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Consider More Sustainable Alternatives To Peat Moss

It may be time to say goodbye to Pete in the garden. Peat Moss, that is. Peat has been a great helper for years, especially with seedlings. It’s made our potting mixes better able to hold both water and air, so important for confined roots, and it’s helped grab onto some nutrients that would have otherwise washed out the bottom of pots. Out in the garden, peat has been similarly helpful. It’s helped acidify the soil for plants that need it. I credit peat, in part, with the luscious success of my blueberry bushes. (I mixed a bucketful into the planting hole for each bush, and ...

Into A New Year

As we steadily creep through winter and into the new year, the focus will eventually begin to move from the calm of night toward a season of increased light and activity. Every day we gain a couple more minutes of light in the evening and eventually more motivation and activity. As those longer nights creep up on us each year though, many people realize just how much they rely on the sun’s presence to keep their energy up and remain active. Even with those claiming their nocturnal status, the early sunset makes it glaringly obvious that humans are daytime creatures, or diurnal. More ...

A Poem For The Holidays

Every December, readers make two requests: please reprint your Christmas poem and your suet recipe. I’m happy to oblige. First published in 1988, the poem is an attempt to instill in younger family members a sense of the wonder and fun that backyard feeder birds provide. My hope is that parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even older siblings might gather the children of the family by a window near the bird feeders and read the poem aloud. See how many tries it takes to read it perfectly. It’s not as easy as it sounds. The ...

The Longest Night

There is something about the solstice that captures my imagination. The winter solstice is the longest night of the year and the official beginning of winter and generally occurs on or around Dec. 21. From that day forward, the days will get longer and the nights shorter. Even as winter ...

Enjoying A Christmas Eve To Remember

It was the night before Christmas, 1993. Nora was barely 10 years old, and Emma would not start kindergarten for another eight months. We had just gotten home from an early Christmas Eve church service. About two inches of snow had fallen the day before, and it was about 25 degrees, so a white Christmas seemed a sure thing. All that remained was a long winter’s nap, but the girls were too excited to sleep. My wife, Linda, suggested we take a walk in the woods. “That will tire the girls so maybe we can at least sleep until dawn,” she hoped. “Besides, the moon is bright. With ...

Winter Cacti Are Hard To Name But Easy To Grow

Years ago, I had one of those spineless cacti that once a year splash colorful flowers out the ends of their flat, arching stems. Such plants are usually named for when they are supposed to bloom: Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter cactii. I just call them “holiday” cacti because they rarely bloom on their assigned holidays unless given a lot of manipulation. Besides, the botanical names for these cacti keep getting changed. What’s usually called Thanksgiving cactus (botanically Schlumbergera truncata, if you must know) has sharply pointed but soft to the touch teeth along ...