Old gardening books taught me to stop yanking weeds.

I used to just grab and pull anything green out of my flower beds, thinking it was all bad. But after finding a 1978 manual called "Weeds and Their Uses" at the county library sale in Hagerstown, I learned that clover and chickweed actually help the soil. Now I leave certain plants alone and my garden looks fuller, less bare dirt. Did anyone else find a weird old book that made you change a basic habit?

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leog684mo ago

Did an old book ever turn around a friend of yours like that?

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kim_brown4mo ago

Oh man, that book sounds way more useful than the one I found about "edible mushrooms in your backyard." Let's just say I spent a weekend nibbling on what I thought was chicken of the woods and it turned out to be something that made my stomach feel like it was wrestling a badger. Yeah, that book taught me a habit alright - now I don't eat anything green unless I bought it from a grocery store with a barcode on it. I still have a couple weird mushrooms growing by my shed that I'm not brave enough to touch, let alone yank out.

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