“Home and Garden events and meetings - NWITimes.com” plus 4 more

Home and Garden events and meetings - NWITimes.com
Community service garden bearing more than just vegetables - Daily American Online
Fancy a wildlife safari? Just pop out of your door to see if there are ... - Daily Mail
A return to the small urban farm - Inside Bay Area
Harvest Home Fest – celebrating home, harvest and Halloween - Calaveras Enterprise

Home and Garden events and meetings - NWITimes.com

Posted: 08 Sep 2009 02:40 PM PDT

Home and Garden events and meetings

Submit your local home and garden event online at nwi.com/calendar and to Marge Kullerstrand at margaret.kullerstrand@nwi.com.

TALTREE FREE DAY | Valparaiso

On Sept. 11, Taltree Arboretum & Gardens, 450 West 100 North, Valparaiso, will offer free admission to the grounds in memory of the tragic events of 9/11. Taltree's beautiful gardens, winding paths and soothing waters provide a perfect setting for quiet reflection and remembrance of the day that changed our nation forever. Taltree is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

FYI: www.taltree.org

RECOGNIZING HAZARDOUS TREES | Merrillville

7 p.m. Sept. 15 is the featured presentation this month by Master Gardener Russell Hodge at the Lake County Public Library, 1919 W. 81st Ave. Call to register.

FYI: (219) 769-3541, ext. 317

FALL PERENNIAL PLANT SWAP | Hobart

10 a.m. Sept 14 at Deep River County Park, 9410 Old Lincoln Highway. Meet in the parking lot behind the Visitor Center. Fall is a great times to increase or change plant varieties in your garden. One way to do this is to swap perennials. So pot your perennials, identify them and bring them to the Plant Swap to exchange for others. Gardening staff will be on hand to give information on planting and care of your new varieties. Also, bring empty containers for plants that may be divided and exchanged. Don't be late....plants go fast.

FYI: (219) 947-7275

LANDSCAPING | Munster

The Humane Society Calumet Area is seeking help with improving the land surrounding the shelter playground. Items needed include clean fill, Riff Raff rock, a gas powered weed wacker and an individual who owns a mini excavator and is willing to donate his or her time.

FYI: (219) 922-3811, ext. 311

ASK A MASTER GARDENER

Ask a Master Gardener for free expert gardening advice. University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners are trained to provide homeowners with research-based horticulture information on managing insects, diagnosing plant diseases and successfully growing all kinds of plants, according to Nancy Pollard, University of Illinois Extension Horticulture Educator for the Cook County/South Suburban located in Matteson. Solutions are: cost effective, research-based, and environmentally friendly. The Master Gardeners are available to answer your questions 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday until Nov. 15.

FYI: (708) 720-7510 or http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/cook/urbanhort.html

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Community service garden bearing more than just vegetables - Daily American Online

Posted: 08 Sep 2009 08:31 PM PDT

WILLS — More than 1,500 items harvested from the probation department's community service garden project will be delivered to food pantries before the end of the growing season.

Community service crew members have been busy picking the last of the vegetables from the garden.

"I hope we have beaten the blight," said Rick Walters, community service crew leader, as he inspected a pile of tomatoes.

He estimated that the garden will produce about 40 pounds of potatoes and 30 dozen ears of sweet corn. His crews have picked and delivered 868 cucumbers and 124 tomatoes to several local food pantries.

By participating in either the planting, growing, harvesting or delivering of produce from the garden, the crew members fulfill their court-ordered community service requirements and work off restitution. They also reap the benefits of giving back to the community in hard economic times.

"I think it is a wonderful thing," said Joyce Mazza of Somerset as she inspected the tomato plants. "I especially like it when we take it to the food pantry. I've been there."

In fact, a few crew members who worked in the garden at the beginning have asked to return to see the fruits of their labor. This rarely happens with those who must perform community service, according to Mike Sopich, community service coordinator.

Local residents jumped in to help the project get off the ground. Robert and Tomalee Will donated the land for the garden, and they used their farm equipment and fertilizer to prepare the soil. Mark Baker, owner of Baker's Home and Garden Center, Berlin Plank Road, donated the cucumbers and tomatoes. The Robert Miller family from Mill Run donated the potatoes. Probation department employees contributed by buying $1 dress-down-day coupons to pay for the corn.

In the program, adults and juveniles often work side-by-side and help each other. Walters helps everyone, but he is clear that the garden's success or failure is a direct result of the crew's work as a team.

This year is a good one.

"It went so much better than what I expected in the first year," said Carol Lasky, juvenile probation supervisor. "Our plan was to start small and to add to it every year. We definitely will be expanding it next year."

The garden project helps fulfill several of the goals of community service, including establishing work skills, improving self-confidence and building interpersonal skills, Lasky said. The positive result is evident in participants who seemingly cannot wait to pick another item from the garden or deliver it to a food pantry.

Mazza said she wants to use the skills she has acquired in the program to grow her own garden some day.

"I never thought I'd have a green thumb," she said. "But I do."

(Judy D.J. Ellich can be contacted at judye@dailyamerican.com. Comment on the online story at dailyamerican.com.)

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Fancy a wildlife safari? Just pop out of your door to see if there are ... - Daily Mail

Posted: 08 Sep 2009 06:51 PM PDT

By Graham Harvey
Last updated at 2:10 AM on 09th September 2009

An ageing buddleia bush in the botanic muddle we laughingly call our front border seems to be getting more attention than ever from the world of Insectivora. In a rare burst of summer sunshine, it attracted the usual bustle of Red Admiral, Tortoiseshell and Peacock butterflies.

But this time they were joined by a dozen or more Painted Ladies, flickering around the swaying leaves.

'All the way from the Atlas mountains just to visit our manky old shrub,' remarked Anne, my wife.

True. But no more amazing than the swallows finding it worthwhile to make their annual trip from Africa to nest amid the clutter of our garden shed.

Nature in the garden: Creatures, such as the Hummingbird Hawk-moth (left) flutter around our gardens almost unnoticed

Or the exotic, day-flying Hummingbird Hawk-moth that seems to have made a dash up from the Mediterranean to check out the nectar potential of our patio tubs.

You can keep your TV wildlife spectaculars. Each day in our less-than-immaculate country garden there's a veritable extravaganza of wildlife activity just outside our back door.

So I wasn't at all surprised to see the report that Britain's gardens harbour a far greater diversity of wildlife than the farmland that makes up much of the countryside.

According to the report's author, ecologist Dr Ken Thompson from Sheffield University, even the smallest urban garden can contain a range of plants and insects that makes most farmland look like a 'biological desert'.

Apparently, a survey of urban gardens in Sheffield revealed more than 1,100 different plants, representing two-thirds of our native flora. In addition, there were no fewer than 700 species of insects and other invertebrates.

In the spirit of scientific inquiry, I thought I'd do a quick count to see how many plant species we could score in our Somerset garden. I gave up after half-an-hour with the total standing at 215. And I hadn't even got beyond the compost bin.

As for animals, they're everywhere. In the chart on the opposite page, which you can cut out and keep for future reference, I've listed some of my favourites along with those the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds wants people to look out for.

Like any list, it's highly subjective, for there is such an abundance of creatures to discover.

Take a walk through the garden and see what species you can discover with our handy guide

Gardening is so often interrupted by the flutter of wings or the glimpse of a disappearing tail, making the garden a truly fascinating place to spend time. And it's why the whistle and warble; the croak, rasp and buzz make up a non-stop soundtrack to life out of doors.

Most of the time it all goes unnoticed, of course. We filter out the background sounds and images as we concentrate on the job in hand.

But every so often we're confronted by something so magnificent or extraordinary that it crashes into our consciousness in a jaw-dropping moment of wonder.

Like the evening I worked late in the vegetable patch planting out cabbages. As the darkness closed around me, I became aware of movement close to my head. I stood up and watched in awe as a pair of tiny Pipistrelle bats gave me a twilight master-class in echo navigation.

Then there was the summer morning when I walked past the firethorn bush (Pyracantha) that borders the path leading to our washing line. I heard a low and constant drone, like a chord played on a distant harmonium.

And I realised that seemingly every one of what must have been many thousands of tiny flowers was occupied by a honey bee. Or the sunny afternoon when I threw back the piece of old carpet lagging the top of our compost heap only to watch four exquisite slow worms glide silkily away to their dark, secret crevices.

When it comes to encouraging wildlife, it seems the gardening tip that matters most is to avoid being over-zealous. The key is to increase

the volume of vegetation in the garden - grow more big trees and shrubs, let the existing ones get bigger and don't wheel out the mower too often. The more green stuff you have, the more slugs, caterpillars and insects you get, which attracts the larger wildlife.

While the weed-free flower border and the manicured lawn are an improvement on most farm fields, what really transforms your average garden into a micro-Serengeti is a bit of benign neglect.

This suits me fine. Many's the time I've been late with a task that seemed essential to keeping the garden 'up together', only to be rewarded with the rare and the beautiful. Like the glistening, golden frog I discovered in the long grass behind the raspberries. The name Common Frog in no way did it justice.

In this year's wet spring, I was late getting the mower to a distant extremity of our mossy front lawn. We're well used to seeing wild plants such as Hawkbit and Bird's Foot Trefoil appear on the lawn when it's left too long.

But on one particularly damp patch we were delighted to see a clutch of mauve Lady's Smock appear, a reminder that the garden was once a stretch of wet meadow.

There's also a clump of stinging nettles under the hedge that I've been meaning to take the strimmer to all summer.

I'm now so glad I never got round to it. For as I write this looking out at the early September sunshine, I can see four Small Tortoiseshell butterflies basking open-winged on a clump of flowering thyme in our herb garden.

Stinging nettle is the chief food plant of this beautiful butterfly, which was once common, but now, sadly, is becoming scarce. But for that nettle patch under the hedge, who knows? They might have gone from this garden, too.

In the countryside near my home in Reading in the Fifties, these creatures seemed commonplace. Those were the days of mixed farming with its small fields, tall hedges and what seemed like thousands of mini-habitats.

These days, agriculture is a dreary business of monocultures and chemical sprays. There's little room for wildlife.

Farmers will protest that biodiversity on farms is now increasing. But this is only because we taxpayers are paying them to put back a little of what the Brussels desk farmers rewarded them handsomely for destroying 20 or so years ago.

The Sheffield survey shows that, when it comes to wildlife riches, the average arable acre can't hold a candle to even a pocket-sized patch in the city.

Thankfully, this may be due to change. Even the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, has started worrying about food security.

In terms of food output per acre, the system known as permaculture - basically the wildlife garden in a slightly scaled-up form - can knock modern intensive wheat farming into a cocked hat.

This is one thing farmers could do well to learn from gardeners. A rich diversity of wild species need not compete with food production. Properly understood and managed, it will often enhance it.

In the meantime, it's heartening to know that much of our wonderful wildlife heritage thrives in our gardens. It means we can all play a part in handing on this priceless gift to our children and grandchildren.

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A return to the small urban farm - Inside Bay Area

Posted: 01 Sep 2009 05:09 AM PDT

Home & Garden writer Holly Hayes — that would be my spouse — and I have been running a little experiment in urban farming with a series of raised beds that emphasize vertical gardening. We built them over an unused driveway space that is the sunniest spot in our backyard.

The experiment has been, on the whole, quite the success. We have a flood of exotic squash, colorful peppers, four varieties of beans and a rainbow of chard. Oh, yeah, and Ambrosia melons that are to die for. As has been the case in many backyard farms this summer, our tomato crop has been lagging, thanks to the cooler-than-normal weather, but the towering plants are starting to pump out fruit.

We have received a flood of e-mails from readers about their very clever ways to make the best use of small garden spaces. Here are some of the best:

At the trough

We installed a very efficient garden last year and everybody has said they haven't seen anything quite like it. We simply take livestock watering troughs and use them for planters. They are extremely easy to install.

I have five tanks: one 5-foot round, one 3-foot round and three 2 feet by 8 feet. I placed them on a gravel bed and punched about 20 holes in the bottom for drainage. I then put about a foot of 2- to 3-inch river rocks; 4 or 5 inches of gravel, filling the rest with a combination of local native soil and planter mix. (This settles rather quickly,

so I had to add 6 to 12 inches after a few months.)

This year, we have eight varieties of tomatoes, five of peppers/chiles, okra, basil, two varieties of strawberries, squash (vines hang down over the edge of the bins to the ground), sugar peas and carrots. One bin was dedicated to blackberries to contain the new shoots but I have since moved them to another contained area. (I harvested enough blackberries to last all year.)

In the winter, I will have broccoli, various lettuces, sugar peas, carrots and winter squash.

I got the bins at a feed and pet supply for $150 to $175 each.

I initially put in this system because of a bad back problem because it allows me to garden without leaning over. Also, there have been no snails, slugs or bug problems.

I never knew gardening could be so easy. I guess the produce I have (or will have) harvested this first year will just about pay for the initial investment.

— G. Craige Edgerton, San Jose

Rock collection

My husband and I downsized a few years ago. No more watering my huge garden by hand, just a little garden in the sunny back yard. But the gophers! No garden.

But after a time, spurred on by the nationwide gardening bug, I wanted another garden. The requirements: 1) get rid of the gophers; 2) raised bed; and 3) use all those gorgeous rocks inherited from my husband's rockhound grandmother, gathering dust at the side of the house. I had always wanted a rock wall, but the real answer came when a new Arts and Crafts house with a rock foundation was completed across the street.

I asked the newly out-of-work artist builder to make me a rock-faced garden area lined with hardware cloth featuring all the rocks that we had collected through the years: fossils from childhood, weathered stones from England, river rocks and petrified wood from Oregon, geodes and obsidian from Nevada. It's gorgeous and the back faces an alley so that I've shared the beauty of it with the neighbors.

— Stella Sexmith, Santa Cruz

Frontyard gardening

My wife and I decided last year to start growing some herbs and vegetables. To my neighbors' surprise, we pulled out all the shrubs in a section of our front yard between the driveway and the entry way. It's an odd shape: roughly 30 feet long, 1 foot wide at the curb and 6 feet wide near the house.

Initially, my kids and I turned up all the soil with a shovel and planted some perennial flowers in the winter. Come spring, we filled it out with vegetables and other color. It is now a flourishing garden, to the delight of folks that drive by. Plus we have an array of herbs (sage, oregano, thyme, basil and cilantro) and vegetables including tomatoes, hot peppers, blueberries, squash and eggplant.

I am soooo NOT a green thumb. I just took a crack at it and it mostly has been a success.

— Bruce Hartman, San Jose

Small spaces

My garden is in a very small space: 2 feet wide by 12 feet long in three raised boxes, with an additional box across from it that is 12 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 feet tall for my fruit trees. I have my tomatoes in pots on my front porch, where they can get the most sun. Vertical gardening is definitely the way to go in such a small space. I created mine based on instructions in the book "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew, which also includes a recipe for making your own potting mix that has worked really well.

My kids and I did the same thing at their school, building six 3 foot by 3 foot boxes and making the potting mix together a couple of summers ago. (I was 6 months' pregnant at the time with my third child, so it was quite the sight!) I plant the boxes with the kindergarten classes so they can see how plants grow and learn how to maintain a garden (it's unfortunately not as big a part of the curriculum as I'd hoped, but I keep trying).

— Missy St. Pierre-Sands, Santa Clara

Rethinking the driveway

We did (almost) the exact same thing this winter, turning the driveway (the only sunny spot in the yard) into a vegetable garden. Actually we tore up all of our cement and didn't put in as many garden boxes as you did (but there's room for more!)

I currently have five kinds of tomatoes, two kinds of peppers, summer squash, mint and basil. We have harvested the red chard (it was burned in that May heat wave but came back) and put in strawberries. The tomatoes are going strong. Yum!

This is the first year I've put in a veggie garden. We never had enough sun and finally figured out that the useless driveway space was perfect.

— Lisa Hettler-Smith, San Jose

Making it work for kids

I'm a middle school science teacher in Livermore, and always add a garden to each school I've worked at. I was really surprised this year about how much my students enjoyed eating the snow peas that they grew. I thought that, by seventh grade, they would be too "old" to show this enthusiasm. That's the beauty of gardens; they always add magic.

What resonated from your article was the point about raised beds being wheelchair-friendly. We have many special-needs kids at our school and I am now determined to make a garden that they can participate in, starting with the planning. If nothing else, I'll bring the Earth Boxes I currently use to a higher level. Thanks for the inspiration!

— Regina Brinker, Livermore

A return to gardening

I don't usually write to the newspaper, but your garden struck a wonderful chord with me.

Having had back surgery this spring, I knew I needed to stay close to home this summer as I recuperated. So a dear friend helped me build a raised garden — raised to my elbows actually (I'm 6-foot-1) — in a delightfully sunny spot behind my prefab home.

I got so excited to start a garden after 25 years of not having one, that I planted corn, tomatoes, cilantro, carrots, pumpkin, cucumbers, zucchini and spinach. I even wheeled in a little red wagon in which I planted strawberries. It turns out that the snails can't climb the wheels of the wagon.

— Janet Hascall, Sunnyvale

Grow where planted

When it comes to small-space gardens, I think our dealership (John P. Carlsen Volvo in Palo Alto) has everybody beat. Our "garden" is only a half-inch wide — the table just inside the door is where we eat lunch.

Apparently some tomato squeezed out of somebody's sandwich and a seed got lodged in the gap between the asphalt and the wall and sprouted. We have problems with Ailanthus sprouting out of the same crack, I was about to yank the plant out when I noticed that it had yellow flowers on it.

Closer inspection revealed that it had already set four tomatoes that were about the size of peas. We installed a drip irrigation system (gallon jug with a pinhole in bottom, fill it with water and it drips) and it started growing better. Don't know what variety it is, or how they taste. We have a couple that are almost ready to try.

— John Pelmulder, Palo Alto

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Harvest Home Fest – celebrating home, harvest and Halloween - Calaveras Enterprise

Posted: 08 Sep 2009 04:27 PM PDT

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Posted: Tuesday, September 8, 2009 6:33 PM CDT

The Harvest Home Festival returns to Ironstone Vineyards in Murphys Oct. 10 and 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a cornucopia of family fun and cost-saving concepts. Entry and parking are free of charge.

Tailing on the success of the 2008 premiere event, Ironstone Vineyards' magnificent amphitheater will brim with more than 120 booths proffering water-saving landscape ideas, energy-saving home improvements, discounted golf equipment, community nonprofits, exceptional art, live music, gourmet goodies, wine tasting and a healthy dose of fresh produce and hand-crafted products.

"During challenging economic times, this is a perfect venue to find out how you can save money, energy, water and valuable resources, as well as discover new Earth-friendly recycled products for the home and garden," said Patti Hennessee, event coordinator. "We also have some great new attractions this year."

Children are encouraged to come in costume and trick-or-treat at the booths, paint pumpkins, pet live turtles and take home a keepsake souvenir photo. Families have the opportunity to play the famous Nugget Hunt for valuable prizes. Attendees will also be eligible to enter to win a new Subaru from Sonora Subaru, as well as take a tour of the many painted frogs of Calaveras County. In addition, Ironstone Vineyards will hold a wine parking lot sale during the weekend festivities.

The comprehensive list of products and services available at the Harvest Home Fest includes solar power, roofing, leaf systems, kitchen essentials, cellular service, pest control, electrical system upgrades, interior design, driveway seal coating, flooring, windows and window coverings, concrete enhancements, excavating, propane, wood products, water systems, restoration, interior design, miracle cleaning supplies, landscaping, garden boxes, insulation and winter-warming spas, saunas and stoves. Just in time for holiday shopping, a wide range of vendors will offer jewelry, crafts, crystals, fine art and photography, scented soaps, stained glass, canvas tote bags, fragrant candles, beauty products, plants, stuffed animals and Calaveras-grown cashmere and alpaca products.

The farmers market will feature cut flowers, peonies and roses, as well as a wide range of fresh produce, local beef products and fruit. Talented local musicians performing at the fest include Matt Cullen, Sierra Sax & Brass Quartet and Jerry Mercer and friends.

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Home and Garden Tips

Tuesday, September 8, 2009