Sustainability

• Hay! Make Good Mulch.
  Have you got a few old hay bales lying around? Want some good ideas about how to put them to use in your organic garden? Answers here.
  
  
• Many Winter Vegetables Can Be Grown In Containers
  The satisfaction of growing fresh vegetables is undeniable, but many gardeners do not have a suitable in-ground location to grow them.
  
  
• Winterizing Your Garden
  It's fall, time to forget about the garden, right? Well, you may be tempted to ignore it until next spring, but what you do now to get your garden ready for winter can make a big difference next year. Here's what to do to put your garden to bed for the season.
  
  
• Air Layering for Difficult to Root Plants
  Believed to have been developed by the Chinese centuries ago.... this method has been used successfully as a mean of propagating some more difficult-to-root plants.
  
  
• Air Layering for Easy Plant Propagation
  Propagating plants is a great way to make many plants from one, however many gardeners have not been very successful with rooting new plants from cuttings. Well there is a better way. Air layering is easy, and the success rate is much higher....
  
  
• Slow Food
  What does the phrase "slow food" bring to mind? If you were told that "Slow Food" is an international movement with 80,000 members in 100 countries, could you guess its focus? Here's a hint: Slow Food was born in Italy in 1986, and the international movement was founded in Paris in 1989. What do these two cultures have in common, food-wise?
  
  
• The Top 10 Best Companion Plants
  Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Garden Arrangement?
  
  
• Keep Plants Green with Gray Water
  In times of drought, most home gardeners must ration their water usage, watering vegetables and favorite flowers while watching their lawns and other plants wither. But across the country some intrepid gardeners are foregoing the tap and turning to another source: gray water.
  
  
• 5 Easy Steps to Sustainable Gardening
  Simple, straight to the point....
  
  
• Plan Organic
  Scientific papers showing the advantages of organic food and farming.
  LOTS of very factual up to date research.
  
  
• Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
  by Eric Schlosser. This New York Times bestselling, nonfiction book gives a thorough and accurate account of problems with today’s fast food society, including conditions on factory farms and in slaughterhouses. Excellently written and researched.
  
  
• How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture
  Leo Horrigan, Robert S. Lawrence, and Polly Walker, Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. Well researched and easy-to-read article on the benefits of sustainable agriculture and the problems with factory farming. Published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal, in May 2002.
  
  
• My Year of Meats, by Ruth Ozeki. Though fictional, this easy-to-read novel exposes the American meat industry for what it is. Ozeki uses humor to make a confusing, overwhelming issue palatable.
  
  
• The Meatrix.
  For a short, entertaining film on the problems with our meat supply, watch this award-winning animated Matrix spoof produced by GRACE and Free Range Graphics.
  
  
• Energy Conservation in the Greenhouse.
  The responsibility for changing to a sustainable lifestyle – one that meets the needs of the present while respecting the ability of future generations to meet their needs, rests with each of us.
  
  
• Protecting Plants From the Cold
  If the weather suddenly turns cold, early-flowering and tender plants may need special protection to avoid damage by freezing temperatures. There are several ways you can provide winter protection...
  
  

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• Propagation by Cuttings
  
• Air Layering for Difficult-to-Root Plants
  is an article from Texas A&M; Extension that provides easy instructions on air layering with good visuals to make the procedure even easier to understand. Give it a try and you'll soon been running around looking for plants to air layer!