Thursday, January 8
Missouri Organic Association's Organic Garden Club 6:30 - 8:00 pm, $5
Whole Foods, SW Corner of Clayton and Woods Mill, Town and Country, MO
With Molly Rockamann of EarthDance Farms Everyone is welcome to join the inaugural monthly meeting of St. Louis's first organic garden club! This time, Molly Rockamann will help us get inspired for spring in the dead of winter, answer questions about growing organically, and screen Connoisseur of Fine Foods, the short film about the Mueller Organic Farm in Florissant. Join us for a great conversation and a chance to win a raffle prize.
Molly Rockamann has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Eckerd College and a Postgraduate Diploma in Development Studies from the University of the South Pacific. After graduating from the Center for AgroEcology & Sustainable Food Systems at UC-Santa Cruz in 2005 with a certificate in ecological horticulture, Rockamann worked with small farmers in Fiji and Ghana, as well as with food activist and author Anna Lappe on the Eat Grub! Tour of 2006. Molly is a St. Louis native, and the co-founder of EarthDance, a new organization dedicated to celebrating the culture in agri[culture]. Founded in 2008 to grow and inspire local FARMS - Food, Art, Relationships, & Music, Sustainably!, the EarthDance Organic Farming Apprenticeship program will begin on the historic Mueller Farm in early 2009.
Interested folks can register by stopping by Whole Foods in Town and Country, or calling the Customer Service Desk at 636-527-1160 or online at http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/townandcountry/storecalendar.php
Friday, December 26, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Organic Garden Club Forming Jan. 8
I'm excited to be able to report that an Organic Garden Club is forming here in St. Louis County. This club will be an offshoot of the Missouri Organic Association, an organization here in Missouri with a mission to bring together growers, consumers, gardeners, and other advocates of organic methods.
Our first meeting will be on January 8 at the Whole Foods in Town & Country. I believe it starts at 7 pm but we're firming up the details (reservations will be required since our meeting space is small) and I'll post them as soon as I have them.
Our first speaker will be Molly Rockamann, co-founder of EarthDance, an organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging local farms. Molly will show a short film documenting the historic Mueller Farm, a tiny organic farm just in our backyard, with city limits of Ferguson, MO.
Future talks will include tips on beginning organic gardening, seed-starting, and more!
Our first meeting will be on January 8 at the Whole Foods in Town & Country. I believe it starts at 7 pm but we're firming up the details (reservations will be required since our meeting space is small) and I'll post them as soon as I have them.
Our first speaker will be Molly Rockamann, co-founder of EarthDance, an organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging local farms. Molly will show a short film documenting the historic Mueller Farm, a tiny organic farm just in our backyard, with city limits of Ferguson, MO.
Future talks will include tips on beginning organic gardening, seed-starting, and more!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Take care of the birds
Birds are an important part of an organic garden. If you have made a commitment to not use chemical sprays to kill bugs, then you can no doubt appreciate the birds that eat insects in your garden. Not only do they provide a valuable service, but the birds are enjoyable to watch and listen to (especially if you have indoor cats!).
It may seem that feeding birdseed would make birds less likely to eat insects, but in reality what you're doing is providing an inviting place for the birds to live. A steady supply of seed will encourage them to nest in your yard because food is plentiful, and most of the birds that are attracted to your feeder eat at least some insects as part of their diet.
If you have large windows in your house, bird strikes may be a big issue. Often the reflection in the window looks like more sky, and when birds fly into the window full force they can get badly hurt, even killed.
Some birds, like sparrows, are more prone to fly into your windows in spring when they're nesting and feeling particularly territorial. They see their reflection in the window and try to protect their little place in the world.
However, I've had a particularly bad time with doves hitting our windows this fall. I think it has more to do with the position of the sun and the lack of leaves on the trees than anything else: due to the reflections they just plain don't see the glass and think they're flying into blue sky. We have a couple feeders in the tree outside our kitchen window (Cat TV), and as a result we have a LOT of doves.
It got so bad last weekend -- 5 strikes before noon last Saturday -- that we ended up putting large masking tape X's on the kitchen windows in hopes that the tape would break up the reflection and keep them from flying into the windows. Masking tape does work moderately well. After applying the tape, we had one or two doves hit the window over the last week but not nearly at the rate they did before. So this weekend we went looking for a more appealing solution: something tmore effective while at the same time better looking (I'm just glad the kitchen faces the back yard!).
We ended up at WalMart, looking for those tacky beaded curtains. You know, the kind that, back in the old days, used to signal that something very naughty hid just beyond the doorway. I've seen them back in stores in the last couple of years, as pre-teens continue their worship of all things 70's.
We didn't find any beaded curtains (thank goodness, we were spared putting up anything in the color "princess purple" outside our house!), but the lady at the craft department pointed us to some by-the-yard gold garland that had become popular with people taking belly dance lessons (go figure!), but were now on clearance for $1/yard. So we decided to make our own.
I strung a few lengths of the garland on a wire, making a knot above each length to keep them spaced at about 10" apart. I purposely left the length a bit long, so the ends would drag on the ground. Although these will still move a bit in the wind, I want them to be heavy enough to more-or-less stay put.
Here's a photo of the finished project. I hope that the shiny disks will draw the birds' attention long enough for them to figure out there is a house there. If it works, I may try making some more bird-strike-avoiders out of beads.
It may seem that feeding birdseed would make birds less likely to eat insects, but in reality what you're doing is providing an inviting place for the birds to live. A steady supply of seed will encourage them to nest in your yard because food is plentiful, and most of the birds that are attracted to your feeder eat at least some insects as part of their diet.
If you have large windows in your house, bird strikes may be a big issue. Often the reflection in the window looks like more sky, and when birds fly into the window full force they can get badly hurt, even killed.
Bird splat on one of the back doors
Some birds, like sparrows, are more prone to fly into your windows in spring when they're nesting and feeling particularly territorial. They see their reflection in the window and try to protect their little place in the world.
However, I've had a particularly bad time with doves hitting our windows this fall. I think it has more to do with the position of the sun and the lack of leaves on the trees than anything else: due to the reflections they just plain don't see the glass and think they're flying into blue sky. We have a couple feeders in the tree outside our kitchen window (Cat TV), and as a result we have a LOT of doves.
It got so bad last weekend -- 5 strikes before noon last Saturday -- that we ended up putting large masking tape X's on the kitchen windows in hopes that the tape would break up the reflection and keep them from flying into the windows. Masking tape does work moderately well. After applying the tape, we had one or two doves hit the window over the last week but not nearly at the rate they did before. So this weekend we went looking for a more appealing solution: something tmore effective while at the same time better looking (I'm just glad the kitchen faces the back yard!).
We ended up at WalMart, looking for those tacky beaded curtains. You know, the kind that, back in the old days, used to signal that something very naughty hid just beyond the doorway. I've seen them back in stores in the last couple of years, as pre-teens continue their worship of all things 70's.
We didn't find any beaded curtains (thank goodness, we were spared putting up anything in the color "princess purple" outside our house!), but the lady at the craft department pointed us to some by-the-yard gold garland that had become popular with people taking belly dance lessons (go figure!), but were now on clearance for $1/yard. So we decided to make our own.
I strung a few lengths of the garland on a wire, making a knot above each length to keep them spaced at about 10" apart. I purposely left the length a bit long, so the ends would drag on the ground. Although these will still move a bit in the wind, I want them to be heavy enough to more-or-less stay put.
Here's a photo of the finished project. I hope that the shiny disks will draw the birds' attention long enough for them to figure out there is a house there. If it works, I may try making some more bird-strike-avoiders out of beads.
What type of berry is this?
For some reason, I thought it was a serviceberry, but I read they fruit pretty early, and the birds will normally get them before the people can.
Ours still have some fruit on the trees, and they make a real mess when they fall on the sidewalk. I don't remember when they began fruiting, sometime mid to late summer I think.
We have two of these trees, multi-trunked and ~15 feet tall.
Ours still have some fruit on the trees, and they make a real mess when they fall on the sidewalk. I don't remember when they began fruiting, sometime mid to late summer I think.
We have two of these trees, multi-trunked and ~15 feet tall.
Praying Mantis on the Back Door
I was going through my camera pics and found this one from early October.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Quebec herbicide ban violates NAFTA, pesticide maker alleges
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/10/22/quebec-pesticide.html?ref=rss
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Fuzzy caterpillar
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed
I just looked it up. He's a Wooley Bear Caterpillar, that will turn into an Isabella Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella).
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