Mulch helps your plants snuggle in for the winter

When the temperatures start to drop, I love curling up in my "nest" with a nice, warm snuggly blanket. Providing a layer of mulch to your plants is a great way to allow them to snuggle up for the winter, too.

Benefits of Mulch
Mulch retains moisture in the soil and moderates soil temperature while it adds nutrients, and reduces erosion and weeds. But another great benefit of mulch is that it helps to protect plants from frigid winter temperatures. Mulch can be purchased, by the bag or truckload; created by recycling "green waste" in the yard; and is even available for free from many cities and municipalities. Leaves, bark, wood chips, pine needles and straw all make wonderful mulches and are a great way to recycle your garden "extras".

For best results, mulch should be spread 2--4 inches thick over the roots of trees, shrubs and plant beds. Keep the mulch several inches away from the plant stem or trunk to prevent rotting.

Add new mulch as needed, usually once or twice a year, stirring the old mulch to promote air and moisture circulation to avoid matting.

Inorganic mulch such as gravel or colored rocks will not hold moisture and can even reflect heat, which is stressful to plants..

Create self-mulching areas under trees by allowing leaves to stay where they fall.

The Soil Workbook (pdf file), from the Landscape for Life website, provides these additional tips about mulch:

Consider what happens in a deciduous forest, one of nature’s champion mulchers. The leaves shed in autumn are transformed by the soil’s natural food web into plant food and the rich organic matter called humus that is the key to maintaining healthy soil. The blanket of organic matter protects plants from extremes of temperature, prevents soil erosion, and conserves soil moisture that otherwise would evaporate. 

• Mulching provides your garden with these same benefits and more.
• It also suppresses weeds, making life easier for you. And because mulch keeps the soil loose, there’s no need for regular cultivation with hoe or scuffle. Mulch conserves water—no small matter given that the proportion of municipal water used for garden irrigation is 30 percent in the eastern U.S., and can be 60 percent or more in the West.
• By creating the conditions that help them thrive, mulch makes your plants less vulnerable to pests and diseases.
• Mulch keeps the soil around plant roots from frying in summer and in winter helps prevent alternate freezing and thawing, which causes root damage.
• Over time, organic mulches decompose and add nutrients and organic matter to your soil, improving waterretention and nurturing the soil fauna that promote fertility.
• By cushioning the impact of downpours, mulch also helps prevent soil compaction, allowing water to penetrate and plant roots to breathe. 

Landscape For Life is based on the principles of The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™), the nation's first rating system for sustainable landscapes. This is the perfect time of year to be reading up on these principles to get a head start on next spring's landscape.

For Free mulch in the area, see: Free mulch and other garden goodies

Time to put your mower out to pasture?

America's love affair with their lawns is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to environmentally friendly landscapes. Lawns are water hogs and can have pests and weeds that are frequently treated with harmful chemicals. Using gas powered equipment to keep a lawn manicured can put out more CO2 and other pollutants (plus noise) per hour run time than a Hummer.

Eco-friendly options for landscapes can include minimizing the size of the lawn and replacing it with ground covers, gardens or permeable surfaces such as mulched beds and walkways.

For the lawn that you do keep, make sure that it is mowed correctly, with the blade set to about three inches. Mulching mowers allow the grass clippings to be returned to the grass to put the nutrients back into the landscape.

Before your lawn mower is put to bed for the winter, take a look at it and decide whether it is time to put it out to pasture all together and get a more eco-friendly option. A new lawn mower might be the perfect gift for a homeowner who is trying to be more eco-friendly in the landscape.

Eco-friendly options for lawn mowers include electric models, solar powered mowers, reel mowers and more.

If you decide to keep your old mower, remember that keeping your mower in good shape helps benefit the lawn. Here are some steps to help put your mower to bed for the winter: Service Mowers Now Before Springing them Into Action Next Season

Lasagna Gardening

Lasagna Gardening

Lasagna gardening is the process of using layers of old newspaper, corrugated cardboard, leaves and mulch to create a garden bed. Lasagna gardening allows you to create a garden right on top of existing sod, thereby reducing the size of your lawn.

Reducing the size of a lawn saves water, reduces the need for harmful chemicals and reduces the amount of time spent mowing, which cuts down on air pollution. But a lasagna garden has its own benefits: it wards off pests and weeds without chemicals and helps conserve every drop of moisture.

Building a Lasagna Garden:

Lasagna gardening is a technique developed by Patricia Lanza. Here are the steps, taken from her book Lasagna Gardening which was published in 1998:

First, mark the outline of the garden on the ground, with either stakes and string or a sprinkling of flour. The actual size and shape of the garden are up to you.

For the first layer, you need something heavy to smother the existing grass and weeds. Most of the time, I use think pads of wet newspaper. Lay them close together, so the edges overlap slightly to keep the weeds from sneaking through. Another good option is flattened, overlapping cardboard boxes.

Next, add a 2 to 3 inch layer of peat moss to cover the paper or cardboard. Now, spread a 4 to 8 inch layer of organic mulch material over the peat moss. Add another layer of peat moss, and another layer of mulch and so on, until the beds are the desired depth.

You can plant fall-built lasagna gardens right away, let them "cook" first, or just leave them to break down naturally over winter for spring planting.

"Cooking" your lasagna garden is the process of covering the pile with black plastic and weighing it down with bricks or stones. The plastic traps the suns warmth and helps break down the "lasagna" quicker.

**Note: Just in case you are thinking of waiting until after Christmas and using your Christmas wrapping paper for the layers of your lasagna garden instead of newspaper, I checked several sources online and they all said that you shouldn't compost wrapping paper because of the unknown paper content and possibility of harmful dyes.

How eco-friendly fertilizer led to the first Thanksgiving

If you read my post from a few days ago, you probably remember Squanto. Squanto is the Indian that helped teach the Pilgrims how to be successful gardeners here in this New World. One of the things that Squanto taught the Pilgrims was to put a dead fish into every hole in which they were planting seeds. 

Fish as Fertilzer
As far as I know, this is the first recorded mention of what is now a common method in eco-friendly gardening: fish as fertilizer. Here is an excerpt from the book Squanto's Garden, which explains the benefits that the Pilgrim's gardens would have received from the fish:

The reason that the fish worked to help the corn grow goes far beyond simple fertilization. True enough that the plants could feed and grow from the decaying organic material, but the fish also addressed deeper problems with the soil because of the calcium it provided: 

The calcium provided by the flesh and bones of the fish acted to raise the Ph of the soil, neutralizing the acidic soil of the region and allowing the plant to better absorb nutrients.

Calcium also softens or mellows a soil, making it more porous by expanding the clay element of the soil. Calcium builds the strength of a plant at a cellular level, helping make it more resistant to draught and temperature changes. 

Calcium also acts to feed soil bacteria that are essential to plant growth. 

The fish fertilization also provided the soil with high levels of quality nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur that helped the plants to grow. Nitrogen contains protein that encourages the growth of the green part of the plant. Phosphorus stimulates root growth and promotes fruit and seeds as they mature. Potassium promotes plant vitality and resistance to disease. Sulfur contributes to important microbial life in the soil. Without adequate soil bacteria, minerals in the soil don’t get broken down into usable nutrients for the plant. Squanto’s fish fertilizer played a big role in increasing soil bacteria as well as improving the nutritional value of the plants grown with his methods.

Benefits of Organic Fertilizers
There are now many organic fertilizer products on the market that contain fish, in some form. Fish emulsion, fish meal, hydrolyzed fish and fish powder all let you add natural, organic fertilizer to your plants without harming the planet. Since one of the biggest problems with chemical fertilizers is that they can wash into our waterways and pollute the water, it makes sense that fertilizer made out of fish parts would not create the same problem.

Squanto's Garden is a free e-book and you might enjoy reading the whole thing. In the meantime, here are some more eco-tips from Squanto's Garden.

There are many other techniques you can use to help your garden grow. Rather than using chemical pesticides, you can use nature to control the insect population in your garden. Just a single bird will eat hundreds of thousands of insects in a single year. You can bring birds to your garden by bearing in mind that they have four basic needs: food, water, shelter and a place to raise their young. By providing one or all of these needs in your garden, you can attract birds that will effectively control your insect population without any chemicals at all. 

The use of composting is an excellent way to encourage and promote earthworms in your soil. Earthworms mix up the soil and stimulate microbial activity. They also introduce valuable aeration to the soil as they tunnel. Always be careful not to apply chemical fertilizers (any of the common white powders) to your garden. These products kill or drive away earthworms as well as other microbes vital for a fertile, living garden. Composting will also add beneficial soil organisms that will protect the plant from predatory life forms. 

If your companion planting does not provide the level of ground cover that squash does, you may want to consider laying down mulch. Mulch helps to maintain a good level of moisture in the soil.

Information about Organic Fertlizers

Top Ten Reasons our Family Get-Together will be like the First Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving for many reasons. First, it’s one of only two holidays that encourage most people to take time out from their busy lives and get together with their families. I think at least 30 people are expected at our family feast this year, which will be held in Michigan. Second, it’s all about being thankful, something that many people forget to do on the other days of their lives. But third, it’s all about sharing gardening and cooking secrets – which is really what the first Thanksgiving – way back in November 1621 – was all about.

In our family, Thanksgiving morning often starts with a walk through the vegetable garden, with sister-in-law Dorothy showing off her fall vegetables and letting us pick our favorites. In my opinion, Dorothy is the best gardener of the family – the one that can get anything to grow. She is, in effect, our Squanto.

If you don’t know about Squanto , he was, in many ways, the reason for the original Thanksgiving. There are conflicting stories about what really happened on the first Thanksgiving but most of the stories agree on the basic details:

In September of 1620, 102 pilgrims set sail for the New World aboard a ship named The Mayflower. Although their intended destination was Virginia, strong winds and storms forced them to settle in the area of Plymouth.

They had a brutally harsh first year and many of them didn’t live to see their first New England Spring.

The ones that did, however, were surprised when an English speaking Indian named Samoset visited them. According to writer Bill Heid, in his e-book, Squanto’s Garden, Samoset’s first words to the Pilgrims were:

“Welcome, English. I am Samoset. Do you have beer?” The Pilgrims were surprised but glad to accommodate Samoset’s request, as they had brought beer with them on the voyage. In fact, they had brought nine times more beer than water, because beer was much more potable. One of the first structures built in the New World by the Pilgrims was a pub, built from wood they had intentionally brought from England for just that purpose. This might strike many of us as strange who have been taught that the Pilgrims were hard, straight-laced folk; but the reality is that they were a lively group that worked hard, played hard and prayed hard. *

Several days later, Samoset returned with another Native American named Squanto. Since Squanto spoke English, his role was to act as interpreter between the Indians and the Pilgrims. However, his importance to the Pilgrims was much greater than that. Squanto taught them to garden.

The Pilgrims did not know how to survive in this new land but as a “native”, Squanto did. He taught them which plants were poisonous and which had medicinal powers. He taught them how to plant corn by heaping the earth into low mounds with several seeds and putting a dead fish in each mound to help fertilize the corn. He also taught them to plant other crops and how to tap the maple trees for sap.

In November 1621, The Pilgrims had much to celebrate, they had built homes in the wilderness, they had raised enough crops to keep them alive during the long coming winter, they were at peace with their Indian neighbors. They had beaten the odds and it was time to celebrate.

** So they decided to have a feast. The guests at the feast included the 52 remaining pilgrims and about 90 Indians. One of the historical conflicts is about whether the Indians were actually invited or whether they just showed up when they heard all of gun shots from the Pilgrim men who were out trying to shoot some food for the feast.

The celebration lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, it is believed that the meal included fowl (possibly turkey, duck and swan), venison, corn, pumpkins, squash and freshly caught seafood such as lobster, eel, crab and cod.

Because the Pilgrims had neither an oven or any sugar, the meal probably did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts.

For more about the history of the first Thanksgiving, see links below.

And for a little pre-holiday laugh, here are the:

Top Ten Reasons our Family Get-Together will be like the First Thanksgiving. 

 

10) Travelers will come from miles around to join in the feast. There will be conflicting stories about which ones of us were actually invited.

9) Like Samoset, the first question that many of the visitors will ask is “Do you have beer?”

8) The Men-folk will spend the week before the feast hunting for meat to put on the table. (Some of our men have been up at “hunt camp” since deer season opened.)

7) Venison will be included as part of the three day feast.

6) We will include freshly picked, home-grown vegetables in our Thanksgiving dinner.

5) The celebration will last long into the night and celebrants will sit around a fire.

4) The first Thanksgiving feast lasted for three days. We will eat leftovers and continue celebrating for three days.

3) “Between meals, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag (Indian Tribe) played games. The Wampanoag might have taught the English the Pin Game, where a player tried to toss a small ring onto a pin.” *** We will play a similar game, which we call horse shoes.

2) “Besides sports, there was also singing and dancing among both the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims."*** Many times, at least one of the wild men or women at our gathering breaks into song or dance.

And the number one reason that our Thanksgiving Celebration will be like the original Thanksgiving?

1) With all of the challenges we have faced this year, we still have much to celebrate and we will definitely, definitely remember to give thanks

* Squanto’s Garden

**The Pilgrim’s and America’s First Thanksgiving

*** The First Thanksgiving- slideshow

Will Prince William & Kate Middleton follow in the royal organic footsteps?

So the big news of the last couple of days, of course, is that Prince William finally officially proposed to his beautiful girlfriend Kate Middleton. As an eco-minded gardener, my first thoughts aren't of the glamorous nuptials themselves, but whether the couple will follow in the royal footsteps and be organic gardeners.

If you aren't into the "green scene", you may not know that William's father, Prince Charles, has been an organic gardener since before William was born.

When he bought the 1000 acre Highgrove estate in 1980, The Prince was adamant that it should be an entirely organic garden and farm and began setting out to make it so.

The gardens have been developed to be as self-sufficient as possible with all green waste recycled for use in the gardens as mulching material or as compost. Natural predators are encouraged for pest control and only natural fertilizers are used. His Royal Highness desperately wanted to protect and enhance the native flora and fauna which have been in serious decline due to modern farming methods.

Quotes from an interview with Prince Charles explain his deep love and commitment to the environment:

'Even in the 1960s, when I was a teenager, I hated what was going on - the endless tearing up and pulling down of all the wild places, many of which had taken hundreds of years to grow and were being destroyed in one day.

'It takes forever to recreate lost habitats. And I also felt the chemical approach to farming and gardening was not something that could ever last. 

'To me, it was just not sustainable in the long run. We have to rediscover the vital importance of working with nature.'

It is said that the Prince of Wales and Camilla even spent much of their honeymoon personally installing the plants they had received as wedding gifts. For passionnate gardeners like the royal couple, this constitutes fun.

Prince Charle's book, The Elements of Organic Gardening , touts many of the principles that we all could stand to incorporate into our gardens: working with Mother Nature, using natural predators for pests, hand pulling weeds, and conserving water. His new book and documentary, called Harmony, prove that his love for nature and the environment go much deepen then his passion for gardening.

"I believe that true 'sustainability' depends fundamentally upon us shifting our perception and widening our focus, so that we understand, again, that we have a sacred duty of stewardship of the natural order of things," said Prince Charles in a statement last year. "In some of our actions we now behave as if we were 'masters of nature' and, in others, as mere bystanders. If we could rediscover that sense of harmony; that sense of being a part of, rather than apart from nature, we would perhaps be less likely to see the world as some sort of gigantic production system, capable of ever-increasing outputs for our benefit – at no cost."

But will young Prince William and the lovely Kate be spending their honeymoon in the garden? Probably not. But I can personally attest to the fact that it is difficult to NOT inherit a love of nature and the environment from a parent that feels it as strongly as Prince Charles. So I wouldn't be surprised if someday, the beautiful young Kate and William start organic gardens of their own.

Another "green" activity for Black Friday

Yesterday, I wrote a post called Turn Black Friday Green, which suggested that purchasing locally grown Christmas trees is a great activity for Black Friday.

Another popular activity that is often carried out on Black Friday is hanging up holiday lights and decorations. Perhaps it is just an excuse to escape the hectic after Thanksgiving shopping, but many men will be pulling out the ladders and untangling strings of lights to adorn their homes for the season.

This is a perfect time for another "green" outdoor activity - cleaning the rain gutters.

Why is keeping rain gutters clean important to the environment? Because it helps to prevent non-point source pollution, one of the country's leading causes of water pollution.

During a rainstorm, gutters route runoff from a very large surface—a home’s roof—to where it can drain away from the house. Raingutters and downspouts allow us to direct that rain runoff where we want it -- to rain barrels, gardens, or permeable surfaces that allow the water to soak into and remain on our property. If we don't keep our gutters clean, water can overflow into the street, adding to polluted waterways and even flooding.

If you are going to have the ladder out for the "hanging of the lights", why not take the opportunity to clean your gutters.

1) When cleaning out your gutters, wear heavy gloves to protect your hands since gutters often have sharp metal edges or screws.

2) If you have rain barrels, you may want to disconnect them from the downspouts before you begin cleaning.

3) Choose a sturdy ladder, and place it on a firm, level base.

4) Scoop out loose debris using a small garden trowel or your gloved hands.

5) After removing all of the loose debris from the gutters, use a hose to wash the remaining debris and any clogs through the downspouts.

Extra green hint! Leaves that are removed from your gutters can be added to your compost!

Choose a locally grown Christmas Tree

What would Christmas be without the tree? Through all the hustle and bustle and commercialism of the holiday season, there is still something almost magical about turning off the lights in the house and plugging in a newly decorated Christmas tree for the first time.

Most people would be hard pressed to explain why this simple act of bringing a tree indoors and covering it with decorations and lights can evoke such a sentimental response or why it is so important to their holiday celebration. And yet, for many people, the tradition of picking out the Christmas tree is one of the favorite activities that helps to turn Black Friday into Green Christmas Fun.

For some, Christmas tree shopping takes place in a department store parking lot or an empty field where hundreds of trees lie bundled and stacked, flattened from their long trip from another state. The tree is just another purchase picked up along with the groceries and dry-cleaning.

But for those who want to squeeze a little more sentiment into their holidays, the tradition of picking out the family tree begins on the farm – the Christmas tree farm, that is.

Environmental benefits of Real Christmas Trees:

from the National Christmas Tree Association Website 

While they're growing, Real Christmas Trees support life by absorbing carbon dioxide and other gases and emitting fresh oxygen. 

The farms that grow Christmas Trees stabilize soil, protect water supplies and provide refuge for wildlife while creating scenic green belts. Often, Christmas Trees are grown on soil that doesn't support other crops. 

Real Christmas Trees Are Renewable (and recyclable). 

Real Christmas Trees are grown on farms just like any other crop. To ensure a constant supply, Christmas Tree growers plant one to three new seedlings for every tree they harvest. 

On the other hand, artificial trees are a petroleum-based product manufactured primarily in Chinese factories. The average family uses an artificial tree for only six to nine years before throwing it away, where it will remain in a landfill for centuries after disposal.

Visiting a choose-and-cut Christmas tree farm is like a trip back in time when families would trek to the woods to cut down their own growing tree. At a Christmas tree farm, the feeling is very much the same. Children can run and play among rows and rows of beautifully shaped living trees to help choose the one that will best fit into their family’s holiday plans. The whole experience is a fun family adventure that adds a little bit more excitement to the holiday plans.

Besides the pleasure of the experience itself, choosing a tree from a local choose-and-cut tree farm has several other advantages. For one, the trees are much fresher than a tree that is cut in another state and trucked to the area. This means the tree will last longer, lose fewer needles and be less of a fire hazard.

Being able to see the shape of the tree in its true standing position is another advantage to buying from a tree farm rather than buying a tied or wrapped cut tree.

Purchasing a locally grown DC area tree means less fuel is used in transportation. It also supports the farmers of the area and boosts local economy.

Where to find locally grown Christmas Trees:

Butler’s Orchard- 22200 Davis Mill Road • Germantown MD 20876 • Telephone – 301-972-3299 Beginning the day after Thanksgiving. Choose and Cut your own Christmas Tree from acres of carefully pruned Douglas Fir, Canaan Fir, and White Pine! 5' tall and up.  

Gaver Farm- 5501 Detrick Road, Mt. Airy, MD – 301-865-3515 Choose and Cut your own and Pre-Cut selection from over 50 acres of beautifully shaped trees!  

Homestead Farms- 15604 Sugarland Road, Poolesville, Maryland 20837 Cut your own Christmas tree! Saws provided.  

Naughty Pine Nursery - 18200 Elmer School Road, Dickerson, MD - 301-785-8622 Large selection of Christmas Trees

Middleburg Christmas Tree Farm- Route 630 (Unison Road) and Christmas Tree Lane, Middleburg, Virginia. (540) 554-8625

Snickers Gap Christmas Tree Farm - 34350 Williams Gap Road, Round Hill, VA 20141 - (540) 554-8323 Now in their 30th year, they are a family owned choose-and-cut Christmas tree farm located near Bluemont, Virginia.

Ticonderoga Farms- 26469 Ticonderoga Road , Chantilly, Virginia ph: 703.327.4424 Beautiful selection and many other activities to add to the fun

For more information, visit: National Christmas Tree Association Quick Facts

Maryland Christmas Tree Association
And these lists from the Christmas Tree Farm Network:
Maryland Christmas Tree Farms
Virginia Christmas Tree Farms

National Christmas Tree Association Members in Maryland
National Christmas Tree Association Members in Virginia

For a more complete list, visit the article on dc.about.com: Christmas Tree Farms in Maryland and Virginia

Water, Trees & Gardens in the DC Area Program

How do gardeners think about water in the DC Area and what is the role of “Green Spaces” in managing water quality and quantity? These are the questions that will be discussed at the weekly DC Area Water Issues Program (DCAWIP) on Thursday, November 18, 2010.

This program will feature speakers on the ties between water, trees, and gardens, followed by a reception and GARDENING PROGRAMS FAIR.

UDC’s own Master Gardener Program Coordinator Sandy Farber Bandier will provide a brief overview of the Master Gardener Program, and share “a gardener’s perspective” on water issues in the DC area, based on her personal experiences and questions she receives from area residents. The main speakers for this week’s seminar will be Marcelo Lopez of Wiles Mensch Corporation, low-impact design expert and designer for Casey Trees’ new Brookland headquarters, and Mark Buscaino, Executive Director of Casey Trees, who will discuss Casey Trees’ work with the DC Department of the Environment on tree planting to address the city’s stormwater issues, as well as other water-related benefits from low impact design and green space.

During the Reception, area gardening programs will provide representatives to discuss their programs and display materials, sign up volunteers, and promote their programs. Information will also be available on the many programs of the new UDC College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES), including research, outreach, and extension.

As always, the DC Area Water Issues Program Weekly Seminars are FREE and OPEN to all students, faculty, water managers and other members of the "DC Area Water Community."

The program will be held at UDC-Van Ness , Building #41, Room A-03, 4200 Connecticut Avenue NW , Washington DC

4:00-5:30 pm Seminar and Dialogue
5:30-6:30 Gardening and Agriculture Program Fair and Reception  

For more information, contact Dr. Tolessa Deksissa, CAUSES/UDC, at 202-274-5273 or 
tdeksissa@udc.edu or Dr. Cat Shrier at 202-344-7894 or cat@watercatconsulting.com

Creative ways with weeds - Using weeds to create dyes

I was poking around on the internet this morning and found another great gardening blog that I wanted to share. It is called Green Gardening with Ann Lovejoy and is written in Bainbridge Island, WA.

Ann's post entitled Creative Ways with Weeds points out another wonderul way to recycle garden "waste". Ann uses "weeds" to make dyes for her knitting projects.

Here is an excerpt from this wonderful post:

I also spin yarns for use in many projects, and one of my great pleasures is to dye yarn and fabric with natural dyes. I find it utterly fascinating to experiment with natural dyes, turning plain wool into lovely, delicate shades of green and gold, rust and pale orange, gold and soft yellow.

Putting Noxious Weeds To Work 

What does this have to do with morning glory? Besides adding great tilth to my compost, it makes a marvelous dye for protein fibers like wool and silk. Without any color fixer (mordant), natural yarn simmered in a morning glory infusion will turn a soft yellow. With alum as a mordant, the yarn will be a clear yellow. Add a touch of chrome and you’ll get a lively golden yellow. Copper makes the dye greener, while iron deepens it to a rich olive green. 

Many of my dye plants of choice are noxious weeds; not just morning glory, but ivy, Scotch broom, Canadian thistle, horsetail, and many more. It is amazingly satisfying to free a tree from its strangle hold, then cook up a big batch of the removed ivy. It smells quite sweet, rather like asparagus when cooking, and the resulting broth makes a gentle green yarn that is really beautiful. Read More

After finding that article, I spent quite a bit of time reading Ann's other posts. Her writing style is beautiful and personal and reading her posts made me feel like I was having a conversation with a new gardening friend. Here are some more great posts of hers that I think you will enjoy:

Getting the Garden Ready for Winter
Easy Care Garden Tips for Fall
What a Wonderful Day! - Adventures in mushroom hunting