Gardening Tips from Miles Davis

McSweeney's publishes Miles Davis's Container Gardening Tips by Ryan Abbott:

In my experience, annuals tend to appreciate the complexity of classical piano concertos, like those by Ravel or Rachmaninoff. I play records by those two over and over again, my speakers aimed out to the backyard, blaring through a hole in the screen door torn by a high John Coltrane one morning when he thought he was a rabid polar bear, which he was not.

My vegetables—tomatoes and pole beans and eggplants—like to be sung to. I think it helps the fruit ripen—sweetly sung melodies that rise and fall like crooked branches, scales that float on the warm humidity of the July sky. Like my sister Dorothy says, "Soak their roots in song and they will grow, my brother. They will grow."

Also: "3. Don't throw your plants down the stairs." Solid advice. Words to live by.