Sustainable Gardening for a Healthy Planet
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I just learned about the Plant and Seed Finder from Mother Earth News. It’s a Google-based search tool for 150+ online plant and seed catalogs–simply type in the specific name of the plant or seed you’re looking for and you can quickly find all the different online suppliers. Very handy indeed this time of year.
What does the winter season offer the gardener? Little, it may first be thought. And yet this is not the truth. First, there is during the closed months time to meditate upon our mistakes and failures (which have doubtless been many) and to seek some ways to remedy them…And then there is remembering: remembering the bold scarlet of the Poppies in June, the towering spires of the Delphiniums….And forgetting! Forgetting is perhaps as important as remembering. If we are to start the new season with vigor and enthusiasm, we must forget the backaches, the loathsome prevalence of slugs and other pests, the superiority of our neighbor’s Sweet Peas and Asters, and certain humiliations suffered from the behavior of various sniffy alpines that turned up their small toes and died in the face of our most earnest ministrations.
–L.B. Wilder, The Garden in Color (1937)
Don’t you just love that quote? It captures my excitement and enthusiasm perfectly–even though the temperature outside is 13 degrees and dropping. Heck, I’m temporarily in an apartment where I have no hope of my own garden this summer. But I’m on a couple of waiting lists for a community garden plot, so life is still good! As L.B. Wilder so eloquently recommends, I’m using these “closed months” to reflect, remember, forget, and learn.
Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading.
— Henry Thoreau, “Natural History of Massachusetts”
Hello readers and blog friends. Happy first day of spring….a welcome day for all, especially in the colder parts of the world. I took a winter break from blogging to enjoy a cheerful winter of reading “books of natural history” and to give myself a mental and physical respite from the electronic world.
Recently I learned about Kitchen Gardeners International, a non-profit organization based in Maine that’s focused on bringing “greater levels of food self-reliance” to global communities and individuals. They do this by promoting kitchen gardening, home cooking, and sustainable local food systems. KGI’s programs include International Kitchen Garden Day, an email newsletter, and a public awareness campaign called Real Food for Real People. And of course, a great blog, which is featured on their home page.
I recently learned about a new local website called The Providential Gardener. Any readers in RI, please check it out because it's full of great local information. It's billed as "The meeting space for the growing community that cares for the fruitful earth in Providence, RI."
If any of you have ever read anything by Michael Pollan, you’ll appreciate his recent article in the New York Times on the organic food that’s now available at Wal-Mart. Michael is nothing if not fair–in his inimitable style, he discusses the good, the bad, & the ugly.
Earth Friendly Gardening 