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Growing for Good: Native Plant Gardening
Whether we grew up in farming households, helped in the suburban yard, or lived in a concrete jungle, many of us started gardening as adults with a simple approach. We grabbed a few landscape plants from a big box store. Later, we found ourselves immersed in native plant sales at our local arboretum or botanical garden. Our mindset shifted from merely sprucing up the yard to designing a space that maximizes support of local biodiversity and habitat. We shifted in…
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Summer Garden Recap
My food growing was a disaster this summer. At least that’s how it felt as I surveyed the mass of weedy overgrowth this evening. I put all my energy into the new pond and quail keeping, and I let the weeds run amok and didn’t feed the plants or top off compost as I should have. For my future self, I’m documenting the season and will start with the positives because no one likes a whiner. Wins One apple tree…
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The Big Dig – Building Our Backyard Pond
"I dig deep thoughts and appropriately sized holes", my current Instagram tagline, makes me giggle. I didn't anticipate digging such an insanely big hole this spring, but I'd been worrying about how large the koi were growing and pointing out spots in the yard to Joe where a pond would fit.
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Essential Garden Edibles
After nearly 15 years of growing food, I have settled into my garden and learned the local climate, built up my soil, and developed planting rhythms, growth expectations, and a list of essential garden edibles that work best for my garden and household. These 13 fruits, veggies, and herbs have become my essentials because of their flavor, versatility and/or preservability: tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, okra, cucumber, sugar snap peas, carrots, potatoes, garlic, onions, basil, dill, and cilantro. What should go on…
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JC Raulston Annual Plant Distribution
The Annual Plant Distribution is like getting an annual dividend on your stock. If you are a member, once a year you get the greenhouse excess. It’s wonderful. The “grab” is broken up into four rounds. During the first three rounds, each member can grab three plants. A list of plants are pre-published and numbered with at least four of each available. There are also tons of plants not numbered, and some are real stunners. The fourth round is a…
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Coturnix Quail Cost Analysis for Beginners – Worth it?
Honestly, after three weeks of keeping quail, I was regretting bringing them home. I thought I would be done with quail after this flock dies off. It might even be sooner if I were able to pass them off. They weren’t laying, they were messy, and the grow-out pen I was using was impossible to clean. Then Joe built a hutch that is easy to access and clean out and gives the birds much more room. It even has a…
