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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

Etymologists found the Spanish word 'gringo' to be a bit baffling.  Some 
suggest that it is a corruption of 'Greigo' (Greek) and by extension 
'foreigner'.  
But that doesn't expain why the word did not appear in the language until the 
mid 1800's and appeared first in Mexico and spread from hence.  The most 
picturesque and actually most likely origin of the word comes from the 
Manifest 
Destiny war with Mexico in 1846.  A popular song at the time was Burns' poem 
"Green Grow the Rushes-0" set to a popular tune. (Some say it was another 
song, 
"Green Grow the Lilies").  Soldiers, many of them by the bye, Irish, were 
constantly letting go of snippets of the song, especially the chorus:

"Green grow the rushes-o
 Green grow the rushes-o
 The finest hours I ever spent
 Were spent among the lasses-o"

(someone needed to buy Burns a rhyming dictionary)

So the soldiers came to be know as "Green-Grows", or more easily pronounced 
in Spanish "gringos".

I wanted to remind gardeners to not miss the wonderful spring treat of green 
garlic.  Conventional gardening advice says that garlic cloves should have 
been planted last fall, October or so, in order to harvest garlic this fall 
in 
September or so.  Didn't plant any, well, a whole year without garlic then!

Not really.  Plant garlic right now.  Get some bulbs bulk from the mart 
($2.19 /lb here), split them apart, and plant them like onion sets.  The 
garlic 
grows somewhat like onions except that it is not day lenght sensitive, but 
rather 
opportunistic.  It will grow leaves to a certain point, quit, and begin 
growing the bulb.   As long as it's growing the leaves, you can pull the 
entire 
plant and use it like a scallion.  Any surplus easily dehydrate for later.

After the bulb begins forming, the leaves become very tough.  When?  This 
guide isn't exact but the indifidual leaves will point up, and at some point 
will 
bend over and point down.  Eat them before the leaves start pointing down.  

If you grew garlics last year and missed harvesting any of the bulbs, you 
will see a crown of green coming up about now where each clove is sending up 
leaves.  Gently unearth the whole bulb, split it apart, and transplant the 
individual plants.  It will grow almost exactly as if you'd planted the clove.

Mature garlic bulbs like you put away last fall or bought at the grocery will 
keep in good shape for months.  Plant some garlic every two or three weeks 
and you will have green garlic for stir fry, soup, side veggie, and salads 
the 
whole year.


James   </HTML>