Revolt Against High Prices and Food Recalls---

It's time to revolt against the skyrocketing costs of feeding your family healthy, safe food. A new book released just this week will help you do that. One Woman's Organic Gardening Techniques, Tips, Tricks, Methods to Work With Mother Nature...will help you garden.

It doesn't matter if you have space for only a few windowsill contains, a balcony, patio, rooftop, or a front lawn patch--you can grow some of your very own fresh produce. It's a family affair. An easy, healthy alternative to ify store bought produce.

Available from Amazon as a print edition for only $7.95 you can't go wrong.

If you prefer the kindle edition for a brief period you can go here to get that with a different cover, same book at a drastically reduced price - go take a look.

There is one page that has the formatting messed up, but if you send me an email I'll send you a printable PDF file to download --It's a section on Ant Control with a couple formulas for that. And if you find their path into your house you can always lay a dryer sheet over their entry way and they will not cross it. (any brand- and it smells way better than raid) and is not hazardous to pets or children. 

Questions or comments welcome. See you next time.

P.S. Sign up for The Mystery Reader Connection Newsletter to stay abreast of all my events, books, and news as well as news from other columnists who write in many genres other than or as well as mystery.

Goldenrod - Friend or Foe?

The Best of Organic Gardening: Over 50 Years of Organic Advice and Reader-Proven Techniques from America's Best-Loved Gardening Magazine

I had never thought of deliberately planting Goldenrod in or among my flower beds. When I see the beautiful bouquets Mother Nature makes on the road beds as we travel from town to town, I wonder at my wisdom. I equate Goldenrod with hayfever--sneezing, wheezing, itchy eyed culprit? Am I wrong?

I could be...could it be that it's the ragweed that blooms so near, that blooms so readily at the same time as the beautiful, butterfly attracting Goldenrod? The Goldenrod loves full sun, and nearly any soil--but a light soil works best, like the road banks along our country roads. Its tall, it blooms for a long time and at a time when our flower beds are looking tired and in need of a spark of sunlight. I'm rethinking my garden design. I don't need only Black Eyed Susan's and yellow mums, or coneflowers - why not Goldenrod? I'm sure I can find a spot that cries for color and longevity of bloom. Organic Gardening (2-year)

You can even find sources for seeds for a variety of Goldenrod types such as Forestfarm, in Williams, Oregon at www.forestfarm.com or how about Michigan Wildflower Farm, in Portland Michigan, www.michiganwildflowerfarm.com 


I believe the lowly Goldenrod's time has come to be brought back out of hiding. The bees, the butterflies will thank you. It seems our bumblebees are disappearing, perhaps we can reintroduce a few native plants and invite them back.

Let me know if you agree or disagree. Will you try it next summer?
Billie A Williams
www.billiewilliams.com

Happy 4th of July

Where does the time go...in the garden for sure. Well, now that things have taken off and are looking pretty good - corn knee high by the 4th of July and all that - I must say, I get caught up in the garden and forget to put my fingers to the key board. So many new and interesting things.

For instance: my sister is growing an Azalea in the upper peninsula of Michigan - nearly out of zone 4 -- how amazing. It is the most striking bush I have ever seen. It's almost iridescent, a definite traffic stopper. Yup I ordered some, we are about 80 miles south of her, it should work right? I'll keep you posted.

My husband has split all our geraniums and they have grown beautifully into new plants. He cut them down the center and immediately planted them in a good potting soil (miracle grow this time) and they took off. Any shoots that broke off he stuck in another pot and they are growing like gangbusters. I'm amazed. Some of these geraniums I have wintered over in the house for several years and never thought to try to divide them. Retired turned Green Thumb, that would describe him. {smile}

Have you noticed the baby birds are now finding out how and where to eat. I have a mother woodpecker - a downy - I feel so sorry for her she has a male offspring that looks half again as big as her - and she is still feeding him. He is learning, but still can't master the new suet feeder. The robins have had their fledglings out for a while and they pretty much know what to do. It is so much fun to watch the mothers teaching their little ones how to eat.

The baby rabbits are on their own running just behind mom now too. So far the blood meal and stinky version of marigolds are keeping them out of the lettuce and peas. I have heard that human hair will work too. You can check out your local beauty parlor to get some...for most critters even the deer fences don't work.

I hung a single CD over my strawberries and surrounded them with blood meal and we have been able to pick at least a quart of strawberries a day without sharing any of our tiny patch with critters and birds.

Happy 4th of July to those of you who celebrate - please join me later for more tips for your organic garden.
Make it a great day!
Billie

Why Herbs Herb?

What Do Herbs Have To Do With It?


When you think gardening do you think medicine? How about when you think herbs? Here’s a little pop quiz with some interesting answers for you.

Basil, Calendula, Parsley, Fennel, Chamomile, Lemon Balm just to name a few are herbs that could find a place in your medicine cabinet.

Okay, let’s say it’s spring and water puddles are standing everywhere. With the onset of warmer weather those puddles can produce mosquito habitat that will fill your yard with potential serious consequences. When you go outside to enjoy the beauty of the spring, I hope you will make good use of the herbal garden you’ve been nurturing all winter. How? Rub some of that basil plant on your skin. It will repel insects. Perhaps you want to stick a sprig of it in your hair its subtle aroma will lift your mood as you watch those pesky insects seek more appetizing bodies.

Calendula cures cuts and scrapes which seem to happen all too frequently in the spring yard clean up and getting the gardens ready for planting.

If the mold, mildew and pollen of spring are a bother think fennel – it can even ease asthma symptoms.

We are all familiar with the benefits of parsley to tame a tummy after meals, but it is also good for your breath. If you chew a little Parsley after a meal or after having a cup of coffee, it will freshen your breath. Peppermint will settle or tame that tummy if indigestion gets there before the parsley.

Lemon balm can ease and cure a cold sore. Chamomile battles gum disease as well as steeping you in a relaxing mood to help you get a good nights sleep.

The old timers knew of these uses and more for the herb patch. I think no garden should be allowed to grow without one—unless of course you grow several pots or containers in your home.

Red, Pink and White Christmas

Winter Reds, Pinks and Whites with Poinsettias
by Billie A. Williams


Euphorbia Pulcherrims, better knows in lay terms as poinsettias. This is the time of year you will see them everywhere in shades of the always popular red to pink to white. In The American Horticultural Society’s A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, it is mixed in with other cactus-like plants. This should give you a clue to its care and habits. But then, it’s a bloomer, it has a natural resting time that forces the color to the leaves—the part we think is the flower—much like the Christmas cactus it needs its hours of darkness. So, how do we care for them?

The poinsettia should be placed in a warm sunny window to receive maximum beauty. Do not, however, allow the leaves to touch the glass. As with all cactus, water thoroughly when the soil is dry to the touch. Do not let the plant become soggy. Poinsettia do not like wet feet, as we say in the plant world.

At some point leaves begin to fall, or you have had enough of the winter beauty and are ready to make room for spring plants. You’ve become attached to this beauty from the cactus world. Can you save it for next year? Certainly!

According to Jerry Baker in his book Great Green Book of Garden Secrets, you should stop watering the Poinsettia, when the leaves begin to drop off store it in a cool dry place [like you did the summer geraniums you hoped to winter over].

In the spring, you can begin to water it again after you’ve severely pruned it back to about 6 inches in height. If you keep the stems pinched back as new leaves begin to form, you will have a compact, bushy, beautiful poinsettia in time for next Christmas. From early October until blooming starts in late November or mid December, place the plant in a dark closet for 12 hours a day and then place it in a bright sunny window for the other 12 hours each day. You should see your plant return to its former gorgeous self.

Please do remember that poinsettias are one of those beauties that are also toxic to children and pets. So do keep this in mind when you place the plants around your house.

*A TIP: from Jerry Baker about bugs and house plants: Bugs won’t take up residence in the soil of your house plants if you sprinkle the shavings from your pencil sharpener onto the soil. If you don’t have a pencil sharpener in your home, ask your child or a friend’s child’s teacher if you might have the contents of their pencil sharpener occasionally. “Waste not, want not,” my parents used to say. Organic gardening is all about recycling whatever we can whenever we can.

Permission to use as long as you include this resource box:
Billie A Williams
www.billiewilliams.com
Small Town Secrets (available January 2008)
ISBN 978-1-59705-7660
Fire rages across the tiny town of Nettlesville. Someone is bent on burning it down to the ground one building at a time. Can Chaneeta Morgan and Olga Corn bury their rivalry long enough to stop the arsonist before the town is nothing but ashes, or will Chaneeta’s secret past destroy her and possibly the town?

Garden Writing

Whether you are a horticulturist or a people horticulturist (nurse), writing is an important way to share your craft, your life, and your expertise. While a garden will nourish and care for your soul and your sustenance, the nutritional value of what you plant can be a boon to your health. Traveling Nurse Epi Larue makes sense of some of it in her blog at http://travelnurisnghighway.bogspot.com/

Planting a garden sometimes is like unraveling your family tree or a good mystery. Who gets along with whom (companion planting); who dunnit? (Insect pests); solving the crime (Organic Solutions to garden pests and weeds.); editing your work (tilling and enhancing your soil); marketing and promoting (What to do with all that zucchini or abundant harvest) once your work is finished. http://www.janetelainesmith.blogspot.com/ and http://www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com/ or http://printedwords.blogspot.com/ .

In a garden, you discover peace, you don’t wage wars you correct imbalances. You organically remove what refuses to coexist with your plants. Manifest destiny and gardening co-exist. A victory garden is about peace, about winning the war over high prices and contaminated foods. Just as war affects human lives http://www.warpeacetolerance.blogspot.com/ war in your garden is not waged successfully by spraying the whole garden with weed killer, or some heavy duty insecticide that is also harmful to people and pets not to mention birds and the environment. Plant gardens, send seeds not missiles.

My garden continually amazes me, calls me to exercise, get out in the sunshine, smell the flowers, commune with nature if you will. Look at that rainbow after a storm. It’s a promise. The harvests are mental, physical and nutritional. Finding peace and harmony in a garden nurtures your whole being. . Sun shine for plant growth and human growth.

When you have down time, when it rains or there is snow on the ground it’s an excellent time to read. You could find author interviews and book reviews help you learn what others already have found out. http://joyceanthony.tripod.com/blog or http://talkingallthingswrite.blogspot.com/. Answers about gardening or about some other interest you have are only a click away, into day's connected world. Checking an author’s pass times you may find they are gardeners also with advice you can use.

So grab that garden catalogue and begin planning and/or grab your pen and start writing.

Gardens On The Rise - or Vertical Response to a Small Space

Gardens on the rise — the vertical rise that is.

Have you ever thought of gardening vertically? I hadn’t given it much thought this year when I planted gourds in one of my swans that swim around the concrete fisher boy gingerly perched on a stump. He fishes there year round, though there is no pond.

The gourds started their meandering search for where the sun they liked best was available. I watched daily as they started out toward the lawn area – and then detoured back up a side table by the park bench, and turned abruptly to check out the potted petunias on that small table. Sure enough this morning when I checked they liked the moist soil in the pot and had quickly set a tendril into the soil and the rest of the plant continued on toward the back of the park bench. There is a small tree (broken off in one of our wind storms) that affords shade to the park bench – some of the branches are precariously low to the arm of the bench. I’m waiting to see what direction the gourd will take next.

But it did give me pause. I have only a small vegetable garden area. I do make use of vertical growing most years. This year I planted bush squash so I don’t need to contend with the vines. I planted the pumpkins over in the flower bed around the windmill instead of flowers – they make a beautiful flower bed. I grow cucumbers up trellis or corn, I grow whatever I can on fences and plant smaller crops like leaf lettuce at the base to help conserve the evaporation of soil moisture and to give me more yield in a smaller area. I find that companion planting lengthens my season – even in the hot weather peas will continue to grow when roses and onions shade them on one side and beets and bush squash shade them from the other.

If you haven’t tried vertical gardening you owe to yourself to try. The plants stay cleaner, are easier to harvest, and more disease resistant because most harmful plant pests do not climb. The humming birds, butterflies, and bees are delighted with the advantage you afford them with vertical plantings. Try it next year.

Happy Gardening.
Billie

Bananas, Salt, Tea and WD40

BANANAS, SALT, TEA AND WD-40™
By Billie A Williams
Rose bushes are they hard to raise? Depends on who you talk to. I have had terrible luck with the miniature variety, but basically the others are a breeze. They need pruning, water and occasionally a few banana peels. What you never heard of burying banana peels around the perimeter of your roses? The nutrients are ideal for them, but what I didn’t know before was, the banana peel actually retards aphids a real nasty for rose bushes and gladiolas. I usually spray my plants at the first sign of trouble with a weak soap solution. If I see any aphids near my roses, I use Mrs Murphy’s Oil soap mixed with water in a spray bottle (also good on the grape vines) but I like the double duty banana peel instead. Tea is another rose booster. It will enhance the growth of roses.


Here are a few more hints for other bugs and areas of your living space. Are you tired of uninvited guests at your picnic? To keep those pesky ants at bay try putting plastic containers under the legs of your picnic table and filling them with water. The ants may climb up the plastic container but they will fall in and drown before they get to the table legs.

Salt has always been a favorite remedy of mine for so many things. You can fill a plastic container with salt water and place it at ground level in your gardens where you have seen slugs or snail damage. The snails and slugs drown trying to get at the salt. (This works with beer too) If you need to bait them use pieces of raw potato around the dish. You can also use salt to stop weeds from growing in the cracks of your sidewalks or walkways and is one of the many things that can extend the life of cut flowers. In the kitchen you can use a light salt water solution to put peeled potatoes or apples in until you are ready to use them, to keep them from turning dark.

Tea is a great addition to any acid loving houseplants soil. I use weak tea to water my ferns, and other house plants once a month. You can also use it and the tea bags to speed up the decomposition of your compost pile. (Compost pile coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells and any organic vegetable matter is great.)

Now here is something I bet you’ve not heard of before—WD-40 ™uses in your garden. I believe WD-40 ™ has nearly as many uses as duct tape. You can use it to spray your flower beds lightly to keep cats, dogs and other animals out of them. You can use it on your bird feeders to keep squirrels off of them (hmmm cheaper than Cheyenne pepper – perhaps.) Those dirty messy pigeons building nests on balconies and porches, try spraying surfaces with WD-40™ it makes your place very unappealing to the pests.

Also spray railings and bird feeders to keep them off. If you have a wasp problem, building nests under your eaves—next summer spray the over hang under the eaves with WD-40™. One more good use for it, spray thistle plants and they will be history.

Use it to take care of your lawn and garden tools. Spray the handles to keep them from splintering and giving you slivers, spray the tines of garden forks, shovels, hoes, to keep them rust free and in good condition. (you can do this with your snow shovel, snow blower etc to keep snow from sticking to them in the winter, too)

Like I said WD-40™ is in a race with duct tape™ and probably super glue™ to see who is the most versatile and important. I love organic solutions when at all possible, but when something works like magic it’s hard to resist using modern warfare in the garden to get rid of pests.

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Feel free to pass this article along as long as you leave this resource box attached.
Billie A Williams
Multi-published Mystery/Suspense Author
Whose Accidental Sleuth’s solve crimes with wit, wisdom and chutzpah.
http://www.billiewilliams.com/
www.youtube.com/basbleu43

Rose Pests - and Helpers

This morning when I stopped at our local Mathis Ace Hardware ( you know the jingle "Ace is the place with the helpful hardware - man" - er person) I needed a cure for my peonies - they haven't bloomed yet and I planted them years ago. Someone told me they need Oyster shells - I wasn't able to find any. (If any one has any ideas I'd be pleased as punch to hear them. I do have plenty of ants so that isn't the problem) Picture of Lady Bug and aphids on fennel

But speaking of ants they are a problem in another way. Every insect has a benefit - such as the need for ants to help open peony blooms. however, Ants do pose a problem in that they "farm" aphids -- aphids can mean disaster for your glads or roses. So whats a person to do? You could import some Lady Bugs - they have a special appetite for them. (not the asian beetle please, but the real Lady Bug)

A women next to me in the insecticide - fertilizer isle was searching for rose dust to kill the aphids and things bothering her roses.

I had a solution for her - since she seemed to prefer organic, but was desperate. We could use the lady bugs (we have many around here. They didn't seem to be doing their job) or at least something safe for pets, birds, people. My solution for pests is Mrs. Murphy's Oil Soap. I mix it with water in a spray bottle - about 1/8 to a 1/4 cup to a quart of water and mist my plants until the leaves drip. I've used it to get rid of the bugs in my grapevines, the bean and squash bugs. It works to spray it around my back door to keep asian beetles and box alder bugs from coming in everytime the door opens. It's a wonderful product and doesn't hurt the environment.

I love finding solutions to my gardening problems that can help others and not harm beneficial critters or people. If anyone knows a reason why my 10 year old transplanted Peonies are not blooming though - I'd appreciate a note. Thank you!

Happy Gardening.

Billie