural', I put forward the proposition that a nuclear power station is just as natural as an anthill.

Ants take natural sand and natural spit and use them to modify the environment for the benefit of their species.

Humans take natural sand and natural pebbles and natural limestone, to make conrete buildings; they take natural iron and natural carbon to make steel structures, and they take natural uranium tomake fuel, all to further the cause of the human species.

Anthill technology is just as cutting edge to the ant species as a nuclear power-station is to the human species. The difference, such as it might be, is one of degree, not one of kind.

Both the anthill and the power station are made of natural stuff dug out of the ground and processed. If the power-station is deemed to be not natural, then it can only be because the humans who made it are not natural. And that poses the question: "When did humans cease to be natural creatures?"

So what do anthills and power-stations have to do with gardening?

The immediate object of the proposition was to show the importance of saying what you actually mean. Dont use unnatural if what you really mean is man-made.

How an individual explores and resolves the deeper implications of the proposition, will influence how all sorts of decisions are made, both in and out of the garden.

High Temperature:
Actual: -6°C cloudy flurries .50cm Wind W16km/h P.O.P.59%
Average: -1°C
Record: 9°C in 1991

Low Temperature:
Actual: -12°C mostly cloudy Wind WNW17km/h P.O.P.20%
Average: -10°C
Record: -25°C in 1955