Today I had set aside for spading. Now there is nothing pleasanter than spading when the ground is soft and damp. You turn a spade full and then carefully knock all the lumps to pieces and you go on for hours without thinking about anything. – John Steinbeck, letter to Kate Beswick

God loved the flowers and invented soil. Man loved the flowers and invented vases. – Variation of a saying by Jacques Deval (God loved the birds and invented trees.

From an aunt, long ago: “Death has come for me many times but finds me always in my lovely garden and leaves me there, I think, as an excuse to return.” – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. – Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac