Tips for Pesticide Users By Sandy Swegel Most of the visitors to our Facebook page and website are already among the converted. We know how important pollinators are and we’re doing everything we can from avoiding pesticides to planting pollinator gardens in hope of preserving our pollinators. Sometimes as activists for the things we feel […]
Wildflower Seeds by Sandy Swegel One way to design your garden is to plan ahead, make sketches and get all of your seeds started indoors 8 weeks before frost. Another way, for those of us not quite so organized, is to add a plant you absolutely fall in love with, no matter what the time […]
Heirloom Vegetable Seeds by Sandy Swegel It’s only the beginning of June, but hot days can already cause your lettuce to begin to turn bitter or bolt. But an attentive gardener can keep her lettuce sweet and tasty with a few easy tricks. Lettuce generally turns bitter when it begins to mature or bolt. The […]
Community in the Garden I have new neighbors: the birds moved in. Flowers, butterflies, lush landscapes under shady trees, and vegetable gardens full of organic heirlooms are what we hope for when we put so much of our time and work into creating our little habitats. Today I noticed a delight I don’t always think […]
Wildflower Seeds by Sandy Swegel Late Spring is a busy time in the garden. We’re trying to keep up with weeding and get the tomatoes growing and we often procrastinate the task of dealing with the old foliage of tulips and other spring blooms. A half an hour’s attention now will make next year’s Spring […]
Growing Food in Hard Times by Sandy Swegel My heart is breaking this week with the stories coming out of Venezuela of severe food shortages and 5000 ordinary people looting food warehouses on Wednesday because they and their families were starving. They are right to be desperate. At the end of April, the government announced […]
Tips for Weeds by Sandy Swegel Say what? Well, Spring weeds ARE my friends. August weeds not so much. But Spring is finally overcoming winter and the big leafy weeds are the proof. So what’s to love about Spring Weeds? The most important thing is they are an abundant source of food for pollinators. They […]
Gardening Tips By Sandy Swegel We, humans, are crazy in love with hummingbirds. I received so many emails and messages about hummingbirds this week, I have to pass on the things I’m learning. Spring migration is happening all over the US and there are hundreds of citizen scientists who report their sightings. You can check […]
Some Rules You Can’t Break by Sandy Swegel Nature is a fierce taskmaster. We can bend many rules by starting seeds in our basements under lights or planting tomatoes in Walls of Water in the snow. But there are definite limits to how much nature will bend to our will and when we’ve just […]
Gardening Tips by Sandy Swegel I was chatting with a local bird habitat specialist hoping for some tips on what I could plant or build that would attract more birds to my new garden. I was surprised as she struggled to think of flowers that might work. Then she blurted: “The biggest obstacle to birds […]