By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

Ornamental gourds (Photo: Cooksgarden.com)

If you’ve cruised the produce section at the grocery lately, you probably stopped to eye the small, colorful, oddball gourds near the pumpkins and winter squash.

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By Christopher Peake
Green Right Now

“Just the thought of tomato blight sends fear into the heart of every farmer.” Those are the words of organic farmer Charlie Reid, who operates two small farms in southeastern New Hampshire. “We’ve been lucky this year … so far,” says Reid. “Lots of farmers have had to pull (dig up and destroy) their entire tomato crops. But with all this rain and so little sun my luck could change (for the worse) overnight.”

Blight is a highly contagious fungus that hits both tomatoes and potatoes. The Potato Famine in Ireland in the late 19^th century was caused by blight. And now blight is killing both tomato and potato crops in New England and in some mid-Atlantic states. It’s not yet an epidemic, but cause for concern for both farmers and consumers, as well as home garden growers who unwittingly used infected seedlings.

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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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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

If you are looking for native plants for your garden – truly native plants that belong by heritage in your region and state – we have found a bouquet of information.

Novices and master gardeners alike will find a bounty of advice at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website, where they’ve the Native Plant Information Network that spans the United States now lists some 7,200-plus native plants.

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By Chris Reinholds
Green Right Now

Talk about eating locally.

It doesn’t get much more local than your own backyard.

A Georgia company is selling ‘Farm in a Barrel.’ It’s a self-contained eco-system that allows homeowners to raise organic fish and vegetables at the same time. The method, called aquaponics, combines aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (growing plants in a soil-less system.) The fish produce the nutrients to feed the plants, while the plants and bacteria clean the water for the fish.

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By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

‘Tis the time of year for bugs to start bugging us. They may be creepy, or stingers, but most bugs and spiders serve a useful purpose in the environment. There are numerous devices now to help you trap and release wayward insects, indoors and out.

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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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By Harriet Blake

The EPA has issued a list of pesticides that will be screened for possibly disrupting the human, as well as animal, endocrine system. The list, released Wednesday, focuses on “endocrine disruptors” which are chemicals that can negatively impact hormones produced by the endocrine system. The system regulates all biological processes in the body – specifically, growth, metabolism and reproduction.

“Gathering this information,” said EPA Adminstrator Lisa P. Jackson, “will help us work with communities and industry to protect Americans from harmful exposure. Endocrine disruptors can cause lifelong health problems, especially for children.”
The endocrine, or hormone, system is found in all mammals, birds and fish. It is made up of glands, hormones that are produced by the glands and receptors in different organs that respond to the hormones.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Before you turn over the first spade of dirt for your new veggie garden, you’ll want to take stock of your equipment. Spades, shovels, picks — these things tend to accumulate in garages and storage closets, and you’ve probably got some already. If you’ve done any flower gardening or have potted plants, you also likely have a watering can that can be used in the veggie patch.

But when it comes to hoses and watering equipment, there are some special considerations when growing food.

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By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible

– Welsh proverb

The recession-fueled increase in home gardening of vegetables, herbs, fruit and berries is creating another boom: seed sales.

Seven million more households are planning to grow food for themselves this year than in 2008, a 19 percent increase, according to a recent National Gardening Association report. That’s a pretty significant number, given the fact that 31 percent of all American households already garden for food. And it is likely that their 19 percent estimate is growing every day.

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From Green Right Now Reports

TruGreen, the largest lawn care services provider in the U.S., announced it going greener by introducing a new lawn care program that includes organic lawn products.

TruGreen said its “Go greener” service will be tested in 38 markets this spring before rolling out nationally in 2010. However, the company says its new natural, organic products will be immediately available nationwide on request.

While TruGreen is not going to be completely organic, the new “Targeted Lawn Care” suite of services will be more Earth friendly. That shift in company philosophy resulted from customer research and is evidenced by TruGreen dropping the “ChemLawn” branding it had widely used.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

It seems that the iconic American wide, grassy lawn, which has lately been encroached upon by rock beds and strips of native flowers designed to cut down on watering, is undergoing some more surgery. It is now giving up real estate to another pursuit: Homeowners are claiming portions of their lawns for produce production.

Landscapers have noted the emergence of these small scale agricultural endeavors, with a new survey by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) finding that about 20 percent of residential landscape architects report they are replacing part or all of traditional grass lawns with food/vegetable gardens.

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