Posts Tagged ‘land stewardship’
A Gardener’s Winter Solstice
On the winter solstice, the northern hemisphere will be at its furthest tilt from the sun. We’ll mark our shortest day and longest night of 2021 here in the Pacific Northwest on December 21st . Then, our sunrises will creep earlier and our sunsets later. From the winter solstice on, the half of the planet…
Read MoreThe Garden Walk: Daily Checklist for a Healthy Garden
Hi there, dear Sky Nursery readers. Toby Madrone here. I usually stick to a more informative tone, but I decided to change it up a bit today, and share from my personal gardening experience. I hope you enjoy this post in all of its honest plant-nerd glory. I take a walk through my garden every…
Read MorePest Damage ID Part 1: Who’s chewing holes in my leaves?
If you garden long enough, sooner or later some pest is going to break your heart. Maybe your freshly emerged seedlings will be mowed down to the ground, your favorite flowers will emerge twisted and discolored, or you’ll find an entire shrub defoliated in a matter of days. There are many wonderful and rewarding things…
Read MorePest Prevention: Stop Problems Before They Start
For natural pest prevention, early spring is the time to start!
Read MoreGardening with Kids: How to Grow Lifelong Gardeners
If you are a gardener, or even an aspiring gardener, and you have children in your life, you have a wonderful opportunity to pass along your passion for tending the soil to the next generation. Introducing kids to gardening can inspire a lifelong appreciation for the natural world, not to mention helping kids develop healthy…
Read MoreGrowing Resilience: Garden Planning for a Changing Climate
Help your garden thrive in the face of climate change while contributing to community climate resilience.
Read MoreNatural Slug & Snail Management
Ah, springtime in the garden. Bulbs are blooming, bumblebees are buzzing, and mollusks are slowly stirring beneath the mulch. Wait…. what? Slugs and snails — land-based cousins of marine mollusks like clams — are very much part of our garden ecosystems. Like most of the small animals that call our gardens home, they spend the…
Read MoreWords from the Garden: Our Favorite Horticultural Lingo
As you may already know, there is a lot to learn when it comes to gardening: plants, bugs, microclimates, soil conditions, animals, tools, minerals, moisture levels, and so much more! Once one part of the puzzle becomes clear, you may realize you’ve opened up an entirely new can of worms to be explored. When it…
Read More5 Weeds 5 Ways
As you prepare your beds for spring planting, you may find yourself yanking out a whole lot of green stuff. From dandelions to shot-weed, uninvited guests proliferate in our gardens before we have even finished sketching out our garden plans. These hardy wild plants earn their unsavory reputations as “weeds” because they tend to shoulder…
Read MoreFeed Your Soil, Feed Your Plants: build a soil ecosystem
A garden is a living ecosystem that starts with the soil. Each handful of healthy soil contains billions of microscopic fungi, bacteria, and animals that are hard at work transforming organic material into food your plants can use. That’s the secret to organic soil fertility: You feed your soil microbes, and the microbes feed your plants.…
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