One by one, we can change how we garden, from not using poisonous pestides .. to a natural method, improving the soil

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Hi .. still taking a break from blogging.   But, watching the busy insect activity in the yard and the beautiful blossoms & leaves unfurling from the once bare trees .. I just want to share these magnificent videos with you.

If you haven’t already seen them .. then you are in for a treat.

Number one is:  Queen of the Sun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekoeQodrVoM

Number two is: The D.I.R.T. on Farmer John:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhMWz1QWQ0g

It just takes the power of one .. of us .. at a time .. to do our part to stop the pesticides, nurture the earth and all the living insects and animals (including us).

Grow the healthy, natural way.  Throw away the artificial fertilizers .. use the effective microorganisms, the compost teas .. research the information.

Here is a good site to start, to find out about good ways to improve your garden soil:  http://www.gardenerspantry.ca/

And there are a lot of compost tea maker sites.   Each one has some excellent information (although I think that the Bruce Deuley site is the best .. down below)

Compost tea (using only one aquarium aerator): http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/how-to-make-compost-tea-why-you-should.html

Here’s another site:  http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/wm/recycle/tea/tea3.htm

Compost tea (using two aerators): (and this is the best one, I’ll be making one of these):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8_PuUon5_Q

Yours in gardening ……

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Alaska Onion Grass, glad to meetcha! Learning more about Native Plants. & tonight .. we see William Roache!!!

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       Monday, March 19, 2012

The weekend was a mixed bag of weather.   Some sun, some rain .. wonder if the plants were going crazy ..bloom?  grow?

On the overcast/sunny Saturday morning, I continued to learn more about plant identification.

Learned some more about invasive weeds and recognizing more wild plants.  The Alaskan Onion is now a familiar to me – grass-like type plant.  I hadn’t taken any photos (but I plan to do that!)

Here are some excellent sites for further information (oh, wow, I am in the learning mode now!)

http://www.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/GarryOakEcosystems.html

And ..finally, some photos:

http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/ShowDBImage/gallery.aspx?page=0&specrep=0&code=PMPOA3X0J0

Onion grass looks like .. well, grass!  Right now, what I’ve noticed is that the blades seem a bit wider and “boxier” like and to find out if the grass is onion grass. … you just carefully move the grass away at the bottom of the plant and feel around for the little bulbs at the ground level, where they are protruding from the soil.  Once I can touch and look closely at a plant .. a wild plant anyway, I know it and can locate others.   So far, anyway, touch wood.  (ok, now where did that phrase originate!)

I learned how to identify licorice fern and tasted the inner portion of the root, which was bright green.   Just a tiny taste and the licorice flavour developed  more and more as time passed.  Quite dainty and delicious.  Oh, mother nature, you are good!

S and I worked away, lifting invasive ivy  … .loosening the soil.  She carefully removed the invasives from the struggling tiny leaf wild rose plants, tough plants, growing through the tight covering of the vines.   She also found some wild honeysuckle and these now will grow quite strong, now they are free to do so.

We worked away for a few hours, soon had a good size area clear, the rich forest soil loosened up.   Once hidden plants now able to breathe freely and grow as they should.

I brought away with me a tiny deer fern, surrounded by a little blanket of moss.  It’s potted up and I’ll be planting this treasure in the shaded woodland part of the yard.

S also gave me some pussywillow, rooted, and some in water to root.  I look forward to these growing in the yard and will bend them over as they grow, to form a little umbrella shape.

Another thing about us gardeners .. we share and share and share our plants.  Such a fun thing to do.  And I do intend to name them somehow .. must think of an easy way to do this.  Maybe carry around some cut-up plastic or aluminum sections of window blinds & a black marker, so I can easily write down the names and place the section in the plant.  I’ll work on that.

Anyway, I am getting very spoiled now.  Twice I’ve had the most amazing little cups of espresso.  Made from home-roasted beans and ground up especially fine.  Saturday, I just had to take a photo, to share .. see, how beautiful this is!  What a treat.

So, Saturday was a busy day.  A friend of mine is going travelling, so I will be “mother” to her plants while she is away.  And today .. I’m going to water them with EM.  As a matter of fact .. today .. is the day for me to add EM to all the outside plants.

I’ll put some of my precious EM in water, and spray the leaves and water the base of the plants.

Plus, time to move some raspberry plants.

Yesterday I noticed a yellow jacket (I think it was that, some kind of wasp) and didn’t have a chance to take a photo.  I think it must be the Queen. So now I’ll be very careful and looking for potential nests.  And now is the time to do all the digging in the side gardens, last year I waited too long and just had to leave them alone.  There was so much wasp activity, and I can’t bear to be stung again.

Looking forward to spending this whole day outside in the yard!!

And tonight .. finally .. we go to see William Roache (aka long-suffering Ken) from Coronation Street.  He’s acted in this show since the very beginning.  We are so looking forward to seeing him in person.  We have the first row seats and will have the opportunity to meet & talk with him after the show.  Oh, what shall I ask him?  Dare I comment about “Deidre’s” neck .. how the veins stand out when she’s yelling .. “oh, Ken!”   

I was going to take a lot of CS memorabilia with me, but, will try to be mature and just take a few things.  But which few?  Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Well .. on with this day!!!

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Organizing my gardening information, playing with ideas on decorating some wooden items.

Friday, March 9, 2012

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Oh, Thursday was a magnificently lovely sunny day!  A tiny bit chilly in the morning .. but it soon warmed up!

Went for a long walk in the morning to a large stationery store … I’m organizing my gardening information and wanted to buy some plastic sleeves.   Then on to Michael’s, to pick up some inexpensive wooden items.  These included some wooden frames for pictures … I plan to play with these, stain them with watered down paints and add some glitter in the way of costume jewellery bits and then insert some garden pics.  This won’t be happening anytime soon, but perhaps in a few weeks.

Also picked up some small wooden “china” cabinets.  They remind me of one we had in our house while growing up.  I’ll stain this one with watered down acrylics, or maybe I’ll just use some glaze with a bit of burnt umber to give it an interesting look .. but first a base of paint.  Then the glaze.   Yes, I’ve done this before, transforming garage sale bits and pieces into some funky looking furniture.  Fun.  Cheap.  Ii mean .. um . inexpensive and a way to recycle, reuse.

I am becoming so aware of the trees and plants around me, thanks to the recent pruning sessions and the Native Plant Workshop that I recently attended.  I feel as if I’m uncovering layer upon layer of depths of understanding regarding our natural world.

It’s a bit like being in a 3-D atmosphere.  Noticing horrible pruning attempts and ivies climbing trees on the boulevards.   Shiver.  Happy to see lots of native plants in some areas, though, in particular the local library.  I’ll post pics of these tomorrow.

Takes awhile for all this information to sink in though .. and it is .. a bit at a time.  That’s the fun part.

I’ve always thought that having earthworms in the soil is a good thing.   They digest the soil and leave valuable castings behind them, mixing up the minerals in the soil.  I’ve learned that the red wigglers in the container compost are different from the earthworms.  They can’t survive in the soil that the earthworms thrive in.

And then I’ve just learned that there is another type of earthworm, the european earthworm, which is threatening the forests of some areas in Minnesota.

These european earthworms are destroying the habitat for oven birds in northern Midwest forests http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/s-sse022912.php

It’s the domino effect .. the worms eat the rich layer of leaf litter on the forest floor, the birds have much less nesting material and thus are more visible and vulnerable to predators.  They have to go farther to find suitable nesting areas, there is less habitat for them.

“Because the forested areas of the Midwest U.S. were once covered in glaciers, there are no native earthworm species present in the soil. “These earthworm-free forests developed a slow fungus-based decomposition process characterized by a deep organic litter layer on the forest floor,” to quote Scott Loss of the University of Minnesota.

Ecosystems have evolved for a reason.  And the loss of one item causes a chain reaction for the rest.

Well, this will be short and sweet .. I’ve been spending a lot of time working on an assignment and I just want to play out side .. however, I feel that I am learning lots and lots and this will be beneficial later on.  I am not someone who gladly sits at a desk typing and reading all day .. I need to dig, shovel, plan, move .. so plan on doing that tomorrow.

Oh, back to my story about shopping for plastic sheet protectors.  I was lucky enough to gather up a treasure trove of handouts on native plant gardening (by the CRD) at the Native Plant workshop a few days ago.  So I spent some time yesterday inserting these into their respective sleeves and they are now all arranged tidily in a binder  - which I happened to find in my supplies, so was spared purchasing one for this purpose.

I know for a fact how easily paper can get lost!  So having my gardening information in a binder, protected by a layer of plastic to protect the pages against any Yorkshire Tea spillage will proved to be a good.  Although I did manage to jostle my tea mug yesterday as I was involved in this project and luckily was able to blot up the offending tea droplets with a dishcloth.

Oh, what a life I do lead, though!! 

Anyway, I need to finish my assignment and then I can go outside!!

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