If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful
roses, what might not the heart of man become in its
long journey toward the stars?
- G.K. Chesterton
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it,
it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to
someone else. Most people in the city rush around so,
they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see
it whether they want to or not.
- Georgia O'Keeffe
Opportunity is missed by most people because
it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas A. Edison
 | ||||
A Seed Saved Is A Penny Earned,
10 Ways to Save A Little Green
Is it just me or is life a little more expensive all the time? I’m not sure why the prices go up. Inflation? Bad Politicians? Alien Conspiracy? Whatever the reason, gardeners have the scoop on how to harvest savings.1.Join a plant club.
Join a plant club. Make friends, see their gardens, share plants, steal design ideas!
2.Divide Perennials
Divide PerennialsSpring is the time, just as they break the ground! Act Now!
3.Fall Plant Bargains
Fall Plant BargainsHelp the plant shops clear their shelves, and dig their garden deals!
4.Save The Seeds!!!
Save The Seeds!!!Put them in envelopes in a dark dry closet, Heirloom varieties and self seeding annuals (Verbena Bonariensis, Datura) a must for the price bust!
5.Mix It Up
Mix It UpStrawberries as a ground cover? Apple tree in the front yard? Kale in containers? Put your garden where your mouth is and mix perennials, trees, and shrubs with you favorite edibles.
6.Let The Rain Do The Work
Let The Rain Do The Work Plant a rain garden in an area that catches runoff! Save money on water bills and
clean the river! It’s a Win Win!
7.Garden Chemical Free
Garden Chemical FreeNo, this doesn’t mean you have to stop the afternoon margaritas in the herb garden. But seriously, Why poison your gardens with costly gimmicks that promise miracles when you have the natural, free, and true miracle of compost. Which brings me to my next point.
8.Compost!
Compost!It’s a noun, It’s a verb, It’s an all day buffet of microbes and nutrients for your gardens delight. How is this possible you ask?
9.Go For Walks
Go For WalksNeed design inspiration? Walk around your city and see what other gardeners are up to. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
10.Recycle
RecycleSometimes I wonder how many hundreds of patios in the twin cities are made from old street pavers. It’s best to grab these after construction crews have dug them up, as folks may not take well to seeing you in the street with a pick-ax.
11.Garden With Kids
Garden With KidsI know I promised 10, but this one’s a freebie. Teach enough kids to garden, and you’ve basically guaranteed yourself fresh tomatoes every summer through your retirement. Now that’s hard to put a price on.
The Seed Vol. 2 April 20, 2007 A Giving Tree Gardens Newsletter
Quote of the Day
Photos and Text by Russ Henry
©2007 by Giving Tree Gardens, all rights reserved.
Giving Tree Gardens in the Co-op news!!!!!
The Earth Laughs in Flowers
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Preparing for Growth
The snow is melting, the days are getting longer, and the morning air is full of bird song. Spring is coming, and gardeners in these northern latitudes are ready and waiting to get their hands dirty preparing their gardens for a new seasons growth.Since the snow has begun melting I have been keeping a watchful eye on the sunnier, warmer areas of my gardens. Though it has been happening for a number of years now, I still find myself surprised to see Tulip and Scilla foliage pushing itself out of the ground as soon as the middle of March in some warm, South exposed parts of my Minneapolis gardens. At this time of year my gardens are still resting beneath 4 to 6 inches of covering hay. These bulbs pushing out are the signal that it is time to begin removing the hay from the warm parts of the garden. Once the nighttime temps have steadily stayed above 30 degrees for 2 weeks it is safe to remove any remaining covering hay. It is important to me that I remove the hay before the bulbs begin pushing up in large quantities as I will want to give the gardens a 2-3 inch layer of fresh compost once the cover is gone, and I don’t want to bury any bulb foliage while I do it. The compost I spread will enrich, darken, and warm the soil thus giving the gardens a healthy, beautiful head start for the growing season to come.The Seed Archives:
The Garden Solution:
Cultivate Financial Freedom
By Saying No to Sod
It's no secret that holistic living can work wonders for a person's well being. Eating organic food, connecting with nature, and generally “greening up” daily life has never seemed so important. Realistically speaking, though, most of us face an inescapable economic bottom line, and make the mistake of thinking that holistic living has to cost more than less healthy lifestyle choices.
Looking at the price of organic food at the grocery store, it's easy to make this mistake. I know I can't afford to pay a dollar for a single tomato, or five for a box of herbal tea. There is a simple way around this, though: The Garden Solution.
Without even considering the the potential benefits to health or property value, turning your lawn into a garden is a solid and sensible investment. With just a little time and money up front, anyone can make their yard into a beautiful investment account, and realize far better long-term interest rates than those offered by any bank I know of. Breaking down a hypothetical situation will show you what I mean.
Taking my most recent trip to Whole Foods, I saw organic raspberries on sale for four dollars per six oz. Container, half an ounce of mint tea for five dollars, and that buck-a-tomato deal mentioned earlier. If I consume one tomato, two glasses of mint tea, and three oz. Of raspberries per day, that's about $3.83 I've spent at the store. Per year, then, this small portion of organic food goes for approximately $1400.00.
That's fourteen hundred bucks for roughly sixty-eight pounds of berries, three hundred sixty-five tomatoes, and eleven pounds of mint. Eighteen healthy tomato plants, twenty large mint plants, and a few dozen berry bushes around the perimeter of my medium-sized urban yard can produce this amount of food in a single season.
I don't want my yard looking like a farm, though, and it's not good for the soil to limit the variety of flora to just a few edibles, so a diverse combination of edible and ornamental plants would seem to serve my hypothetical needs here best. If I were to transform my yard into such a garden, how much would it cost? To find out, I talked with Russ Henry, owner of Giving Tree Gardens. This is a local gardening company with a holistic and petrochemical-free approach, so it seemed a sensible choice for my inquiry.
Mr. Henry informed me of the difficulties in estimating the installation costs for my imaginary garden, because each site is unique from an horticultural perspective. Still, with the numbers I gave him, Mr. Henry assured me that, barring extraordinary circumstances, it would be reasonable to assume the price would be significantly less than the fourteen thousand dollars it could save me over the next ten years. Everything after that initial ten-year payback period (which is about half the time it takes for an array of solar panels to repay their initial cost) is, as they say, gravy.
-Mark Bailey
Minneapolis Resident, Gardener, and Writer
