Shunryu Suzuki Quotes

If a garden require it, now trench it ye may, one trench not a yard, from another go lay; Which being well filled with muck by and by, to cover with mould, for a season to lie.

All man has to do is cooperate with the big forces, the sun, the rain, the growing urge. Seeds sprout, stems grow, leaves spread in the sunlight. Man plants, weeds, cultivates and harvests. It sounds simple, and it is simple, with the simplicity of great truths.

Where grows?--where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil.

Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.

Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests.

On a farm the best fertilizer is the master's eye.

I am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St foin seed, & that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills... Let the ground be well prepared, and the Seed (St foin) be sown in April. The Hemp may be sown any where.

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.

The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.

Where the plow does not go and the seed is not sown, the weeds are sure to multiply.

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds.

To plant a garden is the chief of the arts of peace.

The man who wants a garden fair, or small or very big, With flowers growing here and there, Must bend his back and dig. The things are mighty few on earth That wishes can attain. Whate'er we want of any worth We've got to work to gain. It matters not what goal you seek, It's secret here reposes: You've got to dig from week to week To get Results or Roses.

Tomatoes and squash never fail to reach maturity. You can spray them with acid, beat them with sticks and burn them; they love it.

To cultivate a garden is. . . to go hand in hand with Nature in some of her most beautiful processes.

I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year.

Short version: For the child. . ., it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. . . . It is more important to pave the way for a child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts that he is not ready to assimilate.

Gardening is a humbling experience.

Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.

Where soil is, men grow, Whether to weeds or flowers.

The gardener's work is never at at end; it begins with the year, and continues to the next: he prepares the ground, and then he sows it; after that he plants, and then he gathers the fruits.

The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before.