Pickles by Brian Crane for March 29, 2019

Yes…. They’re Just That Fast !

a watched pot never boils, Earl

I prefer daisies, but I’d rather have dandelions than no flowers at all in my lawn. Who needs a bowling green?

Just take them to the kitchen. Dandelions make GREAT salad!

Sorry, Earl, but I don’t think dandelions are ugly at all! The blossoms actually resemble little zinnias. And bees love dandelions. With the dwindling bee population, I let the dandelions stay in my yard.

At least it’s not kudzu!

But they’re so PRETTY!

Dandelion wine make you feel fine !

A friend in Sweetwater, Texas covered his lawn with pebble stone, put an old reel mower in the middle with a plaque on the handle that read,“You go on and mow your grass, I’ll sit here and cool my a**”!.

I call the dandelions the yellow army. They pop up out of no where!

Murphy’s Law of Lawns as expressed by Earl…

Pollinators need them. Let nature be and PLEASE do not use that ROUNDUP or any other trade name for glyphosate.

They were my favorites as a kid. On my way home from school I would pull a punch of dandelions, give them to my mom, and tell her I got her some flowers!

My parents wanted to make dandelion wine, so they sent us kids out to find some. We went to where there were the most dandelions available, the lawn at our church!

We have horsetails. They have an underground network of roots and are impossible to kill, except by chopping down every bit as they pop out and after 6-7 years the roots starve to death.

Dandelions are the first food available to the bees in spring- leave ‘em. We need bees more than we need weed-freelawns.

Ninja Dandelions

Ninja Dandelions…

I wish dandelions were my problem!

Because of all the rain we’ve had, not only have the dirt roads been impassable for over a month, but the weeds and unwanted shrubs around our casa de campo have gotten so overgrown, that I’ve got to head out there this morning for a weekend of machete hacking before I can even think about using the weed wacker.

I HATE dandelions in my law. I don’t use pesticides on our lawn, however I have this neat little tool that pops these little bastards out root and all.

The wife likes them. Every spring I declare dandelion war. Our children think it’s funny to see daddy out there on the attack.

They are the bees’ first food, don’t be so hasty to wipe them out.

just use them in your salad and to make dandelion tea then you can tell people they are supposed to be there

That’s how they do! My wife’s grandfather used to fry the flowers and feed them to the grandkids. I think he was pretty smart: It’s hard to go to seed when you’ve been eaten by a grandkid!

MORE ROUNDUP!! Who cares if Nelson grows another eyeball. We need to get rid of those dandelions NOW.

They’re food for bees (and other pollinators) – leave them!

If they weren’t so common, they’d be considered beautiful wild flowers. And I can’t think of a single child who hasn’t puffed on a sphere of downy seeds on a breezy summer’s day.

Fully one-half of the yard here is taken over by a green blanket of creeping charlie (jenny?), which is green, and looks like hell close-up; but it crowds out ALL the other plant life, so I let it be, because it doesn’t need cutting.

A weed is only a plant that grows where some human doesn’t want it. A yard without weeds is a biological desert, devoid of variety. Not only do pollinators enjoy the dandy blossoms, when they first go to seed, the finches love them also. So, if you’re poisoning the dandys, you’re poisoning bees and birds, as well. People spray chemicals all over their yard and then allow their pets and children to play on it. It all washes down into the lakes, streams and groundwater…stop the madness!! Okay, I feel better now. ;-)

Weeds and cockroaches. . .AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

Learn to love what you will have regardless.

Or learn to eat it faster.

Harvest the suckers and eat them!

It’s been a banner year for dandelions in South Texas. They are beautiful and some are over 18" tall. We live on a ranch and don’t have a manicured lawn so we love them.

If you do use weed killers, avoid using Roundup.

My son persists in pointing out that they are among the first flowers of spring, and that the bees need them. And need them to be non-poisonous to bees. He has a point there.

Make a salad, create some dandelion wine. They are not weeds unless you make them so.

Say, does anyone know if bees like dandelions?

Wild onion flowers can be beautiful when many and thick.

Dandelions do rise quickly.

I love dandelions

I heard a song about dandelions once and some of the lyrics were something like this: “The dandelion is a terrible flower, you cut it down and it’s back in a hour…”

The grass hasn’t even started growing here yet. It’s been a long winter. As a very young kid I occasionally ate dandelions that were growing in our front yard. They tasted spicy.

During the drought in California we were fined if we watered our lawns; let them die. Trouble is, there are plenty of weeds that thrive with that competition out of the way, and every single type has thorns and prickers, designed to help them hike out of here to where the grass is greener. Their roots go up to two feet deep and you can’t get rid of them. Dandelions, though. Dandelions are kid friendly. They are harmless. They are charming. Give me your dandelion seeds and we’ll both be happy.