All the Dirt on Gardening

Authors Whitney Cohen and John Fisher both work at Santa Cruz, California's Life Lab ( http://www.lifelab.org/ ). Their new book, Gardening Projects for Kids, is a guide to their best 100 activities with children that help bring families together, teach children the wonders of being in nature, and inspire the next generation of growers. Of course the basic point is to involve children in the entire process from planning, to making it fun, magical and safe for them. Don't think you need a place like Life Lab to do these projects: Small spaces work as well as a big yard and small projects work better than complicated ones. Family garden features can include a fairy garden, bird baths, a flower cutting bed, swing, tables, wind sock, or easy to grow vegetables. The book has plenty of accessible ideas such as visit an existing garden to explore possible features for yours. Or, how about making a collage and planting calendar by cutting pictures out of seed catalogs and talk...

Kitchen waste takes up 30% of the landfill according to the experts. A compost pile and a worm composting bin or two would eliminate that burden on landfills. Friends of Honor Heights Park is sponsoring a worm composting workshop Saturday, October 17 from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the Garden Education Room at Muskogee's Honor Heights Park Learn how to improve your garden while helping the Earth. Worm composting reduces landfill and provides non-chemical fertilizer for growing flowers, vegetables and herbs. Participants should bring a plastic container 1 to 3 feet tall and 2 feet long to hold your worms, their food and shredded newspaper bedding. We will drill holes in your container and provide enough red wriggler worms to start a home system. In addition to materials on home vermicomposting , Bruce Edwards, Urban Harvest Director for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, will teach commercial worm composting. Vermicomposting helps keep kitchen waste out of the landfills. The worksho...

This is a branch of the peach tree. Pretty but maybe not so good for this year's peach production. The lavender has stood tall all winter. We'll see how she does when the ice melts. Thursday it is predicted to be in the mid-50s again. The Heavenly Bamboo is beautiful iced over. When I approached it to take the photo, a family of bunnies scampered out. It was still mostly dark at 8:30 a.m.