What if we grew food instead of turf?

I found this image on Facebook and shared it on both the Lawn Reform Coalition and Sustainable Gardening pages. While lots of people "liked" it, even more shared it on their own pages. I found even more shares on other pages--it's gone viral. So this simple idea seems to have captured people's...

Read More

NWF Backyard Wildlife Habitat

Why not display your sign?I've had my sign for quite awhile, but it graces an edge of my (inside) study in the Piedmont. I saw this sign, prominently displayed on a mailbox) on a garden tour today (this garden wasn't on the tour).  But, it had me thinking about it.The National Wildlife Federation's...

Read More

Pollinator WeeK: June 18 --24

A tiger swallowtail on goldenrod in a natural meadow.The US Senate unanimously approved the motion to designate the last week in June as pollinator week. Who says the Senate can't agree on anything? In the past five years the pollinator week celebration has become an international event. This year it's...

Read More

A fledgling robin

A couple of robins near the feeders caught my attention late this afternoon.  They were hopping around in an unusual fashion.It turned out that they were mom and older fledgling.  She would do a bit of foraging and then return to her offspring, who was complete with the lovely spotted breast...

Read More

Productive raised beds

mid-June, 2012, WNCMy raised beds in the mountains have been amazing.  Filled with commercial compost, topped up with bags of mushroom compost, and enriched with Espoma organic slow-release fertilizer, they've continued to produce. This spring, it was greens, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and lettuce....

Read More

Business Advice that's Bad for the Birds

Washington Post business article is off base.In yesterday's Washington Post business section, "Value Added: Mosquito-control business scratches this entrepreneur’s itch" describes a $300,000 business which is a franchise of the mosquito squad and the owner is a full time firefighter. This article is...

Read More

Moving Away from Transplanted Gardener

Back in 2004 when my husband and I moved to northeast Florida, the gardening here was weird for me. Even though I have a masters degreee in Botany and have gardened all my life, almost everything I knew about gardening did not apply. So I started a gardener's log of what I learned and shared it on a...

Read More