A CLEAR MUD

My dad used to have a saying that he used when he found a great product that could do exactly what he needed to have done. He called it "a clear mud." While I have heard the expression "clear as mud" meaning murky, unclear, hard to understand, I have never heard anyone else use the "clear mud" phrase. However, just taking it in the context that Dad used it, I would say that it means an unlikely answer to a perplexing or ongoing issue, in the tradition of duct tape, nylon zippers, panty hose and sticky notes. For example, in a family with eight growing children, our parents were constantly challenged to keep us all in shoes. Dad discovered that he could cut perfectly sized half- or whole soles from old tires, to cover the holes we often developed in our shoes. He would glue the "soles" onto the damaged shoes using contact cement. In this case, both the thick black rubber of the tires and the contact cement in the brown glass bottle with a brush-on applicator would qualify as "clear muds." Yet another "clear mud" might have been the egg carton that he frequently used to sort his seeds, or the umbrellas he would secure to our garden stakes to limit the dahlias' sun exposure. Always resourceful, Dad was always inventing or creating things, such as the "Eskimo Yo-Yos" that he would construct, using clothesline, rubber balls and old bicycle grips, or the stilts that he made by securing short pieces of pine blocks onto dahlia stakes. Dahlia growers are always finding clever ways to get the best out of the flowers we grow, and one aspect that can be challenging is tying up the plants as they grow. NCWDS member Mike Cattin has discovered a wonderful "clear mud" that works just great for this purpose - velcro garden tape. We all know what a "clear mud" velcro has been in other parts of our lives, and whoever decided to apply this technological advance to a half-inch wide piece of tape is surely some kind of genius in my mind! Tying up often takes a lot of time, and frequently the string, twine, rope, green plastic tape or twist-ties we commonly use don't hold up well as the season progresses. However, the green velcro tape, with a soft side (toward the plant) and a mini-hooked side, has been shown to cut down the amount of time and energy often required to tie up our growing babies. It doesn't stretch out of shape or rot like some cotton products, AND it can be reused season after season, albeit a bit faded, but still just as tacky as the day it was cut. I went out yesterday and did several beds in record time, and I plan to finish up my other rows today. I highly recommend picking up several rolls of this at your local hardware (Yay! Yet another excuse to visit your local ACE or TRU Value)store. I think you will agree that it is indeed, a "clear mud!"