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A conversation with Austin’s ‘Natural Gardener’
John Dromgoole, owner of “The Natural Gardener” in Austin, has been advising folks on how to go natural and organic in the garden for a couple decades.
Not only does organic gardening save the wider environment, it’s critical to keeping our home turf, our kids, our pets and ourselves healthier. Watch the first part of our conversation with Dromgoole in which he talks about the dangers of pesticides, the growing popularity of organic gardening and the wisdom of letting nature work in harmony in our gardens. We visited with Dromgoole in his garden and store, a vast spread of demonstration plots bursting with butterfly food, culinary herbs, produce, native plants, succulents and whimsical garden decor.
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Tags: · Austin's Natural Gardener, butterfly gardens, garden chemicals, greenrightnow.com, growing herbs, growing produce, Native Plants, Organic gardening, pesticides, reasons to go organic, The Natural Gardener
Get a greener green thumb with eco-garden accessories and tools
Those tomatoes are looking good. Your compost is top-notch, you’ve added extra manure for a nitrogen boost and the aphids have been blasted away with a strong spray of water. The grass-clipping mulch has smothered any weeds, and there are no spotted leaves or blossom-end rot to be seen.
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Tags: · compost worms, composter, eco-conscious gardening, Fair Trade goods, fair trade hammock, fair-trade tools, garden tools, gardening, Organic gardening, organic gardening clothes, organic gardening decor, organic gardening tools, push reel mower, recycled garden tools, recycled organic gardening, sustainable garden tools, vegan gardening shoes, vertical planting, vintage garden decor
What you need to know: Composting
By Chris Reinolds
Composting can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. From piling green and brown things in a corner of the yard
[caption id="attachment_9897" align="alignright" width="201" caption="Compost bins need aeration, like this metal mesh enclosure. (Photo: Bureau of Environmental Services, Howard County, Md.)"]  [/caption]
to buying that perfect compost bin, you’ll generate the same end result. Those of us who turn and nurture our piles can expect more compost in a faster time period, but regardless our gardens will benefit from a little or a lot.
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Tags: · Composting, mulch, Organic gardening, Rodale Institute, The Ecology Center of San Francisco, University of Missouri, waste reduction
Nitpicking with Lowe’s
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
We are often hardest on those we like. It’s because our disappointment is somehow greater when we’ve been conditioned to expect better.
Like when your once cuddly child becomes a teenager. Or your beloved hairdresser turns your hair green. Cognitive dissonance sets in, followed by betrayal, followed by disappointment (and in the case of the green hair, mortification.)
And so it was last year when I went to Lowe’s for my usual spring garden supplies — a humble gallon of vinegar weed treatment, several bags of organic mulch, some greensand etc. I count on Lowe’s to have these things. This time, though, I also was looking for a second rain barrel.
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Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, eco-friendly consumer products, Energy Star, Lowe's companies, Lowe's Home Improvement Stores, natural pest control, organic garden products, Organic gardening, rain barrels
Hobbyists sweetening the picture for threatened honey bees
By Chris Reinolds
Green Right Now
Beekeeper Laura Johnson enjoys tending to her buzzing friends, but the real motive behind her hobby is stopping the decline of honey bees.
Bee Colony Collapse Disorder has been threatening bees, and the crops they serve, around the world for the past several years.
So Johnson, an organic gardener in suburban Atlanta, decided it was time to jump into honey.
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Tags: · bee farming, bee keeping, Beekeepers, Colony Collapse Disorder, honey bees, honey harvest, loss of bees, Organic gardening, pesticides, pollen, pollinating
Get garden advice while visiting the nation’s capital
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Here’s a tip from fellow blogger Obama Foodorama: Take a quick eco-detour while visiting the National Mall this summer and check out the USDA’s gardens and garden workshops.
 USDA staff will be conducting noontime mini-seminars on Fridays at The People’s Garden, installed outside the Ag Department headquarters. Topics will deal with watering, window gardens, attracting wildlife to the garden and of course, the ever-popular and more-work-than-we’d-like-it-to-be composting. You can see the schedule in this USDA press release.
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Tags: · Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, BarbaraKesslerBlog, garden advice, Organic gardening, three sisters planting, USDA People's Garden, vegetable gardening
Garden time at the Clampetts
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
The bunnies are bountiful in our backyard this year; they’re large and prolific. They’re rabbits.
So it was with an eye out for trouble that we installed the garden this past weekend. This is a second veggie garden, which we put in to test the Evo Organics handy-dandy Weed Free Garden Watering Blanket.
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Tags: · backyard garden, BarbaraKesslerBlog, Evo Organics, irrigation, Local Food, Organic gardening, Trees/Plants/Yard, Water Conservation, weeds
Books: Organic gardening
Here are some of the most popular organic gardening titles from Amazon.com:
In this introduction to sustainable landscaping practices, Linda Chalker-Scott addresses the most common myths and misconceptions that plague home gardeners and horticultural professionals. Chalker-Scott offers invaluable advice to gardeners gardeners who have wondered:
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Tags: · Books, Eliot Coleman, Organic Food, Organic gardening, Rodale
Here’s how her garden grows
By Barbara Kessler
Mary Bakatsa is “organic all the way” in her sprawling Austin garden. But that doesn’t mean she simply avoids pesticides and blithely sits back to watch. Organic gardening is more proactive and veteran gardener Bakatsa runs dozens of schemes to nudge nature in the right direction. She places certain plants near others [...]
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Tags: · gardening, Mary Bakatsa, Organic gardening
Creating an organic vegetable garden: It’s not so scary
By Barbara Kessler
You’ve decided to grow vegetables in your under-used backyard. It seems like a worthy goal; it’s green; it’s productive and you’d get some tasty treats for your efforts.
But here’s the rub, you feel like a dork poking around the garden center, trying to pick your way around the chemicals to find the natural [...]
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Tags: · John Dromgoole, Organic gardening
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— Linda Chalker-Scott