In this issue:
- April in the Garden
- Earth Day, continued…
- Gardenerd Tip of the Month: Get Ready for Blight
- Gardenerd Product of the Month: Gardening for Geeks
1. April in the Garden
Easter, Passover and the red-hot lunar eclipse have come and gone, but spring is just getting started. Whether you’re still waiting for the ground to thaw, or are seeing your first tomatoes setting fruit, spring is wrapping itself around us all. It takes hold and won’t let go until we eat those first tomatoes from the garden. I’m looking forward to that.
This week, we celebrate Earth Day, which began in 1970 as energy usage and pollution were climbing to unprecedented heights. 44 years later, we have recovered some ground (pollution levels are lower than ’70s rates in many cities), but we still have so far to go in reducing carbon emissions, restoring lost rain forests, and replenishing our waterways back to clean, safe drinking water. See below for ideas to keep Earth Day going all year long.
Attention all local Angelinos! This Saturday, April 26, 2014 is the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase. Take this free, self-guided tour to get ideas for reducing or eliminating your lawn (and water usage). I’ll be at garden 4B all day with plenty of gardening advice and copies of Gardening for Geeks for sale. On Sunday, I’ll be giving a free lecture at Artisanal LA on Bee-Friendly Gardens at 3 p.m. Come by, chat and meet some great local vendors!
Happy Gardening,
Christy
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Lower Yosemite Falls’ beauty is overwhelming
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2. Earth Day, continued…
Earth Day. Earth Month…no, let’s call it Earth Day every day. Picking up trash along the river on Earth Day is great, but let’s think bigger. What can we do to keep it from getting there in the first place? Remembering to turn the water off while brushing our teeth is fantastic, but let’s go a step further. Let’s turn our yards into water capturing basins that return water to the aquifer. There is so much more we can do to help Mother Earth. Here are some great ideas :
Green Home Check List – From simple things like bringing a bag to the store to more thorough ideas like “repair instead of replace,” check out this tips to a greener Earth Day (life).
Take the Carbon Footprint Quiz – see how many earths it takes to support your lifestyle. (Here at Gardenerd it would take 3-4 planets if everyone lived like we do, and we thought we were pretty good!)
We’re #1! – We pride ourselves in being the best here in America, but this statistic isn’t so great. Do you know what our largest export is? Trash. That’s right. We export more trash than any other product or resource in the country. Click on the link over there to find ways to reduce, like bringing your own containers to take-out and stores. Or better yet, reduce the amount of packaged products you buy all together.
Everything we do has an effect. We do our best, but we can always do more. Find one thing to add to your earth-friendly lifestyle and share it below in the comments section.
3. Gardenerd Tip of the Month – Get Ready for Blight
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Tomato blight starts at the bottom and works its way up
Blight is a fact of life in recent years. It seems that no matter how much compost tea, sanitation, or best practices we use, it still shows up. Let’s be vigilant and get ready:
4. Gardenerd Product of the Month – Gardening for Geeks
Back in stock! We know it’s been the product of the month for awhile, but it’s always in season. New copies are arriving this week at your favorite bookseller (the publisher ran out!) Get yours now and sail through spring with confidence.
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- Gardening for Geeks by Christy Wilhelmi
Stay tuned for more tips and tidbits from Gardenerd.com. Happy spring gardening!
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