Guest post by Jane Eaton Hamilton “Black gold? Not in our composters. More like brown zirconium.” Organize our compost? Itemize all the stuff there is to do in the garden: cleaning up, digging, planting, fertilizing. Rearranging the beds. Dividing. Putting up seeds. Spraying for damping off. Spraying for black spot. Fence fixing. Lawn mowing. And …
Guest post by Jane Eaton Hamilton “It never crossed my mind that the experts were giving bad advice.” All the books said buy three or five or better yet seven of every perennial so the plants wouldn’t look like green toothpicks stuck in a frosting of dirt. Well, I couldn’t afford five or seven of …
Guest post by Beate Schwirtlich Autumn Plantings Bulbs: plant for spring blooms or pot for forcing indoors Spinach: overwinter for early spring greens Beets: overwinter for early spring greens Swiss Chard: overwinter for early spring greens Arugula: overwinter for early spring greens Kale: overwinter for early spring greens Carrots: overwinter in the ground for late …
Guest post by Jane Eaton Hamilton ” I used to try to be perfect. “ The perfect gardener, me? Hah. I wouldn’t even try. I garden on the adequate system. There’s no point in going for anything else, not if, like me, you still always come up short. Short on resources, short on energy, short …
The reality of any kind of gardening is that at some point you WILL encounter pests. While there are hundreds of products lining the shelves of your local garden centre designed to erradicate bugs from the garden, you probably have ingredients in your own kitchen that will do an effective job without contaminating the foodchain …
Guest post by Beate Schwirtlich A round this time each year huge pumpkins, some as big as a thousand pounds, are loaded–using either a forklift or a bunch of strong people and a tarp–into vans and trucks and taken to contests. Growers have spent months tending to these pumpkins that by now have become lumpy, …
Guest post by Beate Schwirtlich Method Hitting the road with a cup of coffee in a travel mug, my search for wild roadside apple trees begins. I find what I am looking for, a row of gnarled, unpruned wild apple trees growing side by side on a gravel road. I can see right away that …
Canadian Gardening – Site of the Month September 2003. “Sassy, unconventional and totally passionate about plants, You Grow Girl is refreshingly, um, fresh. The work of Toronto-based Gayla Trail and a host of volunteer contributors from around the world, You Grow Girl re-defines gardening for a new generation of gardeners. Under a cheeky veneer of …
Guest post by Erin Fisher What is Binomial Nomenclature? Binomial nomenclature is also referred to as the latin or scientific name. Latin was at one time the universal (read: European) language of science. All scientific treatises were written in Latin. If you know your latin roots, looking at scientific names can be fun and can …
Ethnobotany is the science of tracing the history of humanity by studying the various uses different cultures have had for plants. There are some plants that from an ethnobotanic standpoint can only be described as super. Like superheroes, they kick ass for humanity, not because they want to, but because they just happen to have …
Or “How I Learned to Relax and Start Enjoying My Garden” This year, so far, has marked my ‘best gardening year’ ever. The amount of energy that has been placed on all things plant related has increased exponentially with every year–with this year being the biggest increase yet. It’s not just energy and effort. While …
Guest post by Eleanor Athens There are so many herbs that make fantastic skin care ingredients. The three in this project – borage, chamomile and calendula – are all annuals. Start your pot in the spring after the last frost using the two-inch herbs available at most nurseries. Your pot will need good drainage, rich …