Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Central Government Thursday 4th February 2010 - 8:42am Legg report into MPs' expenses to criticise 'culture of deference' MPs were braced for a fresh onslaught over their expenses today as the long-awaited report naming those parliamentarians ordered to pay back cash to the taxpayer is published.
The ground is wet, and Anthony's sneakers sink into the soft soil as he pounds a wooden stake deep enough to support a twining vine.
This is a very cool idea, as reported by the Sacramento Bee , and for those of us who have a slope somewhere in the yard - as we do - a real boon.
By Steve Chawkins Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES - A free truckload of soil for a Santa Barbara, Calif., school's new vegetable garden should have been something to celebrate.
Some of you were kind enough to follow my first attempt at growing an indoor garden to decorate and supplement my apartment's kitchen.
Not all plants with "weed" in their names are necessarily weedy, in the sense of being unattractive or undesirable in the landscape. A great example is "butterfly weed" (Asclepias tuberosa), a perennial that bears lovely orange flowers. Some nurseries and catalogs prefer the name "butterfly plant" over "butterfly weed," lest potential buyers be troubled with self-doubts over forking over their hard-earned money for a "weed!"
Butterfly weed belies the "weed" in its name but is true to the other part of its moniker; this plant is a butterfly magnet! Click the link below to learn about growing butterfly weed.
Read article: Butterfly Weed
Butterfly Weed originally appeared on About.com Landscaping on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 08:13:12.
My prior two landscaping courses covered the basics of landscaping and were geared to a wide audience. The "Alternative Landscaping" course, by contrast, is designed for a narrower, more "committed" crowd who, not content merely to have a pretty landscape, wish to dig a bit deeper and question our attitudes toward the landscape.
Some of the topics addressed in the Alternative Landscaping course include:
- Pest control without chemicals
- Companion Planting
- Earth Day
- Invasive plants
- Organic weed control
- "Green" lawn mowers
- Alternatives to lawns
- Re-evaluating "weeds"
- Woodland gardens
Sign up for free: Alternative Landscaping Course
Alternative Landscaping Course originally appeared on About.com Landscaping on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 08:36:08.
CHICAGO -- Think of it as take-out, but at the presiden tial level. Since bringing their well-documented, high-end appe tites to the White House, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Oba ma have broken new gour met ground by inviting in a steady stream of the nation's top culinary talents.
Prince Charles is at Towneley Hall on his third engagement on his royal visit to Burnley.
Lawn care is all about good habits. A habit is a regular tendency or practice that is often hard to give up. When good lawn care habits are established you won't even realize your doing them.
I've come up with five habits that I think could be the backbone of a responsible lawn care program. Whether you keep a highly manicured lawn or a low maintenance lawn, use conventional fertilizers and pesticides or grow an organic lawn, these habits are simple enough to fit any lawn care regimen.
Great lawn care habit number one is to mow the lawn as high as possible. Some southern lawns just can't grow very high so this habit is mostly applicable to the northern lawns consisting of bluegrass, fescue, and ryegrass mixes.
It may seem odd at first to grow a lawn to 3 1/2 inches but it is the most critical element of my lawn care program. Long grass can withstand drought conditions better than short lawns and out-compete weeds for territory. The longer grass blade not only allows for increased photosynthesis, the lawn will also become more dense, lush, and green.
Read about all the great lawn care habits:
5 Great Lawn Care Habits originally appeared on About.com Lawn Care on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 19:46:28.
Digging for Victory . We will need to do this to gain victory over Obama's hell-bent socialist policies, present and future.
In the Northeast, the winter is the most difficult time to get the fresh taste - and goodness - of homegrown vegetables.
It was fun this week to watch from our lofty sofa perches and judge our favorite TV personalities.
The long-running radio show of gardening guru Neil Sperry will be canceled this summer, he said in a letter to listeners.
A gardener's library should be enriched with practical and inspiring volumes as well as those that are just plain fun.
If you think your child is a picky eater, consider what Ryan Kemp's parents faced when he was a child.
How many elementary school students does it take to plant a daffodil bulb? At least six, if one of them keeps swiping away the dirt to check on it.
Where on earth do all those aphids come from? Seriously, how do they find their way into our homes in the dead of winter? What were they living on until I so graciously started some seedlings?
What they lack in size, they make up in numbers. Debbie Hadley, About's Guide to Insects, says "...a single aphid could produce 600 billion descendants in one season." What chance does a gardener have against those kinds of odds? And they apparently have some type of twisted relationship with ants, who protect them in order to get their fix of honeydew. Debbie sheds some light on these little suckers of the plant world.
- All About Aphids
- Where Did All These Aphids Come From?
- The Odd Couple - Ants and Aphids
- Two Homemade Aphid Sprays
- Houseplant Pest Problems
Photo: rgrabe / stock.xchng.
Where Do All the Aphids Come From? originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 01:09:53.
The concept of the path is so empowering that the word is often used metaphorically, as in, "Discover the path to independence!" But this article on pathways and walkways deals not with metaphorical paths, but with the real thing.
Building pathways -- or walkways, their more upscale cousins -- may be an ideal option for homeowners looking to connect point A to point B in a landscape. Is foot traffic across a portion of your lawn causing unsightly wear marks on your grass? Installing a pathway or walkway could be just the answer to solve the problem. You might call it "the path of least resistance": instead of fighting the flow of the foot traffic, use it as an indicator of where your future pathway or walkway needs to be located.
In this article, I interview David Gatti (of HGTV fame!) on the subject of building pathways and walkways. David begins by explaining the difference between them.
Read article: Pathways and Walkways
Pathways and Walkways originally appeared on About.com Landscaping on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 08:24:38.
The 2010 Gardening Series is making its way to Smyrna Public Library this month.
These dark and dreary days of winter provide a good time to take inventory of your gardening tools and gadgets and perhaps do a little early spring-cleaning before the gardening season arrives.
Supertunia® Pretty Much Picasso
Photo courtesy of Proven Winners - www.provenwinners.com
Last week I went to the New England Grows trade show. To say that I was smitten with all the beautiful new plants is an understatement - I was swooning. Some of the most exciting plants have been specifically designed to look good and do well in containers. I saw some killer hydrangeas - wacky and sensational colors, some amazing new succulents and super cool roses.
One of the plants that really won my heart was at the Proven Winners Booth and that was Supertunia® Pretty Much Picasso. I had seen pictures of this plant and was interested, but skeptical that I would like it in person. Well, it is gorgeous. There is something about the color combination that is both beautiful and interesting. I can see it either on it's own, or paired with one of the new sweet potato vines that have come out.
Now I just want to know, how on earth am I supposed to wait for spring?
Container Gardening Crush originally appeared on About.com Container Gardening on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 11:42:30.
<p>I was watering this morning, and I had a thought: how long should houseplants live? It's a good question, and like all good questions, there really isn't an easy answer. I've had some plants for years and years--I had one particular dracaena that lived for almost 7 years in the same pot, with the same soil and not especially great care. Other plants, like zebra plants, tend to succumb fairly quickly, often within months. But I think particularly indoors, people are more inclined to think their houseplants should live forever. We don't expect this outdoors, of course. Seasons change, bugs and pests and weather take out plants, even tastes change. So why do we expect it indoors? Perhaps it the steady nature of the environment--even if the environment is less than ideal for plants. Perhaps it's because we view houseplants a bit like furniture, and no one seriously expects their sofa to wilt. Whatever the reason, I always encourage people to mix it up inside, and when a plant starts looking beat, just replace it. You wouldn't hesitate to do it outside ... so don't expect more from your indoor plants than you do from your flower garden.
The Immortal Houseplant originally appeared on About.com Houseplants on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 16:46:12.
Here's how badly I need to get outside and do some digging: I spent over an hour sitting on my kitchen floor today with my worm bin.
Don't worry, it's not like I was naming the worms or anything. I was harvesting the vermicompost from the bin. It had gotten to the point that the bottom two inches of the bin were jam packed with vermicompost, and I was worried that I would soon be dealing with an anaerobic worm bin if I didn't take care of it soon (I was right: digging down into the bottom of that compacted vermicompost was not the world's most pleasant task. Ew.)
So, here's what I did:
- Go through the bin, grabbing any really big pieces of bedding and food. Toss this into another container to throw into the outdoor compost bin.
- Dump the finer material (including all of the worms and vermicompost) onto a tarp or garbage bag.
- Spend as long as it takes going through the contents of the tarp, picking out worms and flinging them (along with some of the somewhat coarse material that you didn't remove before) into a bucket.
- Once you've got a bunch of vermicompost which you've removed as many worms from as possible, look through it again, than put your vermicompost into a bucket or bin to store it until you can use it.
- Shred up fresh newspaper for bedding, moisten it, and add your worms back into the bin.
- Marvel at how much worm poop you now own.
Admittedly, there are more efficient ways to do this. A sifter would have been a great help, and I'll have to build one for this purpose before I go through this again. But there is something to be said for getting up close and personal with your worms every once in a while. It was easy to see how many baby worms I have in the bin, which food scraps the worms seemed to congregate around, and which ones they avoid. You just don't get that level of detail from throwing everything into a sieve!
And, what did I end up with? A large bucket of finished vermicompost and a clean, fresh worm bin that is ready to get loaded up with food scraps again. And just a little bit of time spent digging around, even if it was only on my kitchen floor.
A Different Kind of Harvest originally appeared on About.com Organic Gardening on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 21:30:23.
Composting is too much hassle. Compost piles stink. Compost attracts bugs and rats. Everything gives you cancer. The check is in the mail.
Whatever your lame-ass excuse is for not composting, give it up. Composting is easy, safe, and so cheap it might even save you money. If you have a garden -- or even if you don't -- there are simple ways you can reuse your kitchen waste and yard trimmings.
Saving the planet, one eggshell at a time.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Composting originally appeared on About.com Green Living on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 09:01:32.
BRACKNELL MP Andrew MacKay and his MP wife Julie Kirkbride were asked to repay 60,000 for "flipping" their second home expenses.
Garden Planner
I am not an organized gardener (or anything else for that matter). My seed starting schedule is haphazard at best and downright chaotic at worst. I find it takes not only organization to get it right, but a fair amount of mathematical computation as well, which is another one of my many Achilles heels.
So along comes an email with an easy and sensible gardening scheduler. Could this be the answer to my dreams of neat little rows of seeds, all started at the optimal time, labeled properly (ok, labeled at all), hardened off and transplanted perfectly? Hmmm...maybe...that is if I get organized enough to fill in the schedule. Anyhow a girl can always dream.
Toms Garden Planner is offering free beta user accounts until March 31st.
For Container Gardening Organization originally appeared on About.com Container Gardening on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 08:00:11.
I greatly enjoy my maiden grass during the wintertime. After my herbaceous perennials have died back and my deciduous shrubs have dropped their leaves, it's really the only game in town in that patch of my landscape. So there's nothing else around to compete with the beauty of its seed-heads, stalks and blade-like leaves.
Not that maiden grass needs its competition eliminated in order to shine brightly. This is a tall ornamental grass; it's more likely to obscure its neighbors than to be obscured by them.
But ornamental grasses come in a whole range of heights. For example, during spring and summer, I enjoy blue fescue, that ornamental grass with an almost surreal blue color. Blue fescue is a short ornamental grass. It's not something you want to stick in the back row of a perennial bed, because you won't be able to appreciate it with taller plants in the way.
Read article: Ornamental Grasses
Ornamental Grasses originally appeared on About.com Landscaping on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 08:11:46.
Are you breathing a little sigh of relief, knowing that you don't have to worry (anytime terribly soon) about barcodes on your beeves or ID tags on your turkeys? I know I'm a bit relieved that the USDA has decided to scrap the voluntary National Animal Identification System, or NAIS.
Few small farmers were supporters of this program. Although its purpose was to easily and quickly track livestock in the event of an outbreak, it definitely felt a bit overly Big Brother to many of us. (Am I understating things?) Many worried that it would become mandatory, and the thought of the cost and work involved was overwhelming. Plus, we felt the emphasis was on the wrong things. Looking at animals at the point of importation is much more critical than monitoring someone's backyard chicken flock. Right?
The USDA announced a new plan for tracing animal disease, that does focus on animals moved between states, and that will "encourage the use of lower-cost technology" as well as be implemented transparently. I'm all for transparency. Let's keep our eyes and ears open, and give Vilsack and the USDA feedback as they develop the new system.
USDA Drops NAIS Animal ID Program originally appeared on About.com Small Farms on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 20:23:16.
With the big Saints win in the Super Bowl, you may decide to cook some Cajun style foods to celebrate. Although I may not be a huge football fan, I am certainly a huge football snack fan. Why don't you try out some of the Cajun recipes found at About.com. Try to keep the authentic flavors, by using Cajun herbs when you do!
From About.com Homecooking Guide, a list of foods specifically for Cajun enthusiasts:
From About.com Guide to Southern Food, Cajun and Creole Recipes
From About.com Guide to American Food, these Cajun and Creole Recipes
Have a great week!
Herbs For Cajun Cooking originally appeared on About.com Herb Gardens on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 01:51:33.
Change has come to America. The pop culture phrase 'show me the money,' boiling throughout business and industry, has cooled down and is forcing people to take a hard look at what is really important in life.
WHENEVER widow Penny Lally looks out of the windows of her farmhouse, she's comforted by the fact that, since her late husband John is buried in the garden, he is never far away.
I've yet to plant an evening garden, probably because the bugs come out at night, but I have a list of flowers I'd love to include in one, in the future. White flowers top the list for evening gardens. Of course there's moonflower, evening stock and night blooming cereus. But also near the top of the list is Mirabilis jalapa 'Alba'.
Four O'Clocks do indeed bloom sometime around four o'clock in the evening and they stay in bloom through the night. I've read that night blooming flowers do so because they are pollinated by moths. I can't confirm that, so if any of you have any knowledge of this, please let us know.
That bit of trivia aside, Four O'Clocks are tender perennials, often grown as annuals, that start blooming in mid-summer and continue to bloom profusely until frost. Why wait until you create an evening garden to plant them? Put some in a pot on the patio, tuck a few in your walk way and plant some under a window, so their gentle vanilla scent can catch you off guard when a breeze blows in. This week's featured plant may seem common to some gardeners, but it's a triple delight: flowers, fragrance and reseeding. Are Four O'Clocks on your seed list?
Photo: © Marie Iannotti
Featured Plant: Four OClock (Mirabilis jalapa) originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 01:00:02.
Two years ago, Robin J. Schneider was a housewife who taught Sunday school. Now, the newly divorced mother has transformed her passion for organic gardening into a new career path - a medicinal marijuana caregiver.
The mailbox is full of gardening magazines and seed catalogues. More people are reading them as new people plan to have their first ever garden to supplement an unsure paycheck.
A lot of roses are being ordered this week. Getting roses is a wonderful treat, especially in winter. Maybe it's got you thinking about ordering a few rose bushes?
We all know that roses aren't a holiday treat for gardeners. Every garden should have at least one rose bush. And if it can be an old fashioned fragrant rose bush, all the better. Here are my Top 10 Great Roses for Fragrance, to add to your garden.
Read more:
Photo of 'Easy Does It' Rose Provided by AARS
Stop and Smell the Roses originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 01:30:18.
Tara Kolla fancied herself a green thumb-turned-green businesswoman when she planted an organic flower plot in her yard and sold poppies, sweet peas and zinnias at the local farmers market.
Strolling around my garden in the morning with my cup of coffee provides peaceful meditation, but also a time for daily plant inspection.
Experts say that when homeowners consider developing a rose garden, 1 of their first concerns should be the planting bed.
I've always found the idea of companion planting fascinating. I wouldn't swear it always works, but I suspect there's a lot more substance to it than its detractors will admit. Gardeners have been fine tuning it for years and there's no substitute for experience. Today I'm combining two of my gardening loves: growing tomatoes and companion planting. I culled through a few dozen articles and books and my own experience and pulled together my list of companion plants for tomatoes. Since you're going to grow some of these plants anyway, why not experiment with growing them together? There's still plenty of time to start some seeds.
Photo: © Marie Iannotti
Companion Planting for Tomatoes originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 01:06:34.
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