~ April ~   

Grow a No-Till Garden
    Start your garden as soon as you can work the soil, certainly in April if not already in March.
    Do not spade. Save your back and your soil by planting no-till.
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After 13 settled years, my husband joined the Foreign Service. We packed up our kids and our pets, sold the house and started a life of moving. In 25 years, we traveled to nine posts: the Congo (then called Zaire, which none of our friends had heard of), Morocco, Washington, Paris, back to Washington, Geneva, Moscow, London and finally New York. In five of these postings — Morocco, Washington, Geneva, Moscow and London — I worked as the community liaison officer....

I find crape myrtle 10 times more attractive than white birch trees, which we in New Hampshire consider a weed but Marylanders insist on trying to grow against the odds. It is a waste of time and money to plant white birch in southern Maryland because the summers are too hot and the winters do not provide sufficient cold to satisfy the tree’s dormancy needs. We have the ideal climate to grow crape myrtle, a tree (or shrub) that adds so much to any landscape.
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Back in the woods, off a winding country road in Davidsonville, a bunch of happy people are cutting the rug in the former mess hall of a decommissioned Nike missile base.
    It’s good times as usual with the Davidsonville Dance Club, which hosts weekly Saturday night dances, evening lessons during the week and occasional weekend workshops. Founded in 1980, the club’s membership is about 250, equally balanced between men and women.
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