We bought a house with a garden. A nice one where the soil has been prepared down about eight or ten inches. It had weeds and had been neglected a while. A few live items.
Enter us. I have gardened in Louisiana for about ten years, so know a little about it. Well, SWMBO bulldozes in and just starts ripping and tearing. Digging ditches. Arranging things on the slope with the idea that the sprinklers will flow by gravity from high to low. Digs up the good dirt down to the rocky level, where she plants new plants. Piles up the good loamy dirt in large mounds that I immediately flattened some and planted the melons on.
I let her go. When all was done, she asks hows that, expecting heaps of praise. I explain that all that was needed was to till it all up, rake out the weeds, make rows laterally so they are not sloped, and plant the plants on the top of the mounds, not in the gullies where they can get fungus and rot. I do recall mentioning this the first ten or fifteen minutes into the ordeal, but she says I didn't. I know I did, and I know I would never plant things so a good rain would wash everything away.
What's a good book for me to go buy her and casually place next to the toilet or wine cabinet or someplace she's sure to see it? Something REALLY simple that goes over some of these most basic things, so she can read it somewhere. If she reads it or hears it on Oprah, it's the rule for the month in our house, even though I may have said the same thing for ten years.
Help in tender loving firmhanded manipulation appreciated.
Steve