You don’t need acres and acres to plant a sustainable vegetable garden for your family. In fact, if you’ve got a patch of sun in your postage size yard, or space for a terracotta pot on your porch or your apartment stoop, you’ve got space for a garden. 

As my own gardens have grown in and become more shady, it was hard to find a spot this summer for our beloved tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. But I shifted things around on the back deck and found a home for three varieties of tomatoes and peppers in basic pots. Like the Obama’s, who have renewed the interest in backyard victory gardens in countless families across the nation, my family supports the idea of growing food locally and naturally (and for yourselves). 

At my office in downtown Raleigh, a fellow tenant has planted a beautiful garden in the small greenway...

Dear Miss Fifi:

Our newly acquired, one year old Husky mix is killing our wallet and our house! We have bruises all over from the constant biting/nipping, and he's tearing up everything he can get his teeth on. We've tried the Kong—but it doesn't work. Peanut butter, cheese, cookie filled—doesn't matter. He has plenty of toys and we play with him and walk him, but it never seems to be enough. He's tearing up the backyard. Digging everything, including a newly planted tree with fresh soil and mulch. I know I need obedience training, but are the basics enough? Will that kill the biting/ digging/tearing up stuff?

- Jennifer

~~~

Dear Jennifer:

Whoa ... uh, I mean woof. That sounds like one serious handful of a Huskie you've got there. I believe obedience training will be a huge asset to you and your pup, and it will most definitely go a long way toward curbing his urge to chew. Will it totally stop the...

I always love quick and easy gardening tips, particularly when they come from great friends. Take, for example, my great friend Sue Coy. She and her family live in northern Durham County, and her garden is overly natural and shady and just beautiful. Filled with ferns, hosta, columbine, lilies, foxglove, azaleas, dogwoods, deciduous trees and hardwoods, and pines, it's a classic North Carolina garden.

The Coys have also always had a really successful and sustainable vegetable garden. They're the first true naturalists I've known. Their garden is chock full of asparagus, tomatoes, herbs, and the unusual pairing of tart, delicious cherries. But given the bumper crop of veggies they have each year and the abundance of wildlife in their back yard, it's long been a wonder how the two coexist. 

It's simple: Milorganite. 

"I've tried dried blood," she said, "and mixing eggs and water, which...

Gardeners of the Piedmont ... Unite! 

It's Earth Day, and aside from my disappointment with not having Dave Matthews tickets tonight, it's a great day for gardeners. I thought it would be nice to share a few eco-friendly ideas and tactics my family practices ... and hope you'll share some of your great ideas with us! I posted some photos of my gardens for reference.

• Replace your outdoor light bulbs with CFLs.
• Be good stewards of nature: place birdhouses and bird feeders in peaceful, low-trafficked areas of your garden.
• Plant perennials, bulbs and trees.
• Plant a vegetable garden or some fruit trees.
• Keep your garden weed-free; weeds are water and nutrient hogs, and are fierce competition for your "real" plants.
• Combat mosquitoes naturally, like with lavender.
• Notice the little things, like the ladybugs and butterflies.
• Use canvas shopping bags at the grocery...

I found a great statement about pollen from Achoo Allergy: "Trees, weeds, plants, and grasses release small reproductive cells called pollen, which cause allergic reactions for millions of people. Most pollen are light enough to be windborne and are found everywhere, both indoors and out." 

Which totally confirms what I've known for years—pollen is a predator. And there's nowhere to hide.

I'm struck by the duality of early spring, where my expectation level and excitement grows by leaps and bounds with each bloom on the Cherry trees, and every lovely daffodil and tulip and hyacinth ... and then crashes when the pollen duststorms whirl down the street.

Pollen is everywhere—in the weeds, grass and trees. It's a fine, grainy powder consisting of the male gametes of seed plants. And when it floats freely through the air or is carried from plant to plant by bees and insects...