Category Archives: Out and About

Gardening should get you dirty

July 9, 2010 by The Manic Gardener

Parseley and cilantro

Let me be clear: I HATE shopping, and will put it off almost forever. Nevertheless, as has been true all too often this spring, I spent most of my gardening time yesterday in the car doing errands. Gardening time! In the car! Ack! More money than I care to admit has gone into the garden in the form of fencing, amendments, row covers, strawberries, and a dozen other items.

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Posted in Personals, Tools of the Trade

Soil blocks #2: How to, Q & A

April 15, 2010 by The Manic Gardener

Well, this isn't quite the “tomorrow” so casually mentioned in my last post; I must learn not to make such promises. Life's been even more than usually busy, for the past week has included both Abdoulaye's departure and a visit from one of Steve's most excellent brothers. The former event leaves us bereft, but I suspect Abdoulaye feels rather differently, as he's returning to his wife of a just a year and a half. He certainly sounded cheerful when he called this afternoon, as did she. More about Jeff's visit tomorrow soon, but for now, on to soil blocks.

Soil blocks from top

The Mini 4 (left; 2" blocks) and Micro 20 (right; 3/4" bocks)

Q: So what the heck are soil blocks,
and how do you make them?

As mentioned in my last rambling post, soil blocks are free-standing (pot-less) compressed chunks of soil used for starting seedlings. They're made using special molds which consist of cubes or sets of cubes with open bottoms and moveable tops attached to a spring. Two are pictured above. Apparently those tools are sometimes referred to as "blocks," while what they produce is called a "soil block," but to avoid confusion, I'll refer to the tools themselves as "molds."

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Posted in Tools of the Trade

A hefty discount, but whoa, Nelly! A weighty shipping fee

March 24, 2010 by The Manic Gardener

So, er, remember the fine offer I told you all about a few weeks back? You know, the publisher's generous
40% discount off that new Black Dog alternative gardening book
Growing Stuff? Well, um, it turned out that there was a slight
hitch to that offer: a shipping fee that in some cases completely
wipes out the discount.

I was alerted to this by my friend Feed Store Girl, who sent me her invoice, with all the gory details:

Book price:     24.95

with discount  14.97   So far, so good.But then comes the kicker:

Shipping         14.81

TOTAL:           29.78

Now, wait up a minute there! This is not book rate as I remembered it.

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Posted in Books

Organic lawn care: a matter of definitions, or a moral dilemma?

March 16, 2010 by The Manic Gardener

I’ve got a question for all of you: Can an organic garden service that farms out toxic weed control still call itself organic? Has it sacrificed its integrity, its very soul, or is such language uselessly hyperbolic in such a case?

Let me explain how the question arose. Given the paucity of garden-related businesses that had booths at Bozeman’s poorly-named home and garden show (subject of one of my more acerbic posts), I had time for conversations with the folks staffing all three. Indeed, I swooped down on the two booths for organic gardening services, partly out of sheer delight that they existed, but in part to ask a highly pertinent question: How did they handle bindweed on a residential property?

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Posted in Landscaping, Lawns & Grass, Organic Gardening, Out and About

Bozeman home and garden show: not so much

March 15, 2010 by The Manic Gardener

OR

A lesson learned: be chary with your guilt

Astroturf

Last year I missed this show. I saw a sign or heard an add, and the next time I turned around, it was over. Immediately, I was stricken with guilt. After all, as a garden blogger, shouldn’t I be running around the country to see garden shows? If I’m not flying to England for the Chelsea show, at least I can attend the local one. But I didn’t. Hence the guilt.

This year, I actually got to the show (thanks to my friend Ellen), and I have to report that last year’s paroxysms were a complete waste of good guilt.

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Posted in Landscaping, Out and About