Kayla S First Lady writes book on edible gardening
Washington (CNN) – First lady, wife, mother, careerist, fashionista - Michelle Obama can now add "author" to her list of credentials.
Obama has written a book that highlights one of her most visible initiatives as first lady: promoting better nutrition and edible gardening as a means for Americans to get and stay healthy.
"American Grown: How the White House Kitchen Garden Inspires Families, Schools, and Communities" aims to explore "how increased access to healthy, affordable food can promote better eating habits and improve the health of families and communities across America," according to a press release issued Monday by the Crown Publishing Group.
"Mrs. Obama will describe how her daughters Sasha and Malia were catalysts for change in her own family's eating behavior, which inspired Mrs. Obama to plant an edible garden on the South Lawn - the first since Eleanor Roosevelt's "Victory Garden," planted during World War II."
The first lady did not accept an advance for the book and will donate all proceeds to a charity to be revealed later, the statement says. Random House Inc., Crown Publishing Group's parent, will also make a donation to a charity.
The book will be on sale nationwide starting April 10.
Original article: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/24/flotus-writes-book-on-edible-gardening/
3 months ago -
Deborah Spend whatever you want (for) your kid--go ahead, but this isn't about your child. I personally have never met a child that, in the presense of a large box, that didn't have a blast. Maybe, it's just me, but this is ridiculous.
Child's Play, Grown-Up Cash
APART from the open bar by the swimming pool, the main attraction at parties held at the Houston home of John Schiller, an oil company executive, and his wife, Kristi, a Playboy model turned blogger, is the $50,000 playhouse the couple had custom-built two years ago for their daughter, Sinclair, now 4.
Cocktails in hand, guests duck to enter through the 4 ½-foot door. Once inside, they could be forgiven for feeling as if they’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.
Built in the same Cape Cod style as the Schillers’ expansive main house, the two-story 170-square-foot playhouse has vaulted ceilings that rise from five to eight feet tall, furnishings scaled down to two-thirds of normal size, hardwood floors and a faux fireplace with a fanciful mosaic mantel.
The little stainless-steel sink in the kitchen has running water, and the matching stainless-steel mini fridge and freezer are stocked with juice boxes and Popsicles. Upstairs is a sitting area with a child-size sofa and chairs for watching DVDs on the 32-inch flat-screen TV. The windows, which all open, have screens to keep out mosquitoes, and there are begonias in the window boxes. And, of course, the playhouse is air-conditioned. This is Texas, after all.
“I think of it as bling for the yard,” said Ms. Schiller, 40
To read on, if you can stomach it: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/garden/playhouses-childs-play-grown-up-cash.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/garden/playhouses-childs-play-grown-up-cash.html?pagewanted=all
7 months ago -
Katie Sheerer Try Gardening with your Kids!
Parenting.com - Last summer my 5-year-old daughter, Mary Elena, and I planted a few carrot and radish seeds in a small patch of otherwise neglected dirt near our garage. I bought her a little watering can shaped like an elephant (the water came splashing out of the trunk), and she tended to the tiny sprouts first thing every morning. Seeing the wonder in Mary Elena's eyes as we watched the shoots get bigger was priceless. Her pride in the harvest—we served “her” carrots with dinner several nights—was boundless. (She was even willing to try a radish. Who knew?) This summer we're expanding our backyard crop by adding lettuce, beans, and raspberries.L
Gardening is a terrific family bonding experience, says Rebecca P. Cohen, author of 15 Minutes Outside: 365 Ways to Get Out of the House and Connect With Your Kids. “A garden gives you a place to connect with each other year-round; even in winter you can draw up plans and talk about what to plant.” Plus, everyone can enjoy the fresh air and exercise (digging, hoeing, hauling!). “When kids are outdoors, they work up an appetite,” notes Cohen. “Tasting veggies right from the garden becomes a new way of snacking—and kids are indeed more likely to taste vegetables they grew themselves.”
Keep Reading: http://www.parenting.com/article/gardening-kids
7 months ago -
Cooper My sister does this and next summer I am too!
Fending Off the Weeds With Newsprint
Planting the last of the fall seeds — spinach, arugula, mâche — in a no-till garden.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/garden/09garden.html
about 1 year ago -
Susan 24/7 MOMS is on the road this week in Hawaii
Join www.247moms.com & Trisha on Tuesday night at 7pm/9pm PST for a taste of life on the Island. 247moms #1 webshow for moms!!! Giveaways every week!
about 1 year ago -
Cooper The Good Earth
Superstar chefs are a dime a dozen. The new foodie hero: the farmer.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/02/food-for-thought-the-farmer-as-superstar.html
From Newsweek:
One of the fall’s most beautiful cookbooks, Harvest to Heat: Cooking With America’s Best Chefs, Farmers, and Artisans, celebrates not only the farmers’ increasingly high profiles but their symbiotic relationships with the chefs, who now plan menus and create dishes al-most exclusively according to what they have on offer. So not only do we get the recipe for Thomas Keller’s Lamb Saddle With Caramelized Fennel, we meet Keith Martin of Pennsylvania’s Elysian Fields Farm, who “talks with his lambs on a regular basis.” All that chatting apparently pays off—Keller was so impressed that he became Martin’s partner. But, like most of his colleagues, Keller doesn’t stop there. A browse through a recent tasting menu at Per Se, his Michelin three-star restaurant in Manhattan, reveals an omelet made with Squire Hill Farm’s Ameraucana hen egg, agnolotti with Salvatore Brooklyn ricotta, Cavendish Farm quail, a salad that includes peppers and arugula from Eckerton Hill Farms, and Sterling white-sturgeon caviar.
about 1 year ago -
Emily The Accidental Hybrid: Discovering New Tomatoes
From NPR's All Things Considered:
Julie Zickefoose is a writer and watercolor painter who lives on an 80-acre wildlife sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio. Her latest book is Letters from Eden, a collection of illuminated essays that move through the seasons.
Every time I plod out to the garden, jaw set, to pull up the nasty old green bean plants that have collapsed on the straw, their yellowed leaves riddled by bean beetles, they surprise me. They’ve set the table with new white blossoms, and they’ve made dinner for me again. And so I stay their execution and decide not to replant — why start over with a puppy when the old dog still has spring in her step?
I pick the prickly yellow beetle larvae off the leaves and toss them over the fence; I keep the plants picked clean, weeded and mulched. They look terrible, but they keep us in beans, and that’s all that matters. It’s practically free, gardening, if you don’t count the hours spent weeding and the bales of straw bought to keep the bindweed down. You plant the seed and nurture it for a while and then stand back and let the burgeoning vegetation do the rest. Come late summer, you take a big plastic tote out each time you visit, there’s that much food flooding back into your kitchen.
For the first time ever, I’ve kept the tomatoes tied up in their cages, and I can move among them without the pop and spurt of fruit under my bare feet. After running and before my morning shower, I pick, dripping with sweat, clammy tomato branches anointing my arms and back. My clothes and skin are sharp with the pungent essence of tomato. I listen to the swelling sizzle of cicadas, dodging their bomber flights through the garden; hear the steady hum of crickets and katydids in the meadow, the sputtering zzzz of bumblebees working the blazing zinnias. I kneel to extract a huge tomato — the size, shape and purplish color of a human kidney — from a jumble of fragrant stalks in its cage, working it up through the thick leaves. I heft it in my hand, marveling, then pluck a basil leaf and take a bite out of its smooth purple side.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129302564
about 1 year ago -
PartlySunny I pretty much kill anything that's green, inside or outside our house. My most recent victim is a pot of mini-roses that currently look like the flower from the final scene of Beauty and the Beast. Fortunately my husband can grow just about anything, so we won't starve this summer. And the kids love helping.
about 1 year ago -
Emily A Michigan Teen Farms Her Backyard
By CHRISTINE MUHLKE
Lawn mowing and baby-sitting are standard summer jobs for the enterprising teenager. Alexandra Reau, who is 14, combines a little bit of each: last year, she asked her dad to dig up a half acre of their lawn in rural Petersburg, Mich., so she could farm. Now in its second season, her Garden to Go C.S.A. (community-supported agriculture) grows for 14 members, who pay $100 to $175 for two months of just-picked vegetables and herbs. While her peers are hanging out at Molly’s Mystic Freeze and working out the moves to that Miley Cyrus video, she’s flicking potato-beetle larvae off of leaves in her V-neck T-shirt and denim capris, a barrette keeping her hair out of her demurely made-up eyes. Who says the face of American farming is a 57-year-old man with a John Deere cap?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/magazine/18food-t.html?src=me&ref=general
about 1 year ago -
Cooper Parent Hacks: Design your dream garden online
http://www.parenthacks.com/2010/06/garden-design-online.html
Fabulous tips and tricks from Asha!
about 1 year ago -
inkscrblr I have started gardening with my children again this year and it is always fun. We enjoy digging in the dirt and making messes and just seeing what turns up and what grows or doesn't grow. There is a strange crop of sunflowers in the middle of the garden Ainsley and I started and we didn't plant them there. I always find that a bit funny and a bit magical. This year we transferred beans from the pots that were indoors to the garden (My sixer had been doing Jack and the Beanstock at school and they grew beanstocks.) We are trying zucchini for the first time ever to see what happens and I just transplanted a birdhouse gourd we found at the dollar store as one of those tiny kid science experiments they sometimes sell. I can't wait to see what that produces. We also have the usual carrots and tomatoes (maybe this will be the year they turn red!?!). Then there are cucumbers too. I walked out the back door this morning and began watering and a baby rabbit sprang out of my hosta and hopped back behind the shed. I love that and my kids last night spied a mole scurrying across the yard. I could live in our backyard some days. In the spring and summer it is magic.
about 1 year ago -
Deborah grow little growing things
My most recent post about skills I wished I had....and who I wished was around to help me with these skills.
http://indigojonesstudio.blogspot.com/2010/06/grow-little-growing-things.html
about 1 year ago -
gottalovemom My first strawberries..
(And they're sweet!)
about 1 year ago -
gottalovemom My little vegetable garden is growing....
about 1 year ago -
Holland http://lifesimplifiedforyou.com/2010/05/15/my-secret-garden/
The Secret Garden is one of my favorite plays & books, and while I wish I had my own secret garden, I don't. What I do have are some gardening secrets and suggestions that get me through the season and make me look better than I really am.
EasyBloom.com is one of my favorite sites for all things garden. They have great "Plant Doctor Advice" but their shining star is the EasyBloom Plant Sensor Plus. As their site states, "Put the EasyBloom Plant Sensor Plus anywhere, inside or outside, where you want to grow a plant or have a plant you want advice on. The Plant Sensor will measure sunlight, temperature, water drainage and fertilizer (with subscription). Plug the EasyBloom Plant Sensor into the USB port of your PC or Mac and from our 6,000+ plant library, they'll recommend what plants are best for your spot and how to care for them." It's amazing! I've got flowers finally growing in areas that I thought were unsalvageable, and the best part is that you can use it again and again indoors or outdoors.
Now Amber's Garden (ambersgarden.com) is supposedly geared towards helping kids in the garden, but if it makes my life easier, I'll act like a child ... no problem. Amber's Garden sells garden mats with seeds already perfectly spaced and ready to plant. Simply lay the mat, cover with soil, water and watch them grow. If you've been a hesitant gardener...
Read the rest of this article by clicking the link above.
about 1 year ago -
Emily Growing Vegetables Upside Down
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/garden/20tomato.html?src=me&ref=general
By KATE MURPHY
IF pests and blight are wrecking your plants, it might be time to turn your garden on its head.
Growing crops that dangle upside down from homemade or commercially available planters is growing more popular, and its adherents swear they’ll never come back down to earth.
“I’m totally converted,” said Mark McAlpine, a body piercer in Guelph, Ontario, who began growing tomatoes upside down two years ago because cutworms were ravaging the ones he planted in the ground. He made six planters out of five-gallon plastic buckets, some bought at the Home Depot and some salvaged from the trash of a local winemaker. He cut a two-inch hole in the bottom of each bucket and threaded a tomato seedling down through the opening, packing strips of newspaper around the root ball to keep it in place and to prevent dirt from falling out.
He then filled the buckets with soil mixed with compost and hung them on sturdy steel hooks bolted to the railing of his backyard deck. “Last summer was really hot so it wasn’t the best crop, but I still was able to jar enough whole tomatoes, half tomatoes, salsa and tomato sauce to last me through the winter,” said Mr. McAlpine, who plans an additional six upside-down planters this year. (keep reading by clicking above...)
about 1 year ago -
gottalovemom All it took was a little pepper!
Seeing that my little seedling is sprouting a few fruits here and there got me so excited!
I know it takes time....like anything else!
Click here to read the entire blog post : http://gottalovemom.blogspot.com/2010/05/it-takes-time.html
about 1 year ago -
Emily Top 10 gardening mistakes
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/homestyle/05/15/rs.top10.gardening.mistakes/index.html?hpt=C2
(RealSimple.com) -- Digging up flowers instead of weeds. Drowning the tulips. Readers reveal their growing woes and garden design pros plot out the solutions.
Mistake 1: Planting a garden in the wrong spot
"Last year we built raised garden beds. They looked beautiful -- with fresh mulch all around them and even a new spot watering system. But the mulch around the beds is always soggy -- even in hot, dry Colorado."
--- Stacie Perrault Staub, Arvada, Colorado
Garden fix -- Good news: You don't have to tear out the beds entirely, says Ivette Soler, a Los Angeles-based garden designer and writer of "The Germinatrix" blog.
Empty the raised beds (dig out the plants and lay them on a tarp while you work) and spread a four-inch layer of gravel evenly over the underside of the planters to improve the drainage. Then refill the planters with fresh fluffy organic compost.
Mistake 2: Accidentally pulling up flowers instead of weeds
"I planted some lovely perennials one summer. The following spring all the flowers sprouted along with some weeds. I pulled the weeds and lovingly tended to the flowers. I even staked a tall lanky plant that I was certain was going to produce a beautiful bloom. Then, one day my neighbor asked me why I had staked a weed. Turns out, I had pulled out the flowers and left the weeds. Oops."
--- Lisa Benter Rich, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
Click link to read on ...
about 1 year ago -
Emily Invasion of the Superweeds (Yikes!)
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/invasion-of-the-superweeds/?ref=style
American farmers’ broad use of the weedkiller glyphosphate — particularly Roundup, which was originally made by Monsanto — has led to the rapid growth in recent years of herbicide-resistant weeds. To fight them, farmers are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.
What should farmers do about these superweeds? What does the problem mean for agriculture in the U.S.? Will it temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for genetically modified crops that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup? (click on the link above to read the rest, and great answers from six experts.)
about 1 year ago -
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Brandie Wish i would be ready sooner!!
3 months ago
Brandie Not i ... i meant to type it!
3 months ago