Mar 25, 2009

wondrous words



I found some new gardening terms this week from reading Making Things Grow Outdoors:

Tilth: "This, by the way, is what the experts mean when they tell us to keep the soil rich and in good tilth."
Tilth is the rough texture in soil

Spit, Humus: "If you have not found it [subsoil] by the time you have gone down two spits, the garden has an excellent depth of humus..."
S- the depth of a shovel blade
H- dark brown or black substance consisting of decayed animal and plant matter in soil

Crozier: "A whole generation of so-called gardeners are living in houses surrounded by land in which beans never uncurl like croziers from the soil..."
The curled end of a young frond, or a crook on the end of a bishop's staff

Visit the host of Wondrous Words Wednesday at Bermudaonion's Weblog.

8 comments:

  1. Great words! I'd only ever heard the word crozier as a last name (as in the poet Lorna Crozier), so I'm interested to hear it means something! The only word I was familiar with is humus.

    My words are here.

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  2. Spits reminds me of Bill Cosby's routine about Noah building the ark. What's a cubit? Of course, you're probably way too young to remember that. My words are here

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  3. Avianschild- Crozier was the word I really blinked at in the text: what does this mean? The others were explained in the next sentence, usually.

    Kaye- I did watch Cosby when I was young, but I don't remember him every talking about Noah's ark! (But I did have Bible study class when I was a teen, and I'm sure the exact length of a cubit was explained to me, though now of course I've forgotten!)

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  4. Interesting words. At first I could believe you didn't know what spit was. When I saw the sentence, I realized I didn't know what it was either. Thanks for playing along.

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  5. I feel like I've encountered "tilth" before. Informative roundup, as usual.

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  6. Anonymous3/25/2009

    This is the first post in which I knew all of the words. My gardening days paid off. Sounds like a good book. Hope you're enjoying it.

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  7. Bermudaonion- I thought someone might think that!

    Anonymous Child- Thank you.

    Margot- Yes, I am! It's one of the best gardening books I've read.

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  8. Anonymous3/27/2009

    I really like "tilth." Now to find opportunities to use it in casual conversation...

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