…. Cline, former director of the Garden’s Kemper Center for Home Gardening, started the program in 1998. The botanical garden’s Pots to Planks program sells 6″ x 6″ timbers made from ground-up pots (No. 2 and No. 5 plastics). The rigid, heavy timbers are great for raised beds and strong enough to use for retaining walls. “They are fantastic,” Cline says. “It’s a lot of plastic in one product, but we&…
Since we launched the Kitchen Garden Planner in 2009, we’ve been hearing how people use it. Beginners find it helpful when starting a garden for the first time. Meanwhile, avid gardeners use it to create complex designs and keep records. Recently, we heard that the Peterson Garden Project, a community garden in Chicago, is using our online tool. LaManda Joy, founder of the Peterson Garden Project. Photo by Jennifer Stix. Since we la…
Ellen Ecker Ogden’s design in progress, top, for the 2×8 Elevated Cedar Raised Bed, below, which features flowers. Ogden’s design, A Paint Box Garden of Edible Plants, features vegetables. If you’re a garden designer in Vermont, what do you do in the winter? If you’re creative, you design! Ellen Ecker Ogden, who created two designs for our Elevated Raised Beds, often uses rugs and carpets before refining the design w…
We are taking photos to document the progress of gardens featured in our Kitchen Garden Planner. Watch the slideshow to see how they’re looking. If you’re growing a vegetable garden that you designed using our Kitchen Garden Planner, please add some photos of your garden to our online album. The Plant It and Forget It Garden on June 21. See it in our slideshow. Our Kitchen Garden Planner features eight pre-planned garden designs for 3…
…ther is one of those formidable Yankees you hear about, and she takes her gardening seriously. When I was young, she had a vegetable garden that took up a third of our backyard. It had started out manageably enough as two 8 x 20-foot beds. But every year, under her foreman’s eye, we kids would tear up more sod and till cart-loads of manure into the exposed earth. Eventually it grew into a 2,400-square-foot mini-farm, with compost bins made…
…elp and encourage other vegetable gardeners, sharing their story and as much gardening advice as they can. Broadcaster Mélanie Grégoire visited Josée and Michel during their “bed-in” protest which was held on July 22. Their protest was meant to be resminiscent of the “Bed-Ins for Peace” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969. Photo: Samuel Gaudreau This year, they’re expanding the garden, adding one more raised bed. The…
Take a slideshow tour through the garden of Vicki Nowicki, one of the 2009 Garden Crusaders. Her garden is in Downer’s Grove, IL Vicki (right) and I in her garden. This past August, I had the great pleasure of spending a whole day with one of this year’s Garden Crusader award winners: Vicki Nowicki. It was exciting to visit her home just outside Chicago — ground zero for the sustainable landscaping business she runs with h…
…awn with blue garden beds in the next year. So please, don’t stop selling them! When did you start? The garden was built in January. Thank God for our beautiful southern California weather. I live in Sunset garden zone 18, in the San Fernando Valley. Piper What about the white fencing? Decorative or functional? The fencing was for one reason, and her name is Piper, my 3-pound (at the time) black poodle mix puppy. As soon as I put the fenci…
Just like an art museum, each time you visit a public garden there’s always something new to appreciate and inspire. The Japanese Garden in Portland, OR. Once springtime arrives and I’m finally out in the garden, it’s almost impossible to pry me away from home. I hate the thought of missing a single minute. When the weekend comes I’m up at 6 am Saturday and am still out there as darkness falls on Sunday night. I don’t min…
If you want your 2011 vegetable garden to produce more food for your table, planning is the key. No matter how much experience or growing space you have, taking time to map out your garden is the best way to maximize your efforts. If you want your 2011 vegetable garden to produce more food for your table, planning is the key. No matter how much experience or growing space you have, taking time to map out your garden is the best way to maxi…