A Gardener's Notebook » Announcement

Speak Out! – What is happening/will happen in your garden this year?

Douglas E. Welch — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:55:18 +0000

What is happening in your garden — or what will happen once the snow subsides?

Share your stories, ideas and information here as a comment.

This is an open thread and all non-spam comments will be posted.

Speak Out! – What is happening/will happen in your garden this year? is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

Looking to speak with UK Allotmenteers

A Gardener’s Notebook Facebook page reaches 100 “Likes”

Douglas E. Welch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:27:42 +0000

Today, Becka was the 100th person to “like” our page on Facebook. I maintain that page for those people whom use Facebook more than any other service. The more readers, the merrier, no matter where they might be. It is also another space for use to share pictures and talk gardening.

If you know someone is a Facebook homebody, share the AGN page with them. I would love to see them there.

A Gardener’s Notebook Facebook page reaches 100 “Likes” is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

WINNER: Troy-Bilt Gas Leaf Blower

Douglas E. Welch — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Thomas Lewalski was the randomly chosen winner of the Troy-Bilt TB4HB EC gas leaf blower in the contest that ended on Christmas Day.

We have contacted Thomas and sent his information on to Troy-Bilt so they can send him his leaf blower.

I love being able to give away equipment like this. Watch the blog, Facebook and Twitter pages for more giveaways in the future.

You can keep track of what is happening on A Gardener’s Notebook in a variety of ways. Chose those that add the most value for you!

This post is part of my association with Troy-Bilt’s Saturday6 program. All opinions are my own.

WINNER: Troy-Bilt Gas Leaf Blower is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

All About Douglas – Choosing what you want to see and hear

Douglas E. Welch — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

I have a lot of interests, as most of you already know. Therefore, I have a lot of different blogs, events, and groups in my portfolio of online engagements. I also try to make myself available wherever people want to converse. This means that each of my interests usually has multiple presences on the Internet.

Here is a list of almost all of the ways you can talk with me and learn about what is happening in my life and work. You don’t need to, nor should you, try to subscribe to all of them. That would only lead to you seeing multiple copies of the same information. Rather, pick and choose whatever ways you would like to consume my “content.”

If you are a heavy Facbeook user, you might want to join my pages there. Is Google+ catching your fancy? I have a home over there, too. Maybe email is your thing? No problem, almost all of my content can be emailed directly to your Inbox. My goal is to make my content available in whatever way makes the most sense to you. It also means you can contact me and converse with me on your favorite online services.

This list is also broken down by interest. If you want to see everything I post and share, the first section is where you can find it. This will contain information from all my areas of interest including events, careers, gardening, technology and my organizations. Maybe, though, you are only interested in my gardening information. You can narrow your reading to my gardening blog or Facebook page. The same applies for careers, technology and my organizations. Select whatever is most interesting, and valuable, to you.

Thank you for supporting me, my blogs and podcasts and my organization of the years! I look forward to talking with you — and sharing more with you — in 2012.

All About Douglas – Choosing what you want to see and hear is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

What are your favorite gardening catalogs? Send me a link…or a copy!

Douglas E. Welch — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Everyone knows that the dark days of Winter is when gardeners turn to gardening and seed catalogs to fill their gardening fantasies.

How about sharing your favorite catalogs with the readers of A Gardener’s Notebook?

Leave a comment on this post with a link to your favorite catalog and where people might order their own copy. Web catalogs work well, too, so link them up, too.

I look forward to seeing the wealth of information, products and shear, unadulterated, garden fantasies you know. Send them along quick so everyone can get the benefit of them before Winter ends.

What are your favorite gardening catalogs? Send me a link…or a copy! is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

No related posts.

Troy-Bilt Pressure Washer – A Review and Giveaway!

Douglas E. Welch — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:08:45 +0000

My fellow Saturday6 blogger, Kylee, over at Our Little Acre is giving away a Troy-Bilt Chipper Shredder and you can enter with just a comment on her blog.

I reviewed an older model back in 2008 and it is a monster…in a good way. It can take your garden waste and turn it into wonderful wood chip or leaf mulch in seconds.

In just a week or so I will be announcing my own Troy-Bilt giveaway, so stayed tuned to A Gardener’s Notebook!

From Our Little Acre

Now for the giveaway! Last year, we got to test and review a Troy-Bilt CSV 206chipper/shredder/vacuum. You can see my review here. We used it quite a bit this fall, and Troy-Bilt is letting me give away a CS 4265 Chipper Shredder (a different model) to a very lucky reader!

Read Troy-Bilt Pressure Washer – A Review and Giveaway! and enter the contest

Troy-Bilt Pressure Washer – A Review and Giveaway! is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

A Gardener’s Notebook in Troy-Bilt’s newsletter, “The Dirt”

Douglas E. Welch — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:00:52 +0000

As part of my work with Troy-Bilt, I regularly write for their monthly newsletter, The Dirt. This month, my article is entitled “Inch-by-Inch” and appears below in it’s entirety.

Read the entire newsletter

If you would like to subscribe to The Dirt, visit the Troy-Bilt web site and subscribe.

If you would like to join the Gardener’s Notebook mailing list and receive announcements, special deals and more, use the form below to subscribe

Subscribe to A Gardener’s Notebook

Email:

Visit this group

Your garden – inch by inch by Douglas Welch, A Gardener’s Notebook

Often we look at our garden plant by plant – which is doing well, which is doing poorly, which one needs to be moved. At other times, we try to take in the big picture. We map, we plan and try to create one seamless whole. There are times, though, when inch-by-inch is the way we see it, and it brings a unique viewpoint.

The Edging

Several weeks ago we started a new edging project in the garden. Beginning with the smallest rose bed, we decided to use old wine and glass water bottles to surround the bed. The previous limbs we had used were now several years old and had deteriorated almost completely. I did a bit of research online, including looking for images of bottle edging, to make sure we wanted to proceed. It certainly seemed worth a try. We would do this small bed first and then decided if we wanted to continue it in others.

Of course, doing an edging project like this means getting “down and dirty” with your garden – usually on your hands and needs. You notice immediately how the soil differs inside the bed to the hard, compacted soil of the surrounding paths. You get a clear view of the quality of the soil in the beds as you dig the trench alongside.

You notice insects – good and bad – weeds, and maybe even the rust that is forming on the lower leaves of the roses that you hadn’t noticed before. Oh, oh, are those aphids?!? Ah, but you also notice the lady larvae and adults ready to eat them up. Your garden takes on a different meaning on this micro scale. You don’t notice the thistles and bindweed as much, but the blackspot and Japanese beetles really catch your eye. You don’t notice the bad pruning on the box hedges, but the quality of the soil as it sits in your hand makes you sit in wonder for just a moment.

A project

If all this sounds very foreign to you, I am going to charge you with a project the next time you are in your garden. Take a 1-meter-square area of your garden and mark it off in some way. Use a piece of rope or string to outline the area. If you have seen archaeologists working in movies or on TV, think about what their digs look like. While this 1 meter can be a patch of lawn, consider placing it over the junction between a bed and the lawn. You’ll get better results in your experiment.

Now that you have marked out the area, sit down – better yet, lie down on your belly – and start to take note of every living thing you see there. First off you’ll see the grass, the daylilies, the small weeds. Then look deeper. You’ll see ants, aphids, beetles and a host of other insects. Keep looking. Now there are worms, spiders, sow bugs, spider mites and more. I can guarantee you that you will notice more than you ever thought possible in your small 1 meter area and all of it is there, teeming with life, every day.

I know that, for me, observing my garden in this macroscopic way brings a deeper appreciation and deeper understanding of my garden when I look out from my back door each morning, coffee cup in hand. I never see just the paths and the plants anymore. In my mind I see it all – everything that exists down there among the roots, as well as everything on the surface.

It is quite amazing how a small garden project can lead you down the merry path of deep thoughts, but, then again, isn’t that one major reason we garden in the first place?

This post is part of my paid work as part of Troy-Bilt’s Saturday6. The opinions are solely mine.

A Gardener’s Notebook in Troy-Bilt’s newsletter, “The Dirt” is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

What is GardenCampLA?

Douglas E. Welch — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:11:42 +0000

GardenCampLA is currently in the planning stages. We are looking for venues, sponsors and organizers. Visit http://GardenCampLA.wordpress.com for more information — Douglas

GardenCampLA is a community organized, gardening-focused, unconference which calls upon local communities and people to share their knowledge, expertise and other important information on developing your garden, landscape design, and public garden environment.

What is an unconference?

Unconferences are self-organizing conferences, similar to many professional conferences, but instead of hiring well-known, professional speakers, they call on the attendees themselves to provide the content and focus for the event. Every person who attends is highly encouraged to present on some topic deeply important to them or, barring that, to facilitate an open breakout session or round table discussion or even just to engage and converse with their fellow attendees between presentations. A few organizers band together to find a venue for the event, recruit sponsors and invite attendees, but the focus of the unconference is driven solely by the attendees.

Some might question the usefulness of presentations by their peers, but we have found that there is an enormous amount of real-world expertise available in each and every local community. GardenCampLA utilizes a format that draws out that expertise and benefits everyone. GardenCampLA (and other unconferences) provide a structure and an opportunity to share this expertise in ways that traditional conferences do not. Additionaly, GardenCampLA can also attract gardening professionals who can use GardenCampLA as a way of introducing themselves to a new audience..

How was GardenCampLA developed?

The genesis of GardenCampLA was found in the BarCamp unconferences held around the world. GardenCampLA founder, Douglas E. Welch, was a long time attendee of BarCamp, which is an event that embraces any topic — although it often leans toward technology — and PodCamp — which is focused on podcasting and new media. After seeing the success of BarCamp as a way to illuminate and educate within a community, Welch that the unconference concept could also be applied to the specific world of Gardening.

What is the typical structure of GardenCampLA?

Each GardenCamp can and should be different, but there are some basic steps that suit the purpose of the day.

Much like any unconference, each GardenCamp is driven by a small group of passionate organizers in the local community. These organizers locate a venue, select a date, collect volunteers to assist on the day of the event and sponsors to cover the minimal costs of the GardenCamp. Local restaurants can be recruited to provide breakfast or lunch. Local stores can offer gift cards for their services to be used in a free raffle for attendees, often held at the end of the day. The organizers are also responsible for promoting the GardenCamp by reaching out to local media for coverage, sometimes bringing in various media as sponsors.

On the day of the event, attendees arrive, check in and are greeted in an opening session where the organizers briefly explain the mechanics of how the day will proceed. Typically, there will be a schedule board, divided into a grid of rooms and session times. Most GardenCamps have 3-5 session rooms for each hour of the day, as well another series of rooms or seating areas are available for open, un-moderated, “breakout” discussions. This combination of presentations and open discussions allows for a wide variety of content to be shared across the day and allows the attendees to choose among this content as most benefits them.

After the opening session, attendees proceed to the schedule board and begin placing their presentations, and breakout discussion topics on the board — selecting both a room and a time for their presentation. As the time for first “session” period approaches, attendees make their way to the session or breakout rooms and the first presentations begin.

Between each session, attendees are given 15 minutes to re-visit the schedule board and select their choice for the next session period. This process then repeats throughout the day. When possible, a catered lunch is provided, allowing the attendees to remain on-site and continue their discussions and networking between morning and afternoon sessions.

A closing session ends the day thanking the attendees, sponsors and organizers, soliciting feedback from the attendees and, in some cases, offering a door prize raffle of items from various GardenCamp sponsors.

What is GardenCampLA? is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

Is there a #GardenCamp in your future?

Free iPhone Garden App – Garden Pro – Today only! (6/7/2011)

Douglas E. Welch — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:33:41 +0000

My friend, Mitch, over at Krayton Seminars just sent me a link to this iPhone gardening app which is free for today only. Grab it while you can!

Garden Pro (via iTunes)

App Info:

FREE for today only!

Do you love flowers and plants? Do you work with flowers and plants? Garden Pro lets you take all the necessary information of your flowers and plants, in your hand, wherever you go. The most complete Garden reference with over 1200 beautiful species with lots of info, including… common and botanical names, descriptions, light, water, soil and climate requirements, planting and bloom times, most important care to do and more about flowers and plants you enjoy.

Free iPhone Garden App – Garden Pro – Today only! (6/7/2011) is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

A Gardener's Notebook » Announcement

Speak Out! – What is happening/will happen in your garden this year?

A Gardener’s Notebook Facebook page reaches 100 “Likes”

Top Gardeners Notebook posts for 2011

WINNER: Troy-Bilt Gas Leaf Blower

All About Douglas – Choosing what you want to see and hear

What are your favorite gardening catalogs? Send me a link…or a copy!

Troy-Bilt Pressure Washer – A Review and Giveaway!

A Gardener’s Notebook in Troy-Bilt’s newsletter, “The Dirt”

What is GardenCampLA?

Free iPhone Garden App – Garden Pro – Today only! (6/7/2011)