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But pests are pests and you still don’t want snails and slugs eating up your garden…so what do you do?
I mean how many times have we noticed insects to be more than just insects?
Well today in honour our beloved and irreplaceable champions of eco-sustainability, I thought I’d dedicate a post to the unsung heroes and often neglected little defenders of Mother Nature- the busy bees….
So why are bees important? Aside from being the very creatures that allow for us to indulge in the eco friendly practice of
These days everything is about packaging so food doesn’t just serve to delight the tummy, it’s got to delight the eyes as well. That means the more colours and the brighter they are the better! Which coherently also means more toxic because we’re talking about the use of synthetic food dyes!
Just as in nature where those vibrant coloured frogs are lethal little creatures of the rainforest, well so are the hyper-coloured cupcakes of our concrete jungles.
So for those of us who care about how harmful synthetic food dyes are to our health and that of our loved ones (especially the children- kids are suckers for colours), we’ll go out and make sure we buy bottles of ‘natural and organic’ food dye.
I know it’s really late in the season to be planting a
garden; it’s the middle of fall and winter is nearly upon us. After discussing
the bee crisis thing with a friend, however, we thought it would be a great
idea to a) take advantage of the rest of the snow-less weather for a
bee-friendly garden and b) to start planning for spring. So I’m writing this
chronicling the beginning of our venture, with much more to come.
My friend and I aren’t the gardening type, really. I’ve
planted a few geraniums along my parents’ walkway in my day, but that’s the
extent of it. Still, we love the idea of tilling the soil, working the land,
and being as outdoorsy as two city girls can manage.
So far, we have access to the backyard behind my apartment
building and, more fitting as the weather grows colder, a little plot of land
in a greenhouse through Chicago’s
city garden effort. I borrowed a trowel and the bitty rake thing from my mom,
and we’re going to get some soil from Home Depot tomorrow, as well as some
plants.
- Roasted Seeds: There are great recipes online for roasted pumping seeds. They make a tasty, and healthy snack. You can either roast them plain, with oil such as olive or vegetable oil, or dry seasoning. At any rate, you’ll want to spray the pan and then lay the seeds flat. Bake on 250 for 15 to 20 minuets. When done, let them cool and you have an easy, storable treat.
Just a few weeks ago, I went to a family reunion at my grandparents' farm in Mississippi. It was one of those reunions with long tables full of food and third cousins you've never met, lots of iced sweet tea and babies on blankets in the yard and your great-aunt asking about a sibling you don't have... "No, really, Great Aunt Tillie, I just have one brother. I promise."My grandparents - all four of them - grew up in the Depression, worked hard, and made comfortable lives for themselves. My mother's parents are the ones with the farm. My Grandpa started out small and farmed cotton and soybeans. He worked hard, saved money, and now he has a 1000-acre farm that he rents out while he sits in his air-conditioned antique shop and sips his Diet Coke.
At the farm, they keep a bucket with a wooden spoon in it in the cabinet underneath the sink. Every uneaten scrap of food goes in that bucket, and at the end of the day two or three or four eager farm dogs consume it. They like it lots better than their dog food, which they still get, but it's never enough to make them sick.
My father's parents worked together for years in my Granddad's shop. He was an optician, and after their children were all in school my Grandmom worked behind the counter, waited on customers, and kept things neat. They were retired before I was born, and bought a comfortable house on three acres and kept themselves busy with a garden way too big for our entire extended family.
Both my father's parents have passed on now, and when we were cleaning out their house we found stacks and stacks of cool whip, margarine, and sour cream containers. We always joked about how Grandmom never threw anything away, but then we went out to the shed and discovered it was actually Granddad. Every tool he'd ever bought was there, pieces of twine were hanging on the wall to be used again, and still-straight nails removed from boards and fence posts were waiting in those old yellow margarine containers.
I find it amusing when my generation gives itself a pat on the back for being so earth-conscious and sustainable. The truth is, we're just coming back around to doing things in a common-sense way, the way our grandparents did for years just because it made sense. It made sense to save things you could use again instead of throwing them out and buying more. It made sense to reuse. It made sense to find a use for old food besides the trash can and to let random pieces of twine live out their full usefulness. Good for us for starting to figure this stuff out, too. Let's not forget where we first saw it.
In the summer our nice patch of veggie garden has a tendency
to overflow, prompting the annual frantic give-away of produce to neighbors and
co-workers- even my teachers got the cornucopia a few times. But when all else
failed, by father would set up a stand at the end of our driveway and spend all
day selling produce.
Our income from the endeavor didn’t amount to much- maybe $10 a day- but it was a relaxing ritual, and one I’m glad to discover lives on in the spirit of the Farmer’s Market.
Farmer’s Markets are a growing trend in small towns, farming communities and suburban areas. In my college town each Saturday morning from 8:00 to noon a swarm of stands go up in the area park and seasonal fruits as well as local honey and homemade soaps
Autumn is the time to wrap things up in the garden. You may be taking in one last crop of spinach or peas, but most of the garden needs to be cleared out and tucked in for winter. Don't forget your compost pile while you're out there working.
Get a good pile of grass clippings before the mowing season ends. Grass clippings are nitrogen-rich. They decompose rapidly, heat up the compost, and provide moisture. Good stuff to have in that pile.
When you start raking those piles of leaves, shred them and add some to the compost. If you have more than you need for the compost bin, use the extra as a layer of mulch over flower beds.
Add the plants (not weeds) you've cleaned out from your garden and flower beds to the compost pile, as well. Don't include diseased plants (unless you are absolutely sure that the heat from the composting process will kill the disease.) If in doubt, bag and dispose of the diseased plant. You don't want to spread it to the rest of your garden, or your neighbor's garden...
Since fall is a great time to prune your trees and hedges and shrubs, look into borrowing a chipper. Pass the pruned branches through the chipper and add to the compost pile. Or use as mulch.
Clean that last pile of ashes out of the fireplace before it's time to start making fires again, and add it to the compost as well. It's a great source of potassium and lime.
If you're doing any fall canning (
I've been compiling a list of projects I want to complete before baby #3 makes his/her appearance, and near the top of the list (right below "paint the bathroom" and "redo master bedroom") is this heavy-weight: "landscape the yard."
Oh, yeah, I can do that all by myself. No problem.
Actually, I can do a lot of it by myself. It's a matter of time and steady progress. Some things, such as digging large enough holes in which to plant trees, I need a little help with. That's where my husband comes in.
Meanwhile, though, I've been planning. I want to design a sustainable landscape, which leads me to the next, obvious question: what is sustainable landscaping? In my little bit of digging (no pun intended), here is what I've found:
Sustainable landscaping produces an aesthetically pleasing and useful landscape design while conserving natural resources, minimizing use of chemicals, protecting ecosystems, and reducing waste.
This recipe came from Llewellyn's Herbal Almanac for the year 2000, page 34 and sounds lovely:
Lemon Balm Muffins
2 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 eggs
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons minced lemon balm
Grease muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray, butter, or oil. Blend together the dry ingredients. In another bowl, whick the eggs until blended. Add applesauce, lemon juice, and minced lemon balm. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix well and drop into muffin tins. BAke at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes. Serve warm with butter.
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