Urban neighborhoods can feature organic gardening in every niche available. Martha Stewart Living’s June edition has an amazing feature on urban living; a transformation of a gravel driveway into a full-on vegetable garden. I’m fascinated with the idea and think this feature is a great example of how it is possible to garden every-little-space in an urban environment.  Search for Martha Stewart Living before the end of June so you can catch the full great story on reinventing a driveway, or visit it online.

Nancy Steiner had a vision; she wanted to find a decorative way to supply fresh vegetables for her family. She lives upstate New York and contacted her designer friend, Leslie Needham (both shown in the photo below), asking her to focus on finding a creative way to feed her family with organic vegetables. With full sun and a large empty space, the area surrounding the garage (top photo) proved to be the perfect solution and allowed Nancy to make a huge difference for her family and community.

[Photos by Juliana Sohn. Courtesy of Martha Stewart Living. Copyright © 2013. For more gardening ideas, visit www.marthastewart.com.]

I love the natural tomato climber made from branches (photo left) and the other ideas which are homemade and lend themselves to an organic, natural, environment. My garden is consistently reinvented with these homemade-style ideas and it costs very little money to make things yourself.

Raised beds filled with vegetables and cutting flowers fill the space and enable Nancy to have a garden in an urban environment. It’s a perfect solution for a hot driveway.

Have you transformed your urban areas into an organic garden? What are your creative ideas for making a difference with your urban garden? Leave a comment below and let me know all about your passionate ideas.

Every year mid-June I am faced with a dilemma. I have a few leftover plants that were dug up in the planting process in early spring: a few perennials without a home, a few vegetables left in a 6 pack, a few flowers that did not work out where I expected. I have started putting all the leftovers together out by my Kick Ass Green park bench in a non-matching, totally wacky, completely undesigned area of the garden – wherever I happen to have some dirt and enough space to throw them all together. I call it “My Leftover Garden” and it is breaking all the rules.

Above you see last year’s leftover garden. There are a few marigolds, a few giant cabbage from Bonnie Plants Third Grade Cabbage Program, cucumber vine, random Lysimachia nummularia, Echinacea, Milkweed, Plant Nouveau’s Canna ‘lemon punch’, and even a corn stalk.

It is at the end of the spring planting season, summer is getting hotter and time’s a wastin’. Get out there and plant all those leftovers from spring and build yourself your own “Leftover Garden” to prevent waste and enjoy some mixed up happiness. One man’s leftover garden is another man’s pleasure.

Special Note – Because the FTC requires it, I am letting you know that a few of these plants were supplied by Plants Nouveau and Bonnie Plants. I donate a large portion of the vegetables I grow in my soil-improved garden to the local food pantry when harvested. All opinions are my own and yes, I ate the one corn I got from this totally weird and random corn upstart. It was delicious of course.

Yesterday was a full on Summer derecho storm in Chicagoland. I spent most of my afternoon checking Accuweather, my favorite cell phone weather reporting app, and gnawing off my fingernails waiting for the storm to arrive. Living in suburbia actually helps reduce some wind impact, yet more houses means more damage both to people and trees. Helping damaged trees recover from a bad windstorm is something going on in urban areas all over the Midwest this morning.

What seems to take the most damage is our trees, particularly ones that have suffered an illness or minor damage of some kind previous to the storm. With an Ash tree in my front garden which has already been attacked by Ash Borer, my neighborhood is particularly susceptible to wind damage. We got lucky this time and only found a couple small limbs down. Below is a handy-dandy guide from  Davey Tree to help you with your trees wind damage assessment:

Post Wind Damage Solutions:

When to restore a tree:

• The canopy is defoliated (trees that lose leaves in a hurricane are usually not dead)
• Small branches are broken (small branches can easily be pruned)
• Some major limbs are broken in decay-resistant species
• Most of the canopy is damaged in decay-resistant species
• Small leaning or fallen trees with a 4 in. trunk diameter can be stood back up & replanted

When to remove a tree:

• The lower trunk or large limbs are cracked or broken
• A large stem has split from the tree
• A medium to large tree is leaning towards property or into the road
• The remaining tree structure is highly susceptible to breakage
• The major roots are severed or broken

If you live in the Midwest, I hope you and your family survived the derecho with no injuries. Remember to take care of those trees to prevent more damage in the future.

Last summer while I am driving through Indiana I have the windows open and the sweet smell of corn field drifts into the window. I come upon this old beater car parked along the roadside in middle of a field of clover. I pull over and take photos and I am fascinated by the car and what it is doing there in middle of nowhere. There is a noticeable oil leak under the car which bothers me as it is dripping straight into the soil and it occurs to me that the metal from this car would be perfect to recycle.

Recycling of automobiles is increasing and nearly 10 million vehicles are recycled annually. The good news is recycling one ton of steel saves approximately 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 120 pounds of limestone, and 1,400 pounds of coal. Some car companies, like Ford, are making their cars more than 80% recyclable. This is a positive move forward in keeping more items out of the landfill.

Here are a few ideas on where you can go to get your old beater car recycled -

1. RECYCLE FOR CASH - There are several companies like Recyclecars4cash.com that will pay you cash for your old vehicle. Search online for a company local to you that will give you some options. Before you give your car away to them, I would suggest you check with state environmental agencies and ask them which company has green standards and is the better choice for you to use.
2. ASK CITY COUNCIL - Many cities around the United States are starting a salvage yard collection program. At no charge to you or the city, a tow truck will come and pick up the vehicle. In exchange for collecting your car, they receive all the profit from the metal and other vehicle parts. It won’t go in the landfill and you know your car will be put to good use.
3. JUNK YARD SCRAP - Taking your car to a junk yard is easy to do if you live near any metropolitan city. Here’s the rub – - not all junk yards use environmentally safe practices, which mean you might be sending the car to a non-green end unless you do your research first. Ask them about their practices, where all the fluids from the car go, where the upholstery is taken, and what happens to glass. If the cars are just place on the open soil in middle of a field, then oil and other contaminants can leak down into the water table and damage the environment.

SO – the rule for recycling your car is to ask lots of questions when you make your calls to try and research the best safe place for your old car to be put to sleep.

Today it is a cold and rainy summer’s day and I have a miserable cold/flu thing that’s slapped me down hard like a professional wrestler. The only thing I can concentrate on is the next cup of hot tea and the repeating thought that I feel like death. What I need is a good soup recipe cooked up hot and delicious. The problem? I need to go to the store for supplies, but don’t wanna show the world how I look with tissues shoved up my nose. The answer? Raid my cabinet and frankenstein something together for the crockpot.

Sadly, I do not have all organic ingredients, but I do have frozen turkey, a few cans of organic tomatoes, a box of organic broth, an old onion, a half bag of frozen hash browns, and a half a bag of organic pasta. Combined with some spinach plants that never got planted and an upstart kale plant from last year’s crop (see below mixed in with some hosta’s) and I got myself a nutritious Italian Frankenstein Vegetable Pasta Crockpot Soup Recipe that cost me way less than $10.

Here’s the recipe – it turned out delicious. May I suggest many substitutions and solutions from your own empty cabinet to customize the soup to your own family’s needs!

Frankenstein Italian Vegetable Pasta Crockpot Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground turkey (or whatever meat you have available )
• 1/2 a bag of frozen cubed-style hash browns
• 1 box chicken broth
• 1 14.5 oz can organic diced tomatoes
• 3 cans of 11.5 oz V-8 juice
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 cup chopped spinach
• 1 cup chopped kale
• 1 cup pasta (whatever pasta-ish thing you have in the cabinet)
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper
• Salt and pepper to taste

Brown meat in pan. Add potatoes half-way through cooking time. Deglaze pan with chicken broth, then transfer ingredients to a crockpot. Add all other ingredients.  Simmer all day until flavors are thoroughly married and cooked through.

Today I share with you a random happy event that occurred in my garden. I used to be a person that believed in weeding and cleaning a garden to perfection. Ridiculousness from end to end. What was I thinking? I was missing that the beauty is in the imperfection. I have since adopted a different way of tending garden with the realization that a weed is only a weed if the Head Gardener does not want  it in the location it’s residing in. Some weeds are welcome. Some weeds are noxious. Some weeds need a thorough spanking and complete death in the compost pile. Ah yes – beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

In the photo above you see a lot of random imperfection. Then if you look closely, next to my fairy door, you’ll see an unexpected surprise: a reseeded petunia. I’m sure the fairies in the garden have been disgusted by my lack of attention and decided to surround themselves with a few flowery reminders of who is really in charge. Or perhaps the Head Gardener decided that playing with her children and traveling the world was much more fun than worrying about an upstart fairy petunia.

Stop worrying about all the tiny details and let your garden fall into imperfection. Surprising the results of imperfection, it leads to happiness.

Today I celebrate the beauty in my garden with an almost Wordless Wednesday post – White Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’ ) in the back shade garden. They make me smile.

How’s your garden growing this fine May day?

Every year at the beginning of the season I try to find a unique little plant gift I can give visitors that come to visit my garden. Sometimes I give them my book, sometimes I dig up and split perennials, and last season I planted Aloe  plants in little clay pots and lined my front sidewalk with them.

These adorable little Aloe Humili ‘Andhogp’ Spineless Hedgehog’s are from Plants Nouveau and turned out to be the perfect gift. These little babies grow up into gorgeous plants. The photo below shows them in their current development over winter. I will replant them again in the spring in hopes that we shall see flowers develop like in the plants shown in the very bottom photo.

Aloe Humili ‘Andhogp’ Spineless Hedgehog’s is an upright, urn-shaped Aloe; ‘Hedgehog’ blooms with spikes of coral-red flowers in spring and again in late summer. The perfect plant for hot, dry locations, this attractive succulent makes quite an impression in the front border or as a container specimen, blooming for months.

What type of gifts to you give visitors to your garden? Leave a note on the comments below and let me know what you share when people come to visit.

Special Note – Because the FTC requires it, I am telling you that Plants Nouveau, Organic Mechanics Soil,  and Natural Industries supplied the plants, soil, and soil additives I used for this little garden gift. I have used their products because I WOULD even if they had not given the products to me. The flowering photo at the bottom of the page is credited to Plants Nouveau’s website (thank you PN). You do know that my opinions are my own, right?

Because so many gardeners I know are doing  inspirational gardening I wanted to introduce you to them. In 2013 I am continuing my series all about garden friends who are interesting, amazing, and have fascinating garden stories. Here’s my friend Carolyn Binder –

Cowlick Cottage Farm is one of my favorite blogs ever. Filled with great garden and foodie tips by my good friend Carolyn Binder, Cowlick Cottage Farm is all about fabulous photos of amazing recipes and to-die-for gardening ideas like a country fountain with a view of the pecan orchard next to her home. She centers her home and her life around her passions and every word she writes on her blog reflects her love of family, home, and gardening.

Beyond her blog, Carolyn’s work can be seen in several magazines and she is a featured writer for Proven Winners. Although we have been friends for a while, the first time I met Carolyn in person was at the P. Allen Smith Garden2Blog event last year and we connected from the moment we met. She made me laugh so hard I squirt cocktails out my nose and the woman knows cooking food intimately like it’s her full time job. Carolyn discusses wine, sea salt, and olive oil like they are her long lost friends – with passion. Always the foodie, she takes tons of photos of everything she cooks and eats and provided the photo for the Sexiest Pie on Earth recipe that I wrote about last summer.

Behind her home sits the cutest little guest cottage  at Cowlick Cottage Farm (above) with a garden surrounding it that she uses for growing vegetables year round in her Florida garden. She grows a variety of herbs as well.

Recently, I asked Carolyn a few questions about her garden and here’s what she had to say -

Question: Carolyn, what is your favorite recipe you have ever placed on a blog post?

Carolyn: One of the favorite recipes on my site is for the Honey Pecan Vinaigrette. Yummy! (see photo below) http://www.cowlickcottagefarm.com/arugula-salad-with-honey-pecan-vinaigrette/

Question: Why do you love gardening?

Carolyn: That question is a toughy – I love gardening for so many reasons! I love growing food for my family, I love creating beauty (see photo right of her little napping chair garden spot), I love reconnecting to nature and spirituality, I love how gardening helps me to see the world differently and to solve problems creatively. I love inspiring and helping new gardeners. And I never imagined that gardening would connect me to so many wonderful people.

~ ~ ~

I feel Carolyn’s blog has taught me a lot about growing, eating, and enjoying the bounty we get from Mother Nature. Her friendship and support has been pretty darned wonderful too (see photo below taken by Christopher Tidrick). If you would like to read more about Carolyn, her garden, and her absolutely fabulous recipes, please follow her blog and learn a little something to make your heart happy – Cowlick Cottage Farm(CCF).

Mix it up with a fun annual combination – I planted several containers with purple and green mixes I adore and tucked them on tables and benches for a shock of unexpected color. Above the container was in full sun and below the container was in shade. You see a tropical plant from Plants Nouveau, Colocasia ‘Red Eyed Gecko’ PPAF, planted in the center of each container surrounded with annuals;  Bacopa ‘Calypso Jumbo Lavender’, Zinnia ‘Profusion Yellow’, and Verbena ‘Imagination’.

Creative and bright, these containers get more florific and beautiful as the season goes on if you add an organic fertilizer or a manure tea like Moo Poo Tea to the containers. Try this combination in your garden!

Special Note – Because the FTC requires it, I am telling you that Plants Nouveau,  Organic Mechanics Soil, and Natural Industries supplied the plants, mulch, soil, and soil additives I used in these colorful garden containers. I have used their products because I WOULD even if they had not given the products to me.  Opinions are my own and I have a lot of them.