All the Dirt on Gardening

Our veggie garden is 20 by 20 - on the left are the peas on a trellis, then leeks, wax bush beans, Dinosour kale, Cos and Romaine lettuce, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, broad beans on the far right and potato cages in the back. Earth Day is celebrating its 40Th birthday today. Denis Hayes, national coordinator for the first Earth Day in 1970 is the international chair of Earth Day 2010. Hayes is chairman of the board of trustees of the American Solar Energy Society and president of the Bullitt Foundation. Twenty million Americans participated in that original Earth Day celebration. Within three years Congress passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. Today, most schools and many towns acknowledge Earth Day through activities meant to remind us that caring for the earth’s resources is important. Small conservation activities include recycling paper, glass, cooking oil, plastic containers and plastic bags. Groups can participate in tree planting proje...

The Junior Master Gardeners and their sponsor were the big workers at the worm giveaway. We gave away 115 vermicompost kits and ran out by 10:30 in the morning. Channel 22 was there to interview the master gardeners about the project. They explained how to take care of the worms when adoptive parents took them home. The Junior Ma ster Gardeners made kits, putting in food and worms. Everyone had a great time and more than a hundred new vermicomposters got started with saving the earth. If you came later than 10:30 after we ran out of worms, live locally and want a kit, email me at mollyday1@gmail.com . Maybe we can arrange a way for you to get one.

Earth Day 2008 - Here's how to use your kitchen waste in a vermicompost bin . Growing a garden has too many benefits to list. Even if you do not have time to dig in the yard, you can help the earth by feeding your food scraps to a bin of Organic material makes up two-thirds of the waste in any city. The food in that waste can be recycled through the use of worm composting. Compost worm information and starter kits will be given away this Saturday when Muskogee Farmer’s Market celebrates Earth Day. The primary benefits of worm composting include the production of “black gold” worm castings to add to potted plants or back the earth and a way to use up kitchen scraps without sending them to the landfill. Build a compost worm bin for your home or apartment — 1) Buy a plastic or wooden box 10 to 18 inches deep and drill air holes around the sides about half way up and drainage holes in the bottom. Compost worms, red wigglers or Eisenia fetida, cannot function in light so do not use a cl...

Lowe's has their late winter vegetable starts in. Packs of 9 plants are about $3.50. I want to plant Brussel sprouts and broccoli using starts so I asked Sue Gray at the OSU Extension in Tulsa for some guidance. Here is her response. "Go ahead and plant your brassica starts, but DO protect those tops….especially whenever it's going below 32 degrees F……the storebought transplants are probably not hardened off….so you may want to spend a little quality time on them or go ahead and cover with some kind of protection from wind, extreme light AND cold." So, my new babies are inside under lights for now since we are supposed to get several more freezing nights this week. I'll transplant them out of these cells because there are two plants in some of them. THE WORM HOTEL Composting with worms, vermicomposting - Hubby built a four-story hotel for the compost worms we ordered from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm . I called Uncle Jim and the Red Wrigglers (Eisenia foetida) a...

Today Muskogee Farmer's Market celebrated Earth Day. Not only were there the wonderful flowers and vegetables and bakery goodies, several organizations gave away Earth Day related items including free trees. At our booth Jan Farris, Cindi Cope and I gave away butterfly caterpillars in plastic cups for people to take home to raise into butterflies. As many adults as children took home the little kits. Jon Stoodley's photos tell the story of how nature inspires awe in us all.

If you can't think of something significant or small you can do to acknowledge Earth Day, go to any of the sites below. Each one of them has ideas - from changing light bulbs to planting trees. Almost every country in the world is bringing attention to the need to celebrate Mother Earth. Select a project, small or large, individual or on your block and join the party. Divine Caroline - 50 Green Tips for Earth Day - divinecaroline .com Earth Day In Your Neighborhood - Guide for Kids From 2 to 122 - www.allspecies.org Earthday Network - Ecological Footprint Quiz - www.earthday.net EnviroLink - online environmental community - http://earthday.envirolink.org/ Environmental Protection Agency Celebrates Earth Day - http://www.epa.gov/earthday/ International Earth Day (Christian site) - www.earthsite.org Kaboose Earth Day Celebration (for kids) - http://www.kidsdomain.com Live Earth 7.7.07 Concert for a Climate in Crisis - http://liveearth.msn.com/ Nature Conservancy Earth Day Events ...

These are adult painted Lady butterflies dining on orange slices. Double click on the photo to make it larger and look at the plant leaf on the left where the just hatched caterpillars are eating the hollyhock leaf. Then look at the tiny black dots on the paper towel and the plate - that's how small the caterpillars are the day after they hatch out of their blue eggs. Muskogee is celebrating Earth Day for the first time this year on April 21st. The celebration will be part of the opening of the Muskogee Farmer's Market in its new location at the Civic Center on Okmulgee St . My small part of Earth Day is that I am raising butterflies to make kits for a giveaway. Five weeks ago I received 30-painted lady butterfly caterpillars from an education/science company. They grew over two weeks into a size that we recognize as a caterpillar. Then they stopped eating, made chrysalis and emerged as butterflies. The adults mated and laid eggs on the plants in their box and now the cycle ...