Gardening Topics

This morning I participated in a Charlotte Heifer presentation on the topic of Sustainable Gardening. My part was bees and worms, bringing in our empty hive and an observation hive with live bees in it and all of the acoutrements. For the worms, I recreated an elementary school science project by placing different layers of earth in an aquarium, adding earthworms from my own garden, and keeping it covered in the garage for a month. After that much time, you can see the progress that the worms are making mixing the different layers of earth together. I used sand, composted manure and topsoil, and dirt from my garden in six layers. Kinda got heavy so next time I will cheat and put styrofoam blocks in the center and fill the dirt around the sides of the aquarium. Other topics included composting, making your backyard into a certified wildlife habitat, container gardening, and making newspaper pots to start seed in.
The boys and I also got our seedlings in the ground. I picked up some small plants from Dearness Gardens on the way home from picking up our lawnmower. The tomatoes I chose were Heirloom Green Zebra, Supersonic, 100 Sweet, and Grape. Also got a few cukes, some Carolina Sweet Bell Peppers, and some hot peppers for Alex. I saw a bunny in our front yard this morning despite Stripe being on the loose out there so I wonder if the baby plants will make it without being nibbled to death.
Also our blueberry bush has exploded in berries. One of the benefits of not being a good pruner is that your shrubs get tall and lanky. For me, this means the birds are too heavy to land on the blueberry branches and therefore can't eat much fruit.