Gardening in August

Friday, August 4

Now, when all the plants and vines are pumping out vegetables like a mass-production line, I'm suddenly tempted to put the gardens on automatic pilot and take a few days' break from the constant vigil of tending them. And I mean break -- a complete break. No weeding, no dusting, no watering, no hindering, no cultivating, no pruning, no trying. No checking on this, no fretting about that. Not even any harvesting. No gardening activities of any kind. The yearning to be free of it all takes hold of me every year around this time, brought on no doubt by the long and continuous labor of bringing the gardens to this point of abundance.


Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of the Growing Season

This Week in Iowa Nature

Before school starts, explore the corals, crinoids, and brachiopods preserved on the ancient sea floor at Devonian Fossil Gorge in Johnson County.

Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, The Iowa Nature Calendar

Prairie of the Week

North Dakota:
Little Missouri National Grassland

1.2 million acres, USDA-FS, McKenzie Ranger District, (701) 842-2393; 
Medora Ranger District, (701) 225-5151

Subtleties of mixed-grass prairie compete with eye-popping badlands, creating landscape that has made a big impression on countless visitors, including the young Teddy Roosevelt. Hikers and horseback riders can strike out on the 120-mile-long Maah Daah Hey Trail, which begins at Sully Creek State Park south of Medora. A 58-mile self-guided auto tour of the grassland begins at the Medora office.
Information and maps at McKenzie office, 1 mile south of Watford City on Highway 85; Medora office, 161 21st Street West in Dickinson.


Suzanne Winckler's Prairie: A North American Guide