The Frugal Gardener April 2009

Hi everyone welcome back to the garden!

In the course of writing a monthly newsletter there are times when I struggle to come up with fresh, new topics to talk about. But this month is not one of those times.

This month we have a lot to talk about since April is the start of garden season for most everyone in the continental US. If you're in the northern states or in Canada, you may have to wait until the end of April or the beginning of May to really get started.

I've already planted my romaine lettuce plants and put in my pea seeds yesterday. A little bit further on in this edition you will see a You Tube video which will show you how easy it is to plant using GardenRack, my favorite waist high raised bed garden system.

Also in this issue we're going to discuss things to look out for when you have pets in your garden, you'll get a present for designing small space gardens, and we'll review Earth Hour which occurred on Saturday, March 28 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

I'd also like to welcome our new subscribers and I hope you enjoy this community is much as we do. Please feel free to send an e-mail anytime you have questions or concerns.

Let's get started!

Part of the joy of gardening is to have pets in the garden while enjoying my favorite hobby. I currently have two golden retrievers who regularly hang out with me as I plant and harvest. In the past, I also had three cats who were regular players as well.

Because we love our pets ... they're important parts of our families ... you'll want to make sure that they are safe.

Fleas & Ticks

Naturally, the first thing on anyone's list is to make sure that your pet is protected against fleas and ticks. This is important for everyone but it's especially critical for people who live in woody areas.

Make sure to use a good flea and take preventive like Frontline and I also use a secondary tick repellent called Preventic. These collars are for dogs only and when my goldens wear them, we never see any ticks at all.

Lawn Fertilizers

The majority of homes have lawn somewhere in their yard. I'm probably one of the only oddballs who has no grass to mow at all. Make sure that you store any lawn fertilizer in a safe place where cats and dogs -- and kids -- cannot get into it. Even go so far as to lock the garden shed.

Lilies & Cats

Did you know that lilies are highly toxic to cats? I was amazed at how little it took to make them sick or even die from renal failure. Make sure to keep your cats away from lily plants.

Cocoa Mulch -- Fatal to Dogs

I just read startling news about cocoa mulch. This is a product manufactured by Hershey's and, admittedly, smells wonderful. The problem is that it contains lethal amounts of Theobromine which is very toxic to dogs.

Dogs are as attracted to this mulch as they are to any chocolate bar and I've read some stories lately about dogs who have eaten this mulch, thrown it up, and died the next day. Do yourself a favor and stick with regular hardwood mulch that will not be attractive to dogs as food.

Rhubarb

I love strawberry rhubarb pie. Part of the reason is because my husband is Scandinavian and he he has a passion for it as well. I don't grow rhubarb in part because I don't have the room but also because the rhubarb leaves are very toxic.

Always use as many organic products as you possibly can and that includes fertilizer and weed control. Some of the best fertilizer for plants can be made from your compost pile. Check out this article for instructions on making great compost tea: Organic Fertilizer is Just a Kitty Litter Bucket Away.

On Saturday, March 28, 2009 the world celebrated its second annual Earth Hour. From 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. around the globe people turned off lights and electronics in support of the fight against global warming.

What did you do at that time? We turned off all our lights and sat outside listening to the sounds of the spring garden. The peepers have just started and we looked at the stars without interference from our house lights.

I can only imagine that those in neighborhoods may have taken this opportunity to sit on each others' porches and talk instead of watching TV or playing video games.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have an Earth Hour for every full moon? It can't do anything but help our planet and our relationships with each other.

And it's the relationship with Mother Earth that Earth hour is all about.

For all of you who were around last Christmas, this is a repeat of the present that you were given at that time. I wanted to make sure that all of our new subscribers -- and there are a lot of them -- got the same opportunity.

In the link below you will find a zipped file full of five small garden designs courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens. You won't need to have a special program in order to unzip the file; it should open just fine. If it doesn't, please let me know and I'll send the files to you separately. You will need Adobe Reader as they're all pdf files.

Small-scale gardening is turning into a more popular venture as people downsize homes and move into smaller spaces. You could have a whole garden in a couple of half whiskey barrels and a few other containers.

Enjoy this prezzie and if you plant a garden based on the design plan for one of the layouts, please take some pictures and send them to me.

This month we have a question from Julie about pansies: "I planted pansies last year and they did well. They still have some green after the winter. Will they come back? Do I need to do anything?"

Julie, that's a great question and one that many of us face each season. Your pansies will come back when the weather warms up if you have some green to them. Mine, unfortunately, croaked over the winter because we had such cold temps -- 11 degrees in Virginia is cold. Water them with lukewarm water and they should perk right up and start to bloom.

Once the weather turns hot you'll want to yank them -- they get leggy and unattractive. then plant them again in the fall.

If you have a question for The Frugal Gardener please feel free to send us an e-mail and we will answer you as quickly as possible.

This is the new department I announced last month and I thought I would start it off with a recipe for a nice fresh salad dressing that is low in fat but high in flavor.

I call it a vinaigrette but there's really no vinager in it at all. The acid is from lemon juice. Here's a recipe:

Juice from half a fresh lemon or a couple squeezes from bottled lemon juice
Half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard
Whisk together until blended
Pour in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil (no more than a tablespoon)
Add some fresh herbs or dried Herbs de Provence and whisk well

Pour this dressing over a salad or even over poultry or fish. It doesn't need salt because the mustard is salty enough and you're not using too much olive oil so the fat content is pretty low.

Please feel free to send in recipes -- especially with fresh vegetables and herbs from the garden -- for our next newsletter.

Well, that's about it for this edition of The Frugal Gardener. There's plenty to do in the garden this month including planting cold crops like lettuce, peas, carrots, radishes and scallions. You'll also want to start thinking about warm weather crops because if you're going to be germinating seed, you'll want to start doing so in the middle of April in order to plant in to the garden by the end of May.

Make sure that all of the leaves from the fall have been raked up and mulched. You should start to see bulbs coming up -- we have daffodils in bloom right now -- and daylilies will start to green up.

I hope you have a wonderful month and I'll see you back here again in May.

Victoria
The Frugal Gardener