Why Garden?

Last night was perfectly still.  A full moon was anxiously out before the sun had finished setting and I was sitting on a bench in my garden enjoying the end of the season and pondering the miracle of planting one small seed which produces an abundance of fruits and within each fruit are seeds for many more seasons. Nature seems anxious to continue to perpetuate, produce, and be fruitful.

There seems to be a renewed interest in gardening, animal husbandry, self reliance, and homesteading.  Whether motivated by the uncertainty of the economy, health, environmental concerns or just the desire to enjoy a home grown tomato more people are eager to learn about gardening and have a peaked interest in "organic gardening."

Gardening for me, was part of living providently and living providently brings self-reliance.  I wanted to produce and provide food for my family.  I wanted to preserve and can so that we could enjoy good healthy food through the winter. I enjoy sharing my harvests with family and friends. I enjoy raising animals and learning how to make yogurt, cheese, soaps, and lotions. With self reliance comes a feeling of peace and contentment even in difficult times and it allows you to be in a position to help others. 

 
Choosing to grow organically just made sense. The more I learn about the intricate relationship between microbes, soil, and plants, the more I marvel at the amazing defenses and medicinal and healing properties of plants.  Every time I bite into a sweet, juicy melt in your mouth home grown melon, I am convinced that just as my small garden plot has a creator and designer that this world has a creator and designer. 

For me gardening allows me to partner in the creation process.  To design, nurture, and then set back and enjoy the beauty and harvest. I like creating stunning designs with color, height, and texture in flower beds as well as in my vegetable gardens.  From spring blooms to the fall colors, the orchard, berries, and grapes provide seasonal interest as well as delicious berries and fruit. There are endless varieties and cultivars that compete for a space in my garden and yard. The end of the season only brings a renewed excitement of what might be next year.

My husband and I wanted to raise our children in the country where dirt and mud rather than concrete and asphalt carpeted the ground.  Owning 5 acres and maintaining it has always provided ample work and chores for everyone of every stage and age in our family.  Work is an important principle.  Hard work and a job well done provide satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment. 

A feeling of responsibility comes with realizing and recognizing the blessings in your life.

I feel very blessed with this small plot of earth we have and believe in being a wise steward over those things I have been blessed with. I enjoy sharing my successes and failures and the knowledge I gain from  both.  I also enjoy visiting fellow gardeners both the beginner and experienced.  All have something to teach and they inspire me with their enthusiasm.

In a world that is increasingly disconnected with God and nature and obsessed with technology, materialism, and self aggrandizement, I encourage you to enjoy the blessings and personal insights that come from being productive, working hard, and continually learning in the garden and farm among the fruits, flowers, herbs, and various animals that find a place on your homestead and heart.

Quick Guide to Growing Green Beans

 

Green beans are an easy crop to grow that will give even the beginning gardener a great harvest.

Growth Habit

Green beans have threes possible growth habits:  pole, semi-bush, and bush.  Pole and semi bush need trellising or staking while bush beans do not. Your seed package will tell you which type you have.  I have grown all three types.  With tall pole beans they will do better in an area protected from wind.

Types of Green Beans

Green Beans or Snap Beans

Green Beans are long, round, and of course green.  There are yellow varieties that are referred to as wax beans.  Yellow keep their color when cooked.  There are also purple varieties that add beautiful color, but when cooked they do turn green.  Most varieties no longer have the fiberous string running down the side which led to the name string beans.  Some heirlooms can still be found with strings.

There are many delicious recipes for green beans, but they can also be pickled and canned.

Haricot Verts or French Green Beans or Filet Beans

These are my favorite fresh eating variety and are considered a gourmet bean.  They are long and thin and tender. They also come in yellow and purple varieties.

Long Beans

Long beans or yard long beans are actually a different family.  If too long they are tough so look for beans that reach 12-18 inches.

Romano Beans or Flat Beans

These beans are flat and wide.  They should be eaten young before the bean seeds develop and require longer cooking times.  The are said to be very flavorful.

All green beans are interchangeable in recipes with maybe a slightly different texture and color.

Cultivating Green Beans

Green beans can be planted when the soil temperature is 

60-65F; however they are a tender crop so wait until there is no threat of a freeze. You can succession plant a couple crops 2 weeks apart to extend the harvest.

Always direct seed beans.  Plant bush beans an inch deep with 4 plants per square foot. Pole beans can be planted along a trellis 3 inches apart.

When seedlings first emerge, birds, grasshoppers, pillbug, and slugs can be a problem. Any product containing iron phosphate will take care of slugs and pillbugs.  If birds and grasshoppers snack on your seedlings cover with a floating row cover until the true leaves appear.

Watering needs at planting are low and increase as the plants mature.  Beans will stop flowering if not given enough water.  When plants flower increase watering and water heavy through harvest.

Harvest regularly to keep them producing. The more regularly you harvest the more they set flowers. If you planted a determinate crop they produce one big crop and are then finished but most will keep on producing til a freeze.  I like to harvest green beans and wax beans when they are the size of a pencil. Haricot beans are harvested when diameter is smaller than a pencil .

Fertilizing

Beans do not need much in way of fertilizer.  If you incorporated 1-2 inches of compost into your soil prior to planting you will get a healthy crop.  Green beans are legumes which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere with the help of the bacteria rhizobia in nodules found on the roots. Watch for a post explain the process of nitrogen fixing. In newer beds you can inoculate your soil with the bacteria used by legumes to fix nitrogen.  It is sprinkled in the furrow or hole you plant the beans in.

 Links to green bean recipes and canning info:

Favorite Green Bean Recipes

Canning Dilly Green Beans

How to Transplant Tomatoes?

 

One of the most popular summer crops to grow is tomatoes Nothing tastes better than a vine ripe tomato from your own garden. With so many colors, tastes, sizes, shapes and uses, what's not to love about tomatoes!

                                     Growing Tomatoes

 So it's important to plant those transplants you've invested in properly.  In most zones tomatoes are planted as transplants because of the length of time needed for them to mature and ripen before a freeze.  I grow my own transplants so that I can get the varieties I want plus if started properly they seem to be healthier.

                                     Starting Seeds Indoors 

If purchasing transplants from the store, look for plants with 4 to 6 leaves and good green color.  Avoid leggy, limp transplants with curled or discolored leaves. Bigger is not better: these transplants often struggle to get established and suffer from wind damage and sun damage because there is not an established root system to support the amount of top growth.

A good complete organic fertilizer to use.

Prepping the Bed

Ok, so lets get those tomatoes transplants in the ground!  Hopefully you have prepped your garden beds.  I do this by sprinkling a complete organic fertilizer on the bed and covering it with 1-2" of compost.  If it is an established bed with a good soil then that's all I do.  If you have not been adding compost to your beds each year then gently turn the soil over to work the compost into the bed.

These holes for tomatoes transplants are at least twice a deep and wide as the root ball.

Digging the Holes

Since tomatoes will be planted deeper than the level they are in the pot, I dig a hole twice as wide and twice as deep as the potted tomato.  Add a small sprinkle of complete organic fertilizer and a handful of  a finished plant based compost.  Then water the hole, let it sink in, and repeat this a few times.

A small amount of organic fertilizer and compost is added to the hole and watered in.

Prepping the Tomatoes

I always make a label and record what I am planting and make a layout in my garden journal.  This info is important because if you really love a certain variety and can't remember what you planted that would be sad.  Also if you enjoy heirlooms but find certain ones struggle in your area then you don't want to make the mistake of growing or buying them again.

                                 Keeping a Garden Journal

Planting the Tomato Transplants

Once that info is recorded, I gently remove the tomato from the pot.  Do not water the pots prior to planting so the dirt stays intact when you remove the transplant.  I cut off the lower leaves with scissors. Do not tear them off it will damage the stem.

  We are going to plant the tomato plant a couple inches deeper then it was in the pot.  This is done because the stem has undifferentiated meristem cells which will produce roots if buried.  This helps establish a strong root system that can support the larges vines and fruits of tomatoes.

After Transplanting

After transplanting water the tomato well, mulch around the plant and water again.  In order to protect the transplant from the intense sun and to protect it from disease, we will cover the plant. Tomatoes also need to be caged to support their growth and keep vines off the ground.  I like folding square tomato cages.  They are sturdy and collapsible for storage. 

                               Mulching for a Healthier Soil

A little shade is beneficial for all transplants until they are established.  While the cover is removed once most plants are established, tomatoes do best if left covered until they grow out of the top of the tomato cage. Research has shown that covering or shading tomatoes is very effective in preventing curly top.  

So curly top is a virus that causes the loss of lots of  tomato plants.  The virus is vectored by the leaf hopper.  Leaf hoppers live happily in the grasses or meadows but as the grasses dry up they look for greener pastures- your tomatoes.  They can carry the curly top virus and when they feed on plants they spread the disease.  There are no cures for viruses so the infected plants need to be pulled and disposed of properly.  You cannot prune off leaves etc.  because viruses are systemic throughout the whole plant. Covering the plants seems to make it more difficult for leaf hoppers to find them.

                                         Preventing Curly Top

Caging and Covering Tomatoes

After tomatoes are in the ground, prepare a cage to cover the tomato.  I use a light to medium weight floating row cover cloth to make shades for the tomatoes. Floating row covers allow a % of light to penetrate and are used to protect from insect damage and frost damage. Cut the row cover cloth a couple inches bigger then your cage.  Use clothes pins to secure.  Start with the shade cloth as close to the tomato plant as possible.  Move the cloth up as the plants grow.  Remove completely when the tomato is growing out of the cage.

Helpful Hints

• Fertilize with fish emulsion when  3-4 weeks after transplanting and when flowers appear
• Avoid watering the leaves of tomatoes, it spreads disease
• Prune off lower leaves as they yellow.  Also prune off any leaves that look diseased put them in the garbage not on the ground.
• If you start your own tomatoes, start a couple extras of each variety you like.  If you do lose a plant to curly top or something else you have back ups to replace them.  Be sure to pot up the tomatoes you don't immediately plant.
• Good ideas for companion plants around tomatoes are garlic which is harvested early, and then replace the garlic with carrots.

Controlling Earwigs, Sowbug, Snails, and Slugs

Do you wake up to holes chewed out of leaves and edges of leaves nibbled on? Maybe entire seedlings disappear in the night. There are pests that under the cover of darkness target your garden and then seek cool, dark places during the warm days to hide. Their damage is often blamed on caterpillars.   These sneaky garden pests come from diverse families including mollusks, crustaceans, as well as insects. They include earwigs, sow bugs (pill bugs), slugs, and snails. 

Earwigs

These are for me, the creepiest of insects.  They are easily recognized by their formidable rear pincers.   The pincers are used to hold prey, ward off attacking ants, and to reproduce. Although physically harmless to humans their appearance can  be haunting.

Recognizing Earwig Damage

Earwigs feed on the foliage, flowers, and fruits of plants in the garden, orchard, and berry patch making them a nuisance to gardeners. They also feed on decaying plant matter.  On a positive note, they will feed on aphids and mites, but not enough to be recognized as a beneficial insect.  Leaves attacked by earwigs will have ragged holes in the leaves and the margins of the leaves will be chewed.  Earwigs bore into maturing fruit and eat the flesh.  Earwig damage is similar to catipillar damage so you must look for them at night.

Plants Earwigs Attack

Although they will feed on a host of leaves, flowers, and fruits, some of their favorites are artichokes, bean seedlings, corn silk, lettuce, potatoes, roses, and stone fruits (apricots and peaches) strawberries and zinnias.

Live Biological Controls

Assassin bugs, praying mantis, and tachinid flies all prey on earwigs.  

Cultural Controls

•  Keep the garden free of debris
• Trap earwigs in pie pans or tuna cans set into the soil so the rim is even with the soil surface and bait with tuna juice mixed with water and a couple drops of dish soap.  Check the traps and dispose of the earwigs frequently. 
• Sections of hose, hollow bamboo, corrugated cardboard, or rolled up newspaper will serve as hiding places and can be laid in the garden beds and emptied in the morning

Organic controls

• First choice is iron phosphate products which are sprinkled in the garden beds.  Common names include Sluggo Plus and Slug Bait.  Iron phosphate is a mineral common in soils and safely used in organic gardening. 
• Diatamacous earth may deter earwigs outside in garden paths. 

Sow Bug, Pill Bugs, or Rollipollies

My grandchildren love these fascinating crustaceans with jointed armor that roll into a ball when picked up.  Grandma, on the other hand,  is tried of them munching on my strawberries.

Recognizing Sowbug Damage

Because they are related to crayfish, sowbugs need moist cool environment. Established plants are safe from pillbug   Seedlings such as beans, can be severely damaged.  Strawberries are a favorite.  The picture above shows the damage.

Cultural Controls

Sprinkle Diatomaceous earth around house foundation or around garden beds.  Since it must be reapplied when wet I don't use it in the beds. 

Organic Controls 

• Place a potatoes cut in half with the cut side down inside  around the beds.  In the morning brush the pillbugs off the potatoes into the garbage.
• Yellow or blue sticky traps placed on the ground 
• The best solution is to use iron phosphate products which are sprinkled in the garden beds.  Common names include Sluggo Plus and Slug Bait.  Iron phosphate is a mineral common in soils and safely used in organic gardening.

Slugs and Snails

Slugs and snails, members of the mollusk family, have been enjoying gardens world wide.  Both are similar, but slugs lack a shell.  They excrete a slimy coating to prevent their bodies from drying out and to make travel easier.  Sometimes you can see a slime trail left behind.

Both slugs and snails are hermaphroditic which means each snail and slug has both male and female reproductive organs.  They lay hundreds of eggs a year.  In winter or dry spells, they go dormant.

Recognizing Slug & Snail Damage

• Slugs and snail can devour entire seedlings overnight.  
• They leave irregular holes in leaves and along the margin of leaves.  

Plants Slugs & Snails Feed On

• Young seedlings
• Mature annuals and perennials
• Tender vegetables like lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers

Biological Controls

• Ducks, geese, moles, and garter snakes will eat slugs and snails; however, ducks, geese, and moles will do significant damage to your garden.  And snakes may not be a welcome guest.
• Frogs, toads, and salamanders are very fond of slugs and snails and can be encouraged to make your garden their home.

Cultural Controls

• Clear your garden of debris which serves as a hiding place and decaying plant matter serves as food.
• Water in the morning so foliage is dry in the night
• Place saucers of beer in the garden
• Hand pick and place in soapy water

Organic Controls

• Protect seedling by laying small flat circles of window screen around their base.  The rough surfaces are disliked by these pests
• Copper strips placed around plants.  Their slime reacts with the cooper.
• Iron phosphate sprinkled around garden beds and in planters

Info on Organic Products

Diatomaceous Earth:  this product is made from the crushed exoskeletons of microscopic sea creatures.  It is a fine powder that is irritating if inhaled.  It works by lacerating the bodies of pests causing them to dry out.  It controls slugs, snails, earwigs, ticks, fleas, and some ants.  It can be applies on the plant leaves or around  the base, but needs to reapplied when wet.  

Iron Phosphate: Iron Phosphate is a safer alternative to older slug and snail products that contain metaldehyde or methiocarb.  It is a mineral found in the soil.  Baits or granules can be used in garden beds.  The pests consume the bait and die within a few days.  It is effective on cutworms, earwigs, silverfish, pillbugs, slugs and snails.

  

How to Thin Fruit For a Better Harvest

 

Thinning fruit is one of the hardest jobs of a backyard orchardist. We get excited about the trees loaded with fruit and that nothing was lost to a late freeze. It can literally be painful to remove fruit from your trees; after all,  it's having fruit the goal?  So what is the purpose of thinning fruit?

Why Thin Fruit?

• Thinning increases fruit size
• Prevent the tree from overbearing.  If there is a large crop one year that may result in a small crop or no crop the following year
• To prevent limbs from breaking due to the weight of the fruit

Benefits from thinning?

Thinning balances the amount of fruit left on trees with the leaf surface that provides the energy to grow and ripen fruit. Leaving too much fruit on a tree creates a burden for the tree. It takes energy from other processes that occur during the period of fruit development. (OSU Extension Service)

When too much fruit is left on a tree, fruit bud production will be limited, causing a light crop the following year.

One of those processes is fruit bud development for the coming crop. When too much fruit is left on a tree, fruit bud production will be limited. The result is a light crop the following year. Also, when too many fruit are left on a tree, the competition among fruit for scarce nutrients will limit the size of each fruit. (OSU Extension Service)

Apple spur before thinning

How Much Fruit to Thin

Each fruit type requires a slightly different method.  Cherries do not require thinning.

Apples and pears

•  First thin to one fruit per spur.  A spur is the short, woody structure from which flowers and fruit grow.

• The goal is to end up with only one fruit for about every 6 inches of branch. If your tree is healthy and vigorous, it will have more than one spur every 6 inches along a branch. Thus, you will need to leave some spurs with no fruit on them. This helps to balance your crop for next year.

• When choosing which fruit to leave, look for the largest fruit. Fruit that is small or damaged should be dropped first.

Thin fruit as early as possible.

• Thin fruit as early as possible — before each apple reaches the size of a dime in diameter. This usually occurs within the first 20 days after petal fall. Removing these small fruit early will keep energy available for the fruit that remain and for fruit bud development for next year.

•  Be careful not to break off the spurs while thinning. Spurs will produce flowers and fruit for many years if not broken during thinning and harvesting.

Apple spur after thinning

Apricots, peaches, nectarines and plums

On stone fruit trees, the fruit is borne mostly on one-year-old wood rather than on spurs.

Plums are borne on both one-year-old wood and on small spurlike structures. 

When thinning these trees, try to leave about 6 to 8 inches between young fruit on the branch. 

Young fruit should be thinned within 30 days of petal drop.

Be advised that peaches, nectarines, cherries and plums naturally drop some fruit near early June. This is referred to as June drop, and it is the tree's way of lightening the crop load.

You may want to leave a little more fruit than you want for the final crop to see which fruit the tree intends to drop for you. With time you will learn how to adjust for the June drop.

As the fruit matures and branches begin to bow from the weight, you may need to take more fruit off each limb. This will protect your tree from limb breakage, especially when the tree is young. If you do not want to thin more fruit, you may need to use poles or props to hold up the limbs. (OSU Extension)

Cherries do not require thinning.

Native Pollinators

One of the goals in the organic garden is to attract native pollinators.  Bees, flies, wasps, butterflies, moths, and beetles play a crucial role in pollinating our garden plants, fruit trees, and berries.  Recognizing and attracting these pollinators into the garden ensures you have complete fertilization and a good crop. While busily drinking nectar and gathering nesting materials pollen clings to their bodies and they transfer this from flower to flower.  

Meet the Native Pollinators

 Flies

Flies (diptera), thought mostly of as a pest which invades your house and makes life in the barn miserable for your livestock and yourself, are important and crucial pollinators..  The flower or Syrphid flies (Syrphidae) represent a large family of flies with two important roles in your garden. Just referring to them as flower flies seems to elevate and improve their status. They have hairy bodies and visit nectar producing flowers.  The pollen clings to their hairs and is transferred from flower to flower.  They are important pollinators of many garden plants.


Plants flower flies pollinate
Umbelliferae (carrots, celery/celeriac, parsnip, and parsley)
Brassicaceae (cole crops, Asian greens, and mustard)
Rosacea  (strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries)
Alliaceae  (onions, chives, and leeks)

They are also important pollinators in fruit trees and herbs such as fennel, coriander, and caraway.

The Syrphid fly's second important role in your garden is in pest control.  The larvae of these plants feed on aphid populations.  

Flower flies sometimes mimic bees but are harmless.

Syphrid Flies

Native Bees

There are 400 species of native bees in Utah.   There are 4000+ species of native bees in North America.  Most of these bees are solitary emerging during bloom time of their favorite floral hosts. Mother bees individually make their own nest. Some nest in the ground others in existing cavities or reeds.   Native bees seek out nectar to get the energy they need to power flight. Pollen which is high in protein and minerals is feed to the grub like larvae of bees.  Unlike social bees, many native bees have less venom and less of an inclination to sting.  While honeybees tend to focus on one flower species at a time, native bees visit a variety of species.

Blue Mason bees are important pollinators of fruit and nut crops.

Squash Bee

Most of your vegetables in the curcurbita family are pollinated by the native squash bee not honeybees.  These solitary bees are dependent on the pollen from curcurbites including summer and winter squash, cucumbers, melons and pumpkins.  They nest in the ground near these crops and emerge in the summer when these crops flower.  They are well equipped to carry the heavy pollen grains in the curcurbite family.  A behavior you may recognize, is the squash bee spends a lot of time in each flower and cawls deep into the flower doing a thorough job of gathering and distributing pollen. Another benefit is that they begin foraging earlier in the morning than honeybees.

Squash bees look similar to honeybees.  The hind legs of a squash bees are hairy and dry pollen clings to the legs.  Honeybees have flat hind legs and carry pollen in sacs on the hind legs.

Other Pollinators

Wasps, butterflies, moths, and beetles are also pollinators, but less effective than flies and bees.

Because butterflies and moths are covered in scales not hairs, pollen only clings to the body and legs.  Wasps and beetles are even less efficient pollinators but do play an important role.

Solitary wasps are predators of insects, rarely sting, and need pollen and nectar as adults.  They are beneficial insects you want in your garden.  Social wasps, on the other hand, may not be welcomed and cause some grief.

A predatory wasp attacking aphids.

How To Attract Native Pollinators

The solution to attracting beneficial insects and pollinators is simple and beautiful.  Incorporate in the garden and in your yard lots of perennials, annuals, and native plants.  Always have something blooming in the garden to provide the sought after nectar.  I have one 4x4 bed in the garden with cat mint, lemon thyme, and saliva which are perennials.  I plant herbs such as basil, lemon basil and other flowers around these and let them flower and go to seed.  I also inter-plant herbs such as borage, dill, and basil in other garden beds.  Having an established perennial herb garden is also helpful.  The landscape around your garden and house can be carefully planned to include plants that attract these pollinators. Not only are you attracting native pollinators but establishing beautiful flower beds and landscape.  Below is a small list of plants that are in my yard that these pollinators are very attracted to.:

Ornamental Plants

Cat mint, lambs ear, salvia, cosmos, monardas or Bee Balm, lavender, sweet asylum, blanket flower, candy tuft, coreopis, cone flowers, anise hyssop (Agastache), and native perennials.  Plants with double flowers are not attractive to pollinators.
 

Purple salvia

Herbs

Allow some of your herbs to flower including oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram, peppermint, spearmint, apple mint, cilantro, and of course lavender.

Chives

Lavendar

Lavendar

Native Plants

Here's a link to Utah's Native Plant Society.  Others states will have similar resources.

Utah Native Plant Society

Some things to consider when planting for pollinators:

• Plant a variety of species
• Provide blooming flowers throughout the season Foraging bees need nectar early, mid, and late season
• Choose a variety of flower shapes to accommodate different tongue lengths.  Aster and composites are good for short tongues pollinators
• Native pollinators depend on native plants for a reliable food source so include them in your plans
• Be observant.  Watch and record what blooms when and what pollinators you see on the plant.

High Country Gardens is a good on-line resource to find native and water wise plants

Provide shelter and nesting areas

Another idea is to create structures for shelter and breeding grounds for pollinators.  Pollinators need shade, sun, shelter, and a source and place for nesting.

Native bees fall into one of two categories:  those that nest in the ground and those that seek a cavity to nest in.  Ground nesters seek open ground that is loosely packed.  Those that seek cavities will use naturally existing ones such as the pithy canes of raspberries, sumac, elderberry or iris flower stems.  You can also make shelters for native bees.  Drilling holes in a fence post or stump.  Bundles of hollow tubes placed inside a shelter about 5-6 off the ground also works.  Below is a link on various ideas

Stick Nests for Pollinators

Building Nesting Boxes for Pollinators

 

Avoid the  Use of Pesticides

Chemical broad spectrum pesticides will kill all beneficial insects.  There are organic pesticides you can use that are not harmful to beneficials such and neem and spinosad. It is important to spray when pollinators are not out and about doing their job.  Late evenings or early morning are a good time to spray if it is necessary.  There are other garden defenses.  Traps such as sticky traps are also a great alternative. There are deterrents such as kaolin clays and floating row covers. If you do need to spray always use organic soft sprays.  As you attract more predatory insects and pollinators you will see a decrease in pest problems.

Clean Water

Pollinators need a water source.  Bees in particular drink a lot of water.  Bird baths in the garden with rocks poking above the water level which allow pollinators to get to the water safely.  I find bees drinking out of my water lines when they are shut off. Be sure to provide clean water daily in the bird bath.

Butterflies, wasps, moths, and bees all appreciate a drippy faucet and a mud hole.  The mud is used to make nests and provide needed water.

Incorporating a diversity of flowering plants gives you the added enjoyment of a beautiful yard and garden and a haven for native pollinators and hummingbirds. This is one more step in creating and organic garden and landscape that provides beauty, food, pleasure, and enjoyment.