Giving thanks for gardeners – and don’t forget your own garden!

In oddball gardening news, most crime highlighted in the news is about money, drugs, violence and so on. Well, recently a theft of peat moss, half a bag of fertilizer and assorted gardening tools made the news – it’s a little amusing and a relaxed version of crime. Disclaimer: Not that I condone crime of any kind, but geez, at least stealing gardening stuff is a new twist, and at the very least a useful, less violent crime.

Using up all the leftover Thanksgiving veggies – some of which you hopefully grew.

Thanksgiving quotes for fun.

Plan ahead for next year by Growing 10 Plants for a Thanksgiving Cornucopia and plan on growing your own Thanksgiving veggies next year (pdf).

Lots and lots of ways to use up Thanksgiving leftovers.

Get some visual stimulation after all that food with some gorgeous fall garden shots…

• One Foggy Fall Morning at Portland Japanese Garden
• The Garden in Autumn – a beautiful set!
• Autumn Garden Acer Glory
• Japanese Maple in the Fall

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Blisstree

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Technically a big ol’ concrete leaf, one you can make yourself with a full and great tutorial! How cool is this project!?

Find out how to make re-purposed pots more antique and cool looking by growing moss on them.

A very nice DIY garden projects you can do for under $10 – adorable little natural plant markers.

Amazing Buddha shaped pears! I was amazed anyhow.

If you’re feeling uninspired lately, this beautiful collage of garden photos should perk you right up.

I’m loving these write and erase plant tags. Hip and reusable.

With winter almost here you may want to consider some winter greenhouse gardening.

And in keeping with the season growing your own Thanksgiving dishes – some nice fresh recipes from the garden for Thanksgiving.

[concrete leaf image via concrete garden leaves]

Post from: Blisstree

Great Garden Links Galore

That said, I’ve been seeing a mess of indoor water garden news lately and some of them look pretty fun, and since Blisstree Gardening aims to discuss all things gardening, I thought I’d offer some good links to indoor water gardening tips.

• Martha Stewart has the most glorious indoor water garden piece with tips on light for water plants and how to set up your plants along with plenty of lovely images of course – it almost made me want to start an indoor water garden.
• The University of Vermont Extension has less of a how-to and more of an important tips piece up. It’ll clue you in to some mistakes not to make, types of pots to choose, and more.
• Thrifty Fun has some easy to follow tips about how to get started when creating an indoor water garden and the piece offers an excellent list of suitable water garden plants.
• A big old guide on all things indoor water gardens.
• Find supplies for indoor gardening at Growco Indoor Garden Supply.

[image via stock.xchng]

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Indoor Water Gardening

1. Save your old seeds (check to see if they still work).
2. Compost for homemade soil – even if your yard is small you can compost. In fact, you can compost indoors if you want.
3. Don’t buy new – garden tools, gardening books, pots, and so on. Most gardening supplies can be easily found at thrift stores. You can also borrow from or share garden tools with friends. It’s also super easy to check out books about gardening from the library.
4. Try some easy DIY landscaping instead of paying someone to do it for you.
5. Always use reusable items and recyclables such as egg cartons for starting seeds or reuse the plastic seed pots you used last year (clean well to avoid disease). You can also make your own growing pots with recycled materials.
6. Be water aware. Build a rain barrel, water at night, only give plants the actual water they need, and so on. Using less water can save you big time.
7. Make homemade weed killer -Mix one ounce orange oil and 1 teaspoon liquid soap with 1 gallon of 10% white vinegar. Shake it up and use it to spot treat weeds.
8. Use the least evasive pest control methods first, which are often much cheaper than advanced pest control supplies.
9. Buy seeds locally from the farmers market or a local farm store. You can often buy just what you need vs. a whole packet. at the local farm store.
10. Swap seeds and plants with neighbors.
11. Plant a garden that will naturally thrive where you live. Plants made for your climate will thrive better with less care than exotic plants.
12. Use what you’ve got such as leaves and newspaper as mulch.

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Blisstree

12 ways to garden on the cheap

The Garden is the story of one 15 or so acre community garden plot in L.A. The garden was started in 1992 after the Rodney King riots and was going strong for 12 years. 347 families maintained plots there then one day… The L.A. City Council sold the property for $5 million. Of course the new owner posted an eviction notice but instead of leaving the community garden farmers and families decided to fight back.

Grist notes in their review that the movie lacks “Substance about the value that a garden can bring to a community” and there’s no “information about how the greater community felt about the garden.” Those seem like issues that should have been covered in a film like this, but even with those missing pieces the film still looks great. I’ll be looking into renting it. You can also buy the DVD.

Visit The Garden for more info or watch the preview below.

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The Garden: A Community Garden Documentary

Visitors in Martha Stewart's Culinary Herb Garden

What will you see?  For details consult the full schedule of events, but here’s a list to tempt you:

• cooking and entertainment demonstrations
• Martha Stewart’s herb garden (in photo)
• celebrity chefs
• gardening displays
• greenmarket on Wednesday and Saturday
• lectures and classes
• starting a vegetable garden
• composting
• learn how flowers become fruit
• practical gardening tips and suggestions
• and lots more!

The Edible Garden runs through September 13th, 2009.  General admission tickets are $20, and includes admission to all exhibitions and programs on the day of your visit.  Some special events require an additional ticket.  Save time by planning your visit and purchasing your tickets online.  The NY Botanical Garden is a plant museum located in the Bronx at Bronx River Parkway at Fordham Road.  It is open year-round, Tuesday – Sunday, 10 am-6 pm, and on Labor Day and Memorial Day.

Photo credit:  Courtesy of The Edible Garden at The New York Botanical Garden, Talisman Brolin/TALISMAN PHOTO, photographer.

Visitors in Martha Stewart’s Culinary Herb Garden

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Visit New York’s Edible Garden in the Bronx

Here’s a shot of my tomatoes…

I started my garden early and was all set to go the all-natural GroGood way, but nothing was really happening and my front patio smelled like cow poop. Yuck. Dear neighbors, I am so very sorry.

I broke down and bought the MiracleGro plant food. It always works for me. I have a limited space and there’s only so much you can coax from a container garden. Now we are popping again. It looks like a jungle out there. I’d get a good full-shot, but the boys are outside painting our stair railing and I don’t think they’d appreciate my intruding on their gossip time.

Today, I’m going to make another Caprese Salad with the tomatoes I picked last night. Yum. I’m hooked on that stuff.

Image credit: Michelle Smith

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Wordy Wednesday – My Tomatoes

In the meantime, check out The Oldest, Largest, Garden Party in America’s History that they are running over at BEEKMAN 1802.

They are helping theLandreth Seeds company to celebrate their 225th birthday.

Add your garden to the Interactive Garden Party Map and enter for your chance to win a 37-piece Ultimate Yard and Garden Tool Collection, a $1400 value.

The BEEKMAN 1802 June Garden Party contest asks you to give a pesticide-free way to rid your garden of pests. Leave a comment and you have a chance to win this set of kitchen tools from OXO.

Happy gardening to you!

Garden image credit: Michelle Smith

Contest image credits: BEEKMAN 1802

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Garden Party with BEEKMAN 1802

If you want to make a wormery with your kids, I’ll share my expert knowledge and save you time from scouring the Internet yourself. Worms like dirt. The ones near the top of the soil tend to feed off of organic material like dead grass and leaves. That organic material has tiny organisms living on them that provide worms with luscious snacks like algae, fungi and bacteria. The worms that burrow deeper in the ground live primarily off of raw dirt, feeding off the fungi and algae there. Worm poop, more affectionately known as worm casts, add wonderful nutrients to the soil which makes plants happy.

If you make wormery – a little spot to keep worm pets – be sure to add plenty of dirt and dead leaves and grass to your container. You’ll also want to add water. Worms can’t live without plenty of moisture. If their skin dries out, they’ll die … and then you’ll have to enter into that whole died-and-gone-to-heaven bit.

If you want to go all out you can make a compost pile where you can add all your dead plants and fallen leaves and vegetable trimmings from dinner. Then add a batch of worms and let them eat and make their worm casts and use the rich compost left behind to fertilize indoor and outdoor plants. We probably won’t tackle that goal just yet, but for those who want to, visit the University of Missouri Extension Service’s site for tips on how to construct one.

Photos, JWJourney

Post from: Blisstree

The Many Benefits of Making a Wormery

What can you make or create?

Image: sxc.hu

• Wall hanging quilts with gardening themes.
• Cookbooks with recipes for the produce from the garden.  Perhaps you’ll add your own artwork.  (This also can be made in e-book format.)
• Gardening aprons or kitchen aprons with fruit and vegetable designs.
• Gardening smocks and t-shirts.  Screen print designs on them.
• Gardening journal for recording planting, harvesting, and gardening fun ideas.  You can add your sketches or encourage the journalist to do this.
• Quilt with photos from a family’s gardening activities…this year or previous ones.  It can be a gardening memory quilt.

What crafts are you involved in that relate to gardening, either fruit, vegetables, herbs or berries>

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Gardening Themes Popular in Crafts