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Category Archives: Gardening

Cilantro Kills Bacteria

If you’re a cilantro lover, rejoice! Recent research published to the Journal of Medical Microbiology shows that coriander (the other name for cilantro) oil destroys bacteria including E. coli, MRSA, salmonella and Bacillus cereus. In fact, since these are some of the bacteria that can cause food poisoning, loading your dish with cilantro seems like [...]

Backyard Gardeners Growing More Vegetables

A nationwide survey of more than 1 million households indicates that spending for vegetables and fruits grown in household gardens now surpasses spending for lawns, trees, shrubs – and even flowers. The same survey unearthed the following trends among gardeners: 53% grow vegetables in their gardens 90% plan to eat the produce fresh 66% will [...]

Got Compost?

One of my friends recently started a backyard compost heap and raved to me about how much they’ve decreased their load at the curb on garbage day. Welcome to the wonderful world of composting, I told her. Where you don’t have to feel guilty when a vegetable rots in your fridge before you have a [...]

Gardening with Vermiculite

I was taught to mix potting soil with vermiculite when preparing pots for planting for better drainage and I’m sure I inhaled some of the vermiculite dust along the way. Once I was even enveloped in a cloud of dust when I dropped the bag accidently. These days my husband supplies me with dust masks [...]

Spaghetti Squash

Last week I introduced my kids to spaghetti squash. They were happily eating away when I crowed about them eating “squash.” The mistake I made was in calling it “squash”. I should have just called it “noodles,” which I tried to do to salvage the meal, but it was too late. I love spaghetti squash. [...]

Fresh herbed butter

Whether from a garden, the farmer’s market, or the local grocery, fresh herbs are a good buy as the summer herb harvest comes in. My neighbor gave me a sheaf of 3-foot-tall dill stems yesterday. The first thing I did was mince some and blend it into softened butter for a tangy twist on grilled [...]

Natural Pest Control for the Garden

Something is eating my spinach leaves. I do believe this is the dirty work of little caterpillars, but it could be something else. I know for sure that it is not the work of the baby cat face spider I saw roaming among the leaves of my lettuce garden this spring (we were thrilled to [...]

Who is really in charge here?

Check out this talk by one of my favorite authors, Michael Pollan, a natural historian whose book The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World introduced me to a whole new way of thinking about our world many years ago. In this clip he discusses a topic from his book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: [...]