Video Wednesday: Inexpensive Deer Fence Idea

Jon Traunfeld, with the University of Maryland Extension, Home and Garden Information Center, shows the low cost fence he made to keep deer, rabbits, and other varmints out of the fruit and vegetable garden.

Win a copy of “Building Soils Naturally”

For our March 2014 Washington Gardener Magazine Reader Contest, Washington Gardener is giving away a copy of Building Soils Naturally: Innovative Methods for Organic Gardeners by Phil Nauta (prize value $20).

   In the Summer 2013 issue of Washington Gardener Magazine, reviewer Edna Troiano wrote: “Many gardening books draw in readers with stunning photos, but this guide to creating healthy soil is more, well, down-to-earth. Nauta brings to the topic wide-ranging experience in organic gardening... His goal, he explains in the introduction, is to teach gardeners ‘about growing exceptionally nutrient-dense plants and food.’”

      To enter to win a copy of Building Soils Naturally, send an email to WashingtonGardener@rcn.com by 5:00pm on March 28 with “Building Soils” in the subject line and in the body of the email, please also include your full name and mailing address. Tell us: “I know Spring has really arrived in my garden when... ” The book winner will be announced and notified by March 31.

UPDATE:
Our winner chosen at random from the submitted entries is Judy Thomas of Mechanicsville, VA. We will share all the entrants responses to tell us: “I know Spring has really arrived in my garden when... ”in a blog post in the next few days.

Grow Your Own Easter Grass ~ Washington Gardener Enews ~ March 2014

The Washington Gardener Enews ~ March 2014 issue is now out. It is also posted and archived online at: http://issuu.com/washingtongardener/docs/wgenews-mar14.

 

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

• Back Issue Sale
• March-April To-Do List
• Beet Basics Column Excerpt
• Latest Blog Links
• Local Garden Events Listings
• Grow Your Own Easter Grass and examples of other living, natural Easter Basket fillers
• New ‘Zulu Flame” Eucomis
• Reader Contest: Win a copy of “Building Soils Naturally”

Subscribe to Washington Gardener Magazine today to have the monthly enewsletter sent to your inbox as a PDF. 

Video Wednesday: Playing with Pussy Willows

Well, I had hope to make a series of videos this week to roll out for the spring season, but yet another heavy snow fell and that project will have to be delayed for another week. So here is a funny video I made of my big cat Santino and his obsessions with pussy willow catkins.

Looking for Spring on Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Snowdrops

Crocus

Daffodil 'February Gold'

It is Garden Blogger's Bloom Day again! On the 15th of each month, we gardeners from all over the world share a few bloom photos on our blogs. Pictured above are the few things I have in bloom in my garden on the Mid-Atlantic USA (USDA zone 7) on the DC-MD border.

This has been the latest ever for my 'February Gold' Daffodils to bloom and they are just starting to open today. The first day of Spring is next Thursday and we seem to be 2-3 weeks behind our normal schedule. As a perpetual procrastinator, I'm not minding that so much in that it gives me more time for my late Winter garden clean up and pruning. However, the cold, overcast dreary days are certainly wearing on my attitude. I find trouble motivating myself and longing for the feeling of sun on my bare skin.

What is blooming in YOUR garden today?

Video Wednesday: Inmates Grow Chestnut Seedlings in MD

WHAG in Hagerstown, MD, shared this story about Doctor Gary Carver of the American Chestnut Foundation visited the training center to show inmates how to plant and grow chestnut seedlings. Or view it at http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/play/4954825.

Washington Gardener Magazine Book Club - Spring 2014 Selection

For our second 2014 selection of the Washington Gardener Magazine Book Club, we will be reading:   
Into the Garden with Charles by Clyde Phillip Wachsberger.

I have reserved a meeting room at the Takoma Park* DC Neighborhood Library in the downstairs meeting room on Thursday, April 10 from 6:00-7:30pm. 

The room allows food and drink and you may bring your dinner and/or snacks to share.

The book club meetings are FREE and open to anyone who would like to attend.

Please RSVP to "WG Book Club" at WashingtonGardener@rcn.com. I will be limiting attendance to 20. If you need to cancel, let me know ASAP so we can give your spot to someone else, should we have a wait-list. 

 “Clyde Phillip Wachsberger’s delightful memoir about tending beds of flowers as compensation for a lonely middle age only to find unexpected romance along the way is a sweet reminder that, as he puts it, ‘anything can happen in a garden.’ In prose that balances candor with perfect courtesy, he charms us with the message that keeping a garden with a beloved companion, this most ephemeral of all the arts, can bring us the most enduring joys and pleasures.” —Philip Gambone

In case you like to read ahead, the other book club selections for 2014 are:

~ American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Ted Steinberg

~ The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

I will announce the date for the next book club meetings after each previous meeting. We will meet roughly once each quarter.

*Note that there is also a Takoma Park, MD town library. This meeting will take place at the library in Takoma, DC at 416 Cedar Street, NW, WDC. It is just a couple blocks from the Takoma metro station and is near several bus lines. Street parking is available.

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Video Wednesday: Calder ArtiCulture Entrance at Philly Flower Show

I'm at the Philadelphia Flower Show today with a bunch of our readers and guests on our Washington Gardener Magazine coach bus trip. Here is a taste of the entrance design modeled after Alexander Calder's work.