Category Archives: Garden Supplies

How Gardeners Haul Plants, Mulch, and More

February 27, 2013 1
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With major spring projects coming up soon, it’s a good time to bring up the rarely mentioned but extremely common problem known to all passionate gardeners:  How to haul stuff.  And you know what stuff …

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Change comes to the Golden Spades

February 20, 2013 0
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 What’s New?  Double the EventsGood news for Homestead’s customers of a certain age (50 and up)!  Our monthly gatherings for talks by Education Coordinator Gene Sumi will be offered twice a month starting soon …

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New-Garden Challenges, Part 2: Poor Soil

August 13, 2012 1

Filling up empty space may be the most obvious challenge in creating a new garden, but surely the challenge that keeps on giving the gardener headaches is bad soil.  Some sites naturally have poor …

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My Solution to the Dilemma of Garden-Glove Storage

July 25, 2012 0

I once collected all my gardening gloves in one place to try to put pairs together and generally sort out the mess.  The result, photo right, included:

Stiff leather things I knew I’d …

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How to Make Pavers for your Garden

May 16, 2012 2


DIYers and bargain-hunters, did you know that for as little as 30 cents each you can make very cool pavers for your garden?   You might have seen expensive kits for this …

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Fascinating Seed Companies of Homestead Gardens-Now is the Time!

January 5, 2012 0

Seasonal Cooking with Rita Calvert~The Local Cook 

Each of the smaller seed  seed companies (no selling to big box stores) started somewhere and usually with a fresh personal story. The four seed companies below …

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Gardening is Child’s Play!

April 29, 2011 0

Is there anything more fun for child than planting a garden from seed and watching with eager anticipation for the very first shoots to appear?

The popularity of edible gardening has taken …

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Sumi’s Picks for Pruning Tools

February 2, 2011 0

by Susan Harris
Homestead’s gardening educator extraordinaire – Gene Sumi, of course – gave his famous pruning talk recently to a rapt audience, as part of our Winter Workshop series.   He …

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The Truth about Organic Gardening

January 12, 2011 0

by Susan Harris

These days, everyone’s promoting organic gardening and I’m on that bandwagon, too – what’s not to love?

Turns out there’s a problem with such a broad-brush approach as …

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Gifts for Gardeners – that we Really Want

November 27, 2010 0

by Susan Harris

You know all the Christmas gift suggestions we see in gardening magazines this time of year?  Far too often they’re new gadgets, the need for which is definitely …

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Organic Mulches for Fall

November 2, 2010 1

by Susan Harris
Are your beds and borders mulched and ready for winter?  Mulches do a lot to moderate soil temperature, which means preventing freeze-thaw cycles that can cause plants to heave …

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Fall feeding recommendations from the go-to guy of the fertilizer world

September 20, 2010 2

by Susan Harris
Back in the ’50s and ’60s my mom grew quite a collection of azaleas and rhododendrons, which she nurtured with a fertilizer especially for those acid-loving plants …

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What’s up with FreezePruf?

October 28, 2009 1

Posted by Susan Harris

Suddenly, blue bottles of a product called FreezePruf are showing up on the doorsteps of garden writers and on the shelves of retail garden centers.   And naturally, bloggers are …

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