Recent Comments
- Dianna on Fruity Vinegars For Savory Salads
- barbra boiser on Fruity Vinegars For Savory Salads
- Ann Lovejoy on Fruity Vinegars For Savory Salads
- Eben M Atwater on Fruity Vinegars For Savory Salads
- Ann Lovejoy on Magic Mint & Guerilla Gardening
-
Recent Posts
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Categories
- Annual Color
- Birds In The Garden
- Butterfly Gardens
- Care & Feeding
- Climate Change
- composting
- Cooking Schools
- Cooking With Kids
- Crafting With Children
- Drainage
- Early Crops
- Easy Care Perennials
- Edible Flowers
- fall/winter crops
- Garden Books
- Garden Design
- Garden Prep
- Gardening With Children
- Genetic Engneering
- Grafted Plants
- Growing Berry Crops
- Hardy Herbs
- Health & Wellbeing
- Hoarding
- Houseplants
- Moss
- mushroom hunting
- Native Plants
- Natural Dyes
- Nutrition
- pests and pesticides
- Pets & Pests In The Garden
- Plant Diversity
- Plant Partnerships
- Planting & Transplanting
- Pollination Gardens
- Pollinators
- preserving food
- Proper Pruning for Raspberries
- Pruning
- Recipes
- Recycling Nursery Plastics
- Safer Pruning
- Seedling Swaps
- Social Justice
- Soil
- Sustainable Gardening
- Sustainable Living
- Teaching Gardening
- Tomatoes
- Uncategorized
- Vegan Recipes
- Weed Control
- Winterizing
Archives
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
Meta
Garden Blogs
Monthly Archives: February 2020
Food Or Fodder
Yes, deer fencing that is both effective and long lasting is not cheap, but if we plan to grow and harvest much of our daily food, fence we must. It’s worth taking some time to investigate effective fencing materials and techniques, from double-fencing to peanut butter wire. Double fencing can trick (some) deer into thinking a site is inaccessible by creating a baffling space between two relatively low fences. Usually, this involves two five-foot fences five feet apart, a model both farmers and gardeners report (at least some) success with. A peanut butter fence partners electrified wires with bait, and according to the ICWDM,
“The peanut butter fence is effective for small gardens, nurseries, and orchards (up to 3 to 4 acres) subject to moderate deer pressure. Deer are attracted by the peanut butter and encouraged to make nose-to-fence contact. After being shocked, deer learn to avoid fenced areas.” Continue reading
Love And Lettuce
Another national epidemic concerns food safety, perhaps most notably with Romaine lettuce, which has been fingered in several recent E. coli outbreaks. Though the government investigation is still ongoing, there are multiple possible causes for E. coli contamination, from water passing through areas where livestock is grazing to field contamination from wild animals and birds (not to mention humans; many growers haven’t supplied field toilet facilities, but that’s changing). This fits right into my own ecological grief; when even organic produce may not be safe, what can we trust? Happily, there’s a simple solution: Grow your own. One great thing about greens is that they can be grown in very little space, and many will flourish in containers on a balcony or deck where garden space is limited. Continue reading
Designing A Dream Garden
Dream assignment time! I’ve recently been asked to design an herb garden to surround a small craft cafe, a place where visitors can drink herbal teas, taste herb salts, herb butters, and herbed breads. The menu will change often but will always offer fresh herb omelets as well as daily soups and salads. In the crafting classes, people can make lavender wands and herbal sachets, bath salts, hand lotions, shampoos and body wash. What’s not to love? I’m already angling for a day job when it opens, assuming it ever does; this delicious idea is the dream child of a very busy woman. That’s so healthy! There have been several studies showing that accumulating the materials for crafting can be every bit as satisfying as actually making the whatever. If the cafe part of this dream project turns out to be just a hope for the future, the owner will still have a marvelous garden, filled with beautiful, fragrant and edible plants. Oh, and a beautiful gazebo, of course. Right?
Continue reading
Queer Plants, Odd People
Clearly, the oddity factor is enormously appealing for collectors of all kinds, from plants to model trains to stamps to tea pots. For many gardeners, collector-itis starts with the gotta-have-them-all phase in which we seek out every mainstream-available type of whatever it is we are fixed upon. However, if we truly get hooked, we then start seeking out the oddities; rare and unusual forms, colors, textures, sizes. It’s only recently occurred to me that the gardening community’s delight in diversity isn’t mirrored in many other places these days. It seems that, just as we gardeners love and determinedly collect weird plants, we also, generally speaking, are able to appreciate non-normative people more than the culture as a whole. Could this acceptance be in part based on the fact that many of us are at least a bit non-normative ourselves? Asking for a friend… Continue reading