Garden

It is definitely dandelion season here, the bright yellow blossoms bursting forth everywhere they are allowed to grow. Where I grew up, dandelions were non-existent. My family home had no…

Have you ever wondered why the N-P-K numbers on bags of organic fertilizer (N-P-K stands for Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium) are generally lower than synthetic fertilizers? I know that I used…

To help the bees, we need to grow more of the right flowers. Yet one flowering plant will typically offer just a few flowers for the bees and pollinators. (A good…

Somehow I missed it. All of those innumerable hours poured over gardening books and I am pretty sure Phacelia tanacetifolia, or Bee’s Friend,  was never in them. Did I just miss…

Happy Earth Day! Beautiful isn’t it? Even if you are super busy today, I hope you can find a moment to give thanks for our blue-green globe. Then resolve to…

The environmental benefits of a compost pile are pretty huge. Let’s first consider what happens when we don’t compost. Landfills have become the third largest source of human-caused greenhouse gas.…

Besides tasting great to us humans, bees and beneficial insects love dill too, gathering both pollen and nectar from its flowers. I love it with smoked fish and potatoes–but I…

Watch a bee on the gorgeous annual sunflower (Helianthus annuus), and the phrase “busy as a bee” comes to mind. A sunflower’s head is actually composed of hundreds of…

  Several years ago my lawn and gardens were infested with grubs and Japanese beetles. Dig anywhere in the lawn and you would see many of the white wormlike larvae known as…

Watching pests eat our gardens may be one of the most frustrating aspects of gardening. Your plants look great, until one day the bugs descend to eat and eat and eat…… A…