Category: Organic Methods
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Gardens as a Space of Healing
This isn’t my story, but my sister told me this a long time ago so I feel like I have the right to appropriate it. When she was in art school, she went to a park with one of her sculpture classes. When they reached an open area, the teacher…
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Garden Therapy
Here is a thing I think we need. And by “we” I probably mean me. And maybe a handful of people who care about the dirt around them and the things that grow in it. That thing is: Garden Therapy Affirmation Counselors. GTAC? You know that feeling of affirmation when…
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Building a Pollinator Corridor: Time Sink or Carbon Sink?
Often, when I am gardening in my front yard, I get a few comments from passersby and mail carriers about how much manual labor I have to do to keep my garden from exploding into a lethal liability. I get comments like, “You know, you could just mow it all…
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Fall is Seed Collecting Season
My garden is a leggy mess. The bee balm has powdery mildew. The irises, long spent, are prostrate on the ground like a haircut gone wrong. The hostas have died back to reveal every terrible thing I threw in that patch thinking they would dissolve or decay unnoticed (like that…
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Herbs in a Strawberry Pot
I went to Chanticleer and had to restrain myself from copying everything they did there. They had a strawberry pot filled with herbs and it made so much sense. Terra cotta pots dry out so quickly, I don’t understand why they are so ubiquitous. And I don’t understand strawberry pots.…
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What to do with Tiny Glass Bottles
I lurv little antique bottles like this, but they often end up getting knocked around or catching dust. My dad found the one on the right when he was metal detecting a historic site in Maryland so it must be old. The other one has a threaded top so it’s…
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Rock Garden on a Hill
What’s wrong with this picture? In under two weeks it was covered with weeds. Did I really think the grass would stay put? Or the dormant weed seeds I turned up wouldn’t sprout just because I would yell at them? All those nice little perennials were choked by creeping charlie…
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Cover Crop
What’s wrong with this picture? It’s an anemic cover crop! I planted winter rye as a cover crop (a bit late in the season – mid-November) even though I plan to build (or rather HE will build) raised beds in Spring (even though he’s busy rebuilding our falling-down house.) So…
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Just Say No to Miracle Gro
Why can’t I just make things easy and buy the product everyone wants me to buy? Miracle Gro is EVERYWHERE and it’s fertilizer and it’s all I know about and the ads tell me I should use it. They even sell it at Walgreens. I mean, Nitrogen, Phosporus and potassium…
Heart of the Garden 