Soil isn’t just made up of dirt.  It’s a blend of organic and inorganic materials and living organisms that provide your garden with the nutrients it needs.  Most plants can’t just use the components in fertilizers straight from the ground.  For the bulk of trees, flowers and vegetables, microbes and other friendly helpers in the dirt are needed to convert the vitamins, minerals and even water into a usable form.  Without those little critters, plants do poorly.

So what does this mean for your garden?  Have you ever tilled the garden until you got the dirt to be nice and loose?  Then you dumped in some fertilizer and planted, only you didn’t get the amazing results you’d hoped for?  What you don’t realize is, that by tilling heavily, you may have actually disturbed/destroyed what good bacteria, microbes, and other living organisms and soil structure those plants actually needed to thrive.

One way to help put the "life" back into your garden is to use compost.  It can add back the vital "fauna" your plants need to really do well. And to help your compost really pack a punch, "seed" it with soil from an area in your garden where plants are doing the best – that "dirt" most likely has the bacteria, protozoa and fungi that are right and they’ll help your new compost have the same needed balance.  (If your whole garden looks hopeless, "borrow" a little "starter dirt" for your compost from a friend whose garden is doing well.)

By using soil that has all the right stuff, you should experience a wonderful improvement in your plants’ health, size and color.  Try it and see.

 For more information on organic gardening / using compost to improve how your garden grows, check out Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowefels: 

If you live in a place where it doesn’t freeze at night, a regular garden patch will do just fine.  However, if you live in a colder climate, then you may want to consider using raised beds and covers to keep your plants warm enough.  However, you don’t want them getting too warm – many cool weather veggies will "bolt" (flower/go to seed) if they get too much sun or heat (hence "cool weather vegetables.")  A good idea to insure plenty of plants is to "overseed" – use a few more than you think you will need in case the cool weather prevents germination of all.

If you only have a small space available, you may want to try one of the indoor "hydroponic" planters – that way you can grow a little of everything rather than a lot of any one thing: 

Technorati Tags: broccoli, cool weather garden, lettuce, peas, vegetables, winter

Kabocha squash has up to 12 grams of fiber in each, half of the soluble and half of the insoluble type.  This can help to stabilize your blood sugar swings by almost 30%.  This little guy is also a great source of tryptophan, a protein your body uses to make serotonin from, which is one of the key hormones for making us "feel good."  Kabocha squash is good mashed or puréed and added to soups and stews or baked like butternut squash.

Speaking of butternut squashes, they are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown in some studies to help your body burn its stored fat, converting it to energy better.  So, for some people, they can help give you a "wake-up" boost when you need it, and help you lose the right kind of weight (fat, rather than muscle) at the same time.  Also high in fiber, they help you feel full longer, helping you to eat less.

Another squash powerhouse, pumpkin is really high in alpha-carotene (hence its deep orange color).  Alpha-carotene is used by your body to create retinol, a Vitamin A derivative that your skin cells use to stay renewed.  It’s also a key compound for creating collagen, which is a key to maintaining the firmness of your skin.  Based on research, eating pumpkin regularly helped some women reduce lines on their faces and have smoother, firmer skin in as little as 2 weeks.

So, next time you’re at the store, why not pick up a winter squash or two and see what they can do for you?

Technorati Tags: energy, fat burning, fighting wrinkles, nutrition, squash, vegetables, winter squash

The little buggers are notorious for being hard to kill.  One reason is that they don’t just live on cats and dogs.  Their eggs can also be found in your yard and in fields, just waiting to be dragged into the house on your shoes or pant legs and into your carpets, waiting for warm weather (and a warm body to go by) to hatch and start feeding. (And don’t forget your car – you may have picked up some from the house or yard and gotten some in there, only to bring them back into the house after they’ve hatched to start the whole thing over again!)

So, if you’re really serious about ridding yourself of fleas, you have to treat all the sources:  your house, your car, your yard and your pets.  You also have to stop the cycle, which means that not only do you need to get rid of the fleas you can see, but also the next generation, the eggs. Many treatments will kill the adults, but the eggs are usually a bit hardier and will make it through to spawn another cycle.

Unfortunately, most of the treatments involve some type of poison.  One such treatment is called a fogger, which does just that: it sends out the pesticide in a "fog" throughout the air, coating anything and everything it comes into contact with an insecticide.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t like using anything that strong around me or my pets. And foggers can’t be used around fish tanks – they get into the water and can kill your fish.  (Not only that, but you need to wash all your dishes and surfaces afterwards to get rid of residue – more work than I want to do.)  And foggers require that you and your family leave the premises as they’re just as deadly to humans when fired off; again, not my idea of a fun time.

Insecticide sprays have more control over where they go, but are still just as poisonous in most cases.  So what can you do?

I like to use borax.  Yep, plain old simple borax, sprinkled throughout the carpets and yard.  It’s non-toxic when used correctly, can be used inside and outside and kills both the adult fleas and eggs.  Fleas, like most insects, breathe through holes on their underside called spiracles.  Borax clogs ups their breathing holes as they wander around the carpets, causing the adults to suffocate.  Borax is also a dessicant.  That means it pulls moisture out of whatever it comes in contact with. Flea eggs need a certain amount of moisture to survive.  Dry them out, and the egg dies.

To use borax, sprinkle about 1-2 cups per room into the carpets of your house and car(s) and use a broom to work it down into the fibers where the little critters live. (If you have expensive carpeting, you may want to do a spot test first – sprinkle a little into a small area and wait a couple days to make sure you get no color changes before doing the whole thing.) Borax isn’t a wonder drug.  It does need to be left on the carpets for usually at least 2-3 days, but a week is even better. Then you just vaccuum it (and the dead fleas) up. Note: vibrations can cause flea eggs to hatch (that’s how they know it’s time to come out – something yummy like a dog or human just walked by and it’s time to bite). You may need to treat a 2nd time to catch any missed with the first treatment that suddenly appear after vacuuming.  

To treat your yard, make sure it won’t be raining for a few days and that you’ve turned off any automatic watering systems.  Then sprinkle borax throughout the grassy areas and especially around the base of the house and walkways. (Not only will it kill fleas, but it also is great if you have ant problems!  Usually they won’t cross through borax dust and if they do, they die also.) 

And if you have pets, especially ones that go outdoors, you’ll need to also make sure any fleas and eggs they have are dealt with so you don’t end up with a reinfestation. For that, I like Frontline.  It’s a flea, lice and tick treatment that you only have to apply once a month and it’s "waterproof."  After treating your pet, it works its way into their fatty tissues, and so can’t be washed off by rain or bathing.  Then, if any fleas do bite your pet, they die.  Usually, all the adult, egg-laying fleas will die within the first day, and hopefully the borax in your carpet will catch any eggs waiting around.

By the way, you don’t have to wait for warm weather to try these tips.  If you treat now during colder weather, you’ll have a lot less trouble since you’ll be killing off the dormant eggs before they get a chance to hatch and drive you insane for another year.

Technorati Tags: Fleas, Insects, Pets & Gardening

While surfing Amazon.com , I came across this nifty little gadget that looks like it was created with just me in mind: THE EASYBLOOM. Check it out:

How It Works

1. Set It
Plug the EasyBloom Plant Sensor into a USB port–you will be brought to your My EasyBloom Dashboard page. Put the sensor into Recommend or Monitor mode.

2. Place Sensor
Place the sensor in a spot where you would like to grow a plant, or adjacent to the plant that needs monitoring. Let the EasyBloom Plant Sensor gather a ‘plant’s eye’ view of that location.

 

 

3. Plug It In
After 24 hours, plug the sensor into your USB port. Sensor data is uploaded to the EasyBloom website where algorithms are run that will either recommend a plant or diagnose what is wrong with an ailing plant.

4. Get Results
When in Recommend mode, the EasyBloom website will present a set of plants that will thrive in that location. In Monitor mode, you will be told what is going wrong with a plant with visual cues on how to fix it.

5. Enjoy
Sit back and enjoy flourishing plants.

The ultimate "why didn’t someone think of that sooner" invention, EasyBloom is like having your own personal team of botanists on-call around the clock. The result? You spend a lot less time working in your garden, and a lot more time enjoying it. EasyBloom is a perfect gift for novices to experienced gardeners. The Plant Sensor is completely reusable and works with your PC or Mac.

If you think that’s just the neatest thing around for you or a friend (or black-thumbed loved one), you can get yours here:

Technorati Tags: easy bloom, easybloom, gardening tips, Gardening Tools, plant sensor

When we moved into our house, it was the dead of winter, with snow on the ground, and not a tree in sight had leaves, so we had no idea what kind of fruiting or flowering we could look forward to come spring.

Imagine our surprise the first summer to see that we had a sweet cherry tree! (My absolute favorite fruit!  Give me a bing cherry or 300, and I’m a happy – and bloated – puppy. I also adore blueberries, raspberries, Thompson green grapes and raw English snap peas, but if I could only have one, it would be the cherries hands-down.)

And given the prices of cherries these days, up to $8 or $9 a lb., having my very own tree is heaven!

Of course, that first year the tree didn’t produce much as we hadn’t really done anything to help it out.  Not to mention, I think the birds stripped it bare by the time we realized what we had and just when the fruit would finally get ripe. But after finding out what a treasure was hiding in plain sight, we started to treat it better.

One thing I found that gives the fruit a boost is using super blooming slow-release flower food around the drip-line of the tree once every 2-3 months, as soon as any snow is gone.  (I figured since the fruit comes from the flowers, the better it bloomed, the happier I’d be when fruiting time came around, and was I happy!!!)

It didn’t hurt this year that we also had a prolonged really cold winter.  Seems the little buggers enjoy a "break" and need cold weather to decide that they’d better really fruit it up when the weather warms up.

So, voilà, we’s gots cherries, cherries and more cherries, don’t you know, all on one little 15 foot tall "dwarf"…  (It’s definitely going to need pruning after the fruiting is over to keep its "dwarf" status and before the overly long branches break in the fall winds.  We’ll just have to be extra careful not to trim to far into the fruiting part of the branches – wouldn’t want to ruin next year’s crop, eh?)

Off to go make myself sick on the little dears before the birds have their way with them.  (What’s really depressing is the next door neighbor has a 30′ tall cherry tree that practically touches ours, but they’re all super sour – thousands of them covering their tree and not even the birds want them…  In fact, they spit them out all over our yard… <sigh>)

Technorati Tags: bing cherries, Cherries, fruit, july, june, Summer, sweet cherry

Well, it’s one where you try to make everything involved as "green" as possible.  (And I don’t mean the color, unless of course it’s your favorite to begin with.) An eco-wedding is one that does everything in as environmentally friendly a way as possible.  That can include everything from the flowers to the invitations to the ring to the dress and more.

Say you decide an eco-wedding is for you.  Where do you start and how do you keep it from costing a fortune? Well, here are just a few ideas of things you can try:

Location
Nowadays, garden weddings are becoming more and more popular.  This doesn’t mean that it has to be YOUR garden, though. Try to have your wedding in a garden or outdoor location that’s centrally located to all who attend.  That way they can save on travel time and fuel, saving your friends and family money and putting less stress on the environment.  And if the locale already has an existing recyling/compost center nearby, that’s a bigger plus for when it’s time to tear down…

The Dress
Today, more and more clothes are available in eco-friendly materials. (Did you know they can make a baby-soft cloth from bamboo or hemp nowadays?) Try to find a dress made from renewable materials. Also, a great idea is to choose a dress that can be retailored into something you can use for another occasion rather just buy a 1-time use item.  Some companies offer to turn your dress into your first child’s dressing or baptismal gown.

The Rings
More and more places offer ‘recycle’ or fair-trade jewelry.  Instead of having rings custom-made or buying new ones, why not consider one of these?  You can have them adjusted or reworked to make them more personal. 

The Flowers
Whether you’re having a garden wedding or other type, consider using locally grown flowers. They’ll be fresher and won’t have to travel as far, saving fuel. And if you can find organically grown ones, so much the better!

The Food
Try to find a local caterer who uses mostly organic, locally grown foods.  Again, this will save fuel and also make sure you offer the freshest fare available.

The Invitations
Nowadays, you have quite a few options to get people to attend the big day.  The totally eco way would be to put up a website with the invite for all involved to see. (And to be even more Earth-friendly, you’d use a website that is powered by wind and sun only, but that may not be as easy as it sounds…yet.)  However, if you feel you have to send out something tangible to each guest, why not use one of the many companies offering invitations printed on recycled paper, the more post-consumer content, the better?

 Want more ideas?  Check out the following books for creating your own eco-wedding or for just living ecologically soundly, all without breaking the budget, while still having some style:

Technorati Tags: eco-wedding, environment, Garden Wedding, recycling

I don’t know about you, but I love Japanese gardens, both the rock garden style and the more lush traditional type.  The simplicity and tranquility of Japanese gardens help me still my mind after a busy day.  With just a few simple items and plants, strategically placed, you can have an area of beauty and restfullness and it doesn’t take a lot of space to achieve it.

Japanese rock gardens (karesansui) can go  on a desk, in a small space in a corner of a yard, or can be created to take advantage of a large lot.  It’s up to you how much space you want to devote to yours. They vary anywhere from very austere (rocks and sand only) to ones with a few plants added in. The traditional Japanese garden adds water features, decorations and many more plants.  Whichever type you choose is only limited by your imagination (and budget).

Of course, the main item in a Japanese rock garden is ROCK.  The idea is to find ones that are interesting and in varying shapes and sizes, rocks that you wouldn’t mind spend hours looking at.  (After all, Japanese rock gardens are usually used for meditation – you wouldn’t want to stare at something boring for hours, would you?)  Placement is then key – you want to space them to make a visually interesting pattern.  In the most basic style, sand is placed in the shallow bed and raked into patterns to resemble water’s waves, with only the rocks to break the pattern.

Japanese rock gardens are also called Zen gardens because of their use in meditation.  After staring at the garden for a while, your mind begins to ‘expand’ and see things not originally in the patterns. (My own mind does that if I stare at ANYTHING for very long…) The great thing is you can move the rocks (if you can life them) and re-rake the sand to have an ever-changing garden.

If meditation isn’t main your goal, and you want a little more life to your garden, then you might want to go for the Japanese traditional style. 

As you can see on the left, water is a much more prominent feature, be it a pond all the way up to a lake, and the plantings are much more profuse.  However, the plants are usually in monochromes, such as mostly greens, using the plants more for texture rather than color.  Splashes of color are provided by bridges or other decorations, although Japanese cherry trees, in full blossom in the spring, will give you a sudden burst of pinks and whites to highlight your area.  Japanese maple trees do the same, only in the fall, when their leaves turn scarlet.

For complete plans to your own Japanese garden, try these handy do-it-yourself guides:

Technorati Tags: DIY, Do-It-Yourself, Japanese Garden, Japanese Rock Garden, Meditation, Rock Garden, Zen Garden

Or is it a friendly neighborhood bee?  What if it’s a killer bee?  How do you tell?

There are estimated to be about 20,000 species of bees. They are 4-winged flying insects with branched body hair, making them ‘fuzzy.’  Virtually all bees feed on flowers, using the pollen for protein and the nectar as an oily/fat resource.  (Their ‘fuzziness’ is what makes them so good at it – pollen sticks to them like Velcro.)  However, in their little bee trips from blossom to blossom, a little pollen falls off along the way, providing plants with needed ‘cross-fertilization’ in order to fruit.  (Very important these little insects are! – without them, we’d probably have to hand-fertilize every plant in our gardens and neighborhoods with little brushes!  Aaack!)

Bees are found just about everywhere on the planet, except in the coldest polar regions, a few isolated islands and very high altitudes, making them one of the most useful insects around.  However, most bees prefer warm, arid or semi-arid climates, like you find in the lower half of America down to Mexico.  While most of us are familiar with the stereotypical yellow and black striped bee (commonly known as the European honey bee), they also come in red, metallic green and even blue!  Some bees are solitary in nature, while others like to hang around in hives.

So, with all these bees buzzing around, which ones are the "nice" ones and which ones are the "killers"?  (Well, actually all bees with stingers can kill you if you’re allergic or if you get stung by enough at one time, however, they aren’t all called "killer bees".)  It seems that killer bees are originally from Brazil, of all places.  Back in the 1950s, some scientists there were trying to come up with a honey bee that would be happy in the more tropical climates.  They decided to cross European honey bees with African honey bees.  Unfortunately, what they came up with was an extremely territorial insect that breeds rapidly, loves to swarm, really doesn’t care to keep too much honey around, can survive on sparse supplies of pollen and nectar and will attack anything or anyone that it perceives as a threat.  (Ooops.)  Then, to make matters worse, they accidentally let them escape.  (Really big oops.)

Since killer bees have no natural enemies, and breed so rapidly, they managed to spread up to Central America by the 1980s, and they reached the southern US states, like Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, by the 1990s.  Because they were bred for tropical climates, they aren’t expected to go too far north due to the cooler temps.  (That means if you’re in Washington, North Dakota, Wisconsin or Maine, it probably isn’t a killer bee! However, as of 2009, a few had snuck up as far as places in Utah, so you still may have to try to figure out which one is visting you…)  By the way, Brazil has found a way to breed a more "gentle" killer bee, I mean, Africanized bee, so they’re hoping they can ‘re-domesticate’ the little critters.

Because the current killer bees wandering the Americas are a cross between 2 types of honey bees, unfortunately, at first glance, they look just like your friendly neighborhood useful bee.  The bee in the picture with the pink dot is a European queen honey bee – all the others, giving her the eye, are Africanized killer bees – hard to tell apart, other than very slightly darker stripes, aren’t they? (And unless you’ve got a bunch of them in one place to compare stripes, odds aren’t good that you’ll be able to tell by looking…)

The only really good way to tell if you’ve been visited by killer bees is to watch their behavior – but don’t get too close.  Remember, they react very badly to being ‘threatened.’  If you’re still unsure and worried about your little visitors, try to catch one using a bee trap, and take it to your local agriculture office.  They can help you identify what you have. 

But, please, if your bees aren’t bothering you, don’t kill them – our crops need all the bees they can get! In fact, one way to help prevent killer bee infestations is to keep colonies of European bees around.  Some have found that bringing new European queen honey bees into an area helps drive out the Africanized queens…

Technorati Tags: Bees, killer bees

Now that’s one way to combine two things I need to do: get both me and my garden in shape!

This book focuses on keeping the gardener fit and flexible, which can only help improve our garden. I mean, how great do your plants grow when your back is too out of whack to bend over to get those pesky weeds out of their way?

The GET FIT THROUGH GARDENING book gives you all sorts of great exercises you can do while working on your garden, whether it’s a small kitchen garden or a whole acre or more.  Even if you just cut the grass regularly, you can pick up some great tips on making sure your knees, neck and back don’t suffer any more than they have to to have a great garden or landscape.

Technorati Tags: exercise, Gardening