//
Selected by blueridgegardener
-
Blue Ridge Gardener
-
What’s happening at A Few Square Feet?
26 Jan 2010 | 7:26 am -
2010 Plans
25 Jan 2010 | 7:58 pmBlue Ridge Gardener went through two seasons of gardening with me. I am still gardening, but this website will not be following the next year. If you would like to follow the next phase of gardening, you need to go to: afewsquarefeet.com. You will find a record of my exploits with my Square Foot Garden. -
Indian Summer begins today
11 Nov 2009 | 6:10 amToday is Veteran’s Day in the USA, it is also the feast day of St. Martin of Tours on the Christian calendar. Today is also the beginning of “Indian Summer” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. St. Martin’s Day, November 11, is considered the beginning of Indian summer, a period of warm weather following a cold spell [...]
-
Home Gardening News
-
January freeze damaged 4 percent of Florida oranges
9 Feb 2010 | 11:13 amBilly and Victoria meet in New York; Daniel and Amber argue about their future. Bold and the Beautiful 1:30PM - 2:00PM Sandy decides to tell everyone about her past; Bridget spitefully reveals Sandy's true identity and insists that she now be referred to as Agnes; Whip gives Taylor the reassurance that she's been longing to hear. -
Book gets kids interested in gardening
9 Feb 2010 | 6:46 amChanneling his inner "kinder," Michael Glassman found a way to get kids into gardening. -
Traditional favourites to grow from seed Gardening News & Views
9 Feb 2010 | 2:25 amTHE very name 'cottage garden' conjures up a picture postcard image of roses growing around the doorway of a pretty rural cottage with traditio nal favourites such as digitalis, hollyhocks and delphiniums, growing in the surrounding beds. -
Gardena gardening class to focus on native vegetation
8 Feb 2010 | 10:02 pmThe next gardening class in the "Out of the Wilds and Into Your Garden" series will be about planting native vegetation. -
20 Valentine's Day Dates For Under $20
8 Feb 2010 | 5:33 pmShowing your love doesn't have to be expensive. Here are some Valentine's Day ideas that won't break the bank.
-
Sustainable Gardening Blog
-
Sustainable and Urban Gardening News, February 2010
8 Feb 2010 | 5:32 amBlog edition. The whole newsletter is right here. Sustainable Gardening on the Web Outstanding original reporting on school food by Slow Cook Ed Bruske in his Tales from a DC Kitchen. That led to this interview on the Kojo Show. Urban gardeners – all gardeners – need to know about compost, right? And Dr. Frank Gouin is The Man on the subject. Here's what he recently said about it. After Atlantic Magazine published an anti-school-garden screed, urban gardeners lined up to condemn it. Here's Ed Bruske's response, and one from Michele Owens on… -
Magnolia and Holly – Innocent Victims of Freak Snowstorm
7 Feb 2010 | 10:00 amI trust these photos of before and after the Mid-Atlantic's "Snowmagedden" will tug at the hearts of gardeners in all climates and maybe provide a teachable moment for homeowners in wintery places. In the "before" shot you see the now-ruined 'Little Gem' magnolia on the left and one of the now-ruined Foster hollies on the right. (In between are some acuba, damage unknown but they'll bounce back from anything.) They're all technically my neighbors' but visually they're very much in my garden. And another heavy snowfall… -
A front-yard veg-ornamental garden that neighbors actually like
4 Feb 2010 | 8:13 amSimone Fary lives just 3 blocks from the newly-bustling downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, with its shops, night life and subway station to greater DC. So, a great location. Plus plenty of sun, y'all! But like every other front yard in the neighborhood, hers was devoted to the care and feeding of turfgrass and some foundation shrubs. That bit of conformity ended when Simone got the urge to grow some food, dammit, but to grow it in a gorgeous, gardeny way. No need to go whole-farm and get the neighbors all nervous about property values. No need to… -
Something I wouldn’t buy today? This teak bench
28 Jan 2010 | 6:57 pmNext up in our on-going exploration of garden furniture – what's long-lasting and affordable – I have to show you my teak bench. Sure it's more expensive - I paid $320 for it about 20 years ago, fully assembled and retail – but then I did absolutely nothing to it and it still looks perfect to this day! Up close you'd see that it's smooth, with no splinters – truly amazing. It’ll certainly outlast me. Ah, but is teak sustainably harvested? Planet Green sums it up nicely for us – " Two out of the three… -
The most gorgeous mixed-species “lawn” I’ve ever seen
25 Jan 2010 | 5:12 pmGarden writer Julie Shapiro, whose 1/4-acre garden is in Hull, MA along the Boston Harbor, sent me these photos of her "eco-lawn", and the story behind it. That interesting tale includes far more than lawn, though. Her 1885 house has a colorful history that includes lobster boats being stored alongside it, so Julie's first job on the site was to get rid of some asphalt and lots of soil filled with metal lobster trap shards, glass and other sharp dangerous things. But because her land is in a A1 flood plain – meaning an area of special flood hazard – "care…
-
Natural Gardening
-
Mistletoe berries
8 Feb 2010 | 6:57 pmWe're getting close to Valentine's Day, so a mistletoe post is timely. Kissing under the mistletoe has a long tradition more at Christmas than at Valentine's Day, though.Mistletoe is a flowering plant which is parasitic for water and minerals, while its green leaves photosynthesize. The seeds get around by bird dispersal; seeds either adhere to bird's feet after preening, or pass through the gut during digestion. -
Finally some sun
7 Feb 2010 | 4:43 pmHappily, it was sunny and dry today. Yesterday, too. Cloudy with intermittent sun was a lot better than the rain that was predicted for yesterday, and today was just plain nice late winter weather (for the Southeastern US), with a high around 50°F.I saw a downy woodpecker foraging for breakfast on my morning walk.It was definitely nice enough to find me tidying the garden shed, poking around the beds, and doing some weeding.Amazingly, the squirrels had left just enough radicchio to harvest and try roasting with garlic, olive oil, and herbs. Yum. It was totally different than the bitter… -
Rain, rain, and more rain
5 Feb 2010 | 5:06 pmAfter a decade of drought, I guess I really should be grateful for the abundance of moisture that's recharged aquifers, and led to an official 'end of drought' pronouncement. But it's been so wet, cold, icy, and dark (at least for wimpy Southern gardeners like me), I'm looking for all the signs of spring that I can find.I can't get out and DO anything in my beds; they're way too wet and it's been icy or pouring for every weekend for weeks. We haven't been able to go up to build new beds in the mountains, either, because of snow and ice. OK, I'll get a grip on reality; much of the temperate… -
Early flowers
4 Feb 2010 | 6:20 pmLeaving from home late this afternoon, I noticed that the old pink quince next to the driveway (moved from our house in Georgia and one of the first shrubs we planted as young homeowners) has open flowers. Definitely spring is on the way, in spite of the sleet and snowflakes on the road.I always notice its buds in (what passes for) the dead of winter here, and has been particularly so this year.The shoots on the coral honeysuckles (Lonicera sempervirens) are elongating quickly, the bare vines supporting young green leaves.Daffodil shoots are well up, and the first flowers of weedy winter… -
Looking forward to fresh vegetables
2 Feb 2010 | 5:53 pmIf I'd put up simple hoop houses last fall, maybe I'd have more to harvest after all the exceptionally cold weather. Or maybe not. My flats of greens (in the open) look fine, and have sailed through quite a bit of pummeling, but they don't look robust or large enough to harvest, as of yet.Vegetables in a Vietnamese marketEven in the sheltered kitchen garden (near my office, at the botanical garden where I work), to be honest, the cold and damp (sometimes icy) weather doesn't much encourage me to go out and cut bunches of kale, argula, cilantro, or poke around for turnips, even though they…
-
The Growing Edge
-
Potty Planters—Garden Art Or Public Nuisance?
9 Feb 2010 | 10:51 amLakemoor resident Tina Asmus last year was cited by the village for having planters made from old toilets in her yard. Photo credit: Paul Valade/Dailyherald.com In a suburb of Chicago, a woman is fighting to uphold what she sees as her freedom of expression, garden art as in two toilets and a bathroom sink with plants in them, as Charles Keeshan writes on the dailyherald.com, A McHenry County judge Wednesday refused to throw out a nuisance charge against a Lakemoor woman using two old toilets and a bathroom sink as front yard planters, rejecting arguments the village was applying its rules… -
Mormon Vegetable Program Helps Bolivians
9 Feb 2010 | 12:26 amWilliam and Elias Guerrero play soccer near their family's underground greenhouse in the Bolivian Altiplano. Photo credit: Jason Swensen/Deseret News Jason Swensen writes on Deseretnews.com, William Guerrero is building a reputation as a first-rate soccer player here in this remote region of the Bolivia Altiplano some 14,000 feet above sea level. This is an impoverished area. William will likely never play on an organized team. He may never own a pair of cleats. But the 12-year-old boy can dribble his well-worn ball along the hardened paths of soil outside his home like a veteran. Young… -
Denver Homeowners Must Pay $90 To Continue Curbside Composting Program This Year
8 Feb 2010 | 11:14 pmChristopher N. Osher writes in The Denver Post, A popular composting program that picks up organic waste from about 3,300 Denver homes that support environmentally friendly recycling will continue but at a cost of $88 per home this year. The city’s recycling officials launched the composting program in 2008, thanks to a state grant of $215,000 that included a composting project at Denver International Airport. Another $185,000 grant from the state that continued the residential composting program in 2009 is set to expire this year. Click HERE to read the rest of the story. -
Just Say No… To Drinking Water?
8 Feb 2010 | 11:10 pmRainfall runoff from landills — known as leachate — eventually ends up in aquifers and rivers and brings a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs with it. Photo credit: D'Arcy Norman Flickr photostream. It is ironic, that the government and an ever decreasing amount of its supporters, get all ballistic over recreational drugs that people decide and choose to consume but shrug their shoulders over pharmaceutical drugs in everyone’s drinking water. It is just no big deal to them. Clarke Canfield writes in this Associated Press story, The federal government advises throwing most unused… -
Bad Winter For Northeast Greenhouses
8 Feb 2010 | 4:16 pmSnow is so deep that vehicles can't even reach the greenhouses. Photo credit: The Pittsburgh Channel (WTAE) Heavy snows this winter in the northeastern U.S. has damaged greenhouses in several states. Four greenhouses at Soergel Orchards and Garden Center in Franklin Park, Pa., collapsed under the weight of record snow in early February. The snow is so deep that vehicles cannot even reach the destroyed greenhouses. Click for more info on the damage. Click for a pictorial slide show of the damage to the greenhouses. Lynchburg Grows, a non-profit corporation which operates 9 greenhouses in…
