All the Dirt on Gardening

Portable gardening wins a competition - Inhabitat posted photos from the Venice Architecture Bienniale. In the green category, the Serbian entry included traveling planters made of tubing, old cooking pots and casters. They were inspired by the wife of a Serbian poet who said she wished for a tree that "would run after (her) down the street". Here's where Serbia is on a map This is a clever city-dweller, apartment balcony idea. When I lived in an apartment with a balcony these would have fit the bill - they can be made tall enough to catch the sun as it moves above the railing and easy to use - no gardening on the floor! Click on the slideshow link - Inhabitat's link is here Also, if you have time, clicking around the La Biennale site is fun - the short video winners include an animated, decidedly black humor one called The Naturalist . And, now on to this winter's weather from Gary McManus at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey we get the news that this winter is...

Inhabitat green blog has a terrific entry for August 13 where industrial designer Lea Bogdan wrote a piece about phone books. Not plants and gardens but there is quite a bit of cross-pollination between gardeners and those who are concerned with the environment in general. Click on the green link above to read the entire posting - here's the upshot of Bogden's research This is a quote from Bogdan's work. "THE PHONE BOOK COMPANIES RESPOND I presented these ideas along with snapshots of the abandoned phonebook clutter, to media contacts at the biggest players in the directory business. I was actually expecting deaf ears, but instead I received responses that were enlightening. Verizon Superpages The media relations representative from Idearc Media LLC , the company responsible for the Verizon Superpages , quickly replied with an informative and apologetic email. He said that the bottom line is it shouldn t be happening and we are working diligently to make sure it ...

It's freezing cold today and a good time to click around interesting sites about plants and the environment. Here are a few to get you started. GREEN BUILDINGS - THE TEN BEST OF 2008 Inhabitat posted the 10-best green buildings of 2008 - click on their name to see these beauties: A church, a temple, a college building, public buildings. They were all constructed using unique, if not new, environmentally sensitive methods. HISTORICAL AGRICULTURE LITERATURE AT CORNELL While searching for a book about weeds, I found a Cornell University link to Core Historical Literature of Agriculture . Reading on a computer screen is less desirable than actually holding a book in your hands, but when it comes to the title, "The feminine monarchie, or, The historie of bees: shewing their admirable nature, and properties, their generation, and colonies, their government, loyaltie, art, industrie, enemies, warres, magnanimitie, &c. : together with the right ordering of them from time to time:...