Philadelphia Inquirer: The pandemic caused a seed shortage. Here’s how to save them.. “‘The more you spend time with your plants, the more you develop a relationship with them,’ says Owen Taylor, founder of Truelove Seeds. The local seed company works with small farmers to cultivate and preserve not only rare seeds but also the stories and cultural significance behind them. It’s the difference, Taylor says, between seed-saving and seed-keeping (which is also Taylor’s Instagram handle, sans the hyphen).”
gardening
Phys .org: Examining the potential of home food growing during lockdown
Phys .org: Examining the potential of home food growing during lockdown. “A new study, involving researchers from the University of Liverpool, Lancaster University, and Cranfield University, has been launched to examine the potential of home food growing to confer health, wellbeing and sustainability benefits in the light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This is part of the two-year Rurban Revolution project, which is funded by the UKRI program Global Food Security.”
MakeUseOf: 5 Best Gardening Websites & Apps for Beginners to Garden Anywhere
MakeUseOf: 5 Best Gardening Websites & Apps for Beginners to Garden Anywhere. “Whether you have a house or an apartment, these are some of the best gardening websites, ebooks, and apps to cultivate your own little green patch. When you have some extra time at home, seize the opportunity to add a little greenery. If you have a garden, you can use it to grow vegetables and herbs, or beautify it with flowers. Growing plants in apartments has been shown to improve mood and mental stability. These gardening websites and apps have something in them for both beginners and experienced gardeners to reap what they sow.”
Pendle Today: The best online gardening websites and Youtube tutorials for beginners
Pendle Today: The best online gardening websites and Youtube tutorials for beginners. “With garden centres reopening, people are set to flock to stores to purchase new, seeds, compost, and planters, to help keep their gardens looking pristine. Watching seeds grow, and successfully taming your little slice of nature is extremely fulfilling work and there really is no better way to pass the time, than with a spot of gardening. So if you’re a beginner to the wonderful world of gardening, here’s a list of the best online resources to get you started.”
CNN: See the gardens of famous designers as Britain’s prestigious Chelsea Flower Show goes virtual
CNN: See the gardens of famous designers as Britain’s prestigious Chelsea Flower Show goes virtual. “Horticultural enthusiasts will be able to take a virtual tour of award-winning designers’ gardens when Britain’s famous Chelsea Flower Show goes online later this month for the first time in its history. Famous Japanese designer Ishihara Kazuyuki will open his garden — albeit virtually — to green-fingered fans as part of the show, which has closed its doors to the public for the first time since World War Two as a result of the coronavirus crisis.”
Washington Post: How to start regrowing green onions and other vegetables on your windowsill
Washington Post: How to start regrowing green onions and other vegetables on your windowsill. “The isolation imposed by the coronavirus has awakened a latent homesteading spirit within many of us. The proliferation of sourdough was an early indication that people were seeking, even in small ways, self-sustainability, as grocery-store shelves were often frustratingly bare. Now, there’s a wave of people attempting farming on a (very) small scale. The latest trend to sprout up on social media: images of green onions, presumably purchased at the store, their roots submerged in water glasses and tucked onto sunny windowsills, where their owners hope they will grow.”
Commonwealth Journals: New Tool For Identifying Pests of Woody Plants
Commonwealth Journal: New Tool For Identifying Pests of Woody Plants. “The University of Kentucky Department of Entomology has created a new, interactive website to help concerned tree owners identify their insect problems. The ‘Guide to Insect Pests of Woody Plants’ will hopefully be of use to you if you have the pest in hand or if you just have the damage they left behind.”
New Hampshire Union Leader: New website lists gardens open for public viewing
New Hampshire Union Leader: New website lists gardens open for public viewing. “More than 80 outstanding ornamental gardens in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are opening to the public this year, and all of them are described on a new nonprofit website dedicated to gardening and landscape design in northern New England.” The information is a little hard to find. Look for the Calendar link under the Landscape Lyceum menu.
USDA: New Web Page Makes Info on Agricultural Pests and Diseases More Accessible
USDA: New Web Page Makes Info on Agricultural Pests and Diseases More Accessible. “Each year, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) must respond to new threats to America’s agricultural and natural resources often in the form of invasive species or emerging diseases. To raise awareness about these growing threats and our efforts to manage, monitor and regulate their impacts, we’ve launched the new Pests & Diseases web page.”
Calling All Green Thumbs and Helping Hands: Get Involved with a Gardening Organization Near You (LawnStarter)
LawnStarter: Calling All Green Thumbs and Helping Hands: Get Involved with a Gardening Organization Near You. “As part of the LawnStarter Go Garden Initiative, we are collecting basic contact information (name, location, phone, etc.) to build a searchable database of gardening organizations across the US. If you would like your organization to be featured on our map, we would love to hear from you.”
Hyperallergic: Explore a Growing Archive of American Gardens with a New Smithsonian App
Hyperallergic: Explore a Growing Archive of American Gardens with a New Smithsonian App. “Gardening stories from across the United States, whether about 19th-century green spaces that enlivened vacant lots or community vegetable plots, are being collected and preserved through the Community of Gardens project. The digital archive from Smithsonian Gardens with the Archives of American Gardens was recently launched as a free mobile app, where you can navigate a map of over 80 gardens.”
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture: Online database can help ag professionals, homeowners diagnose herbicide injury to plants
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture: Online database can help ag professionals, homeowners diagnose herbicide injury to plants. “Agriculture professionals and homeowners now have an online reference if they suspect their plants have sustained injury from herbicides. The new Herbicide Injury Database… contains more than 1,000 images collected across two decades showing and cross-referencing herbicides and the types of damage to many types of plants.”
New Site For Landscape Plants of the Upper Midwest
A professor at Montana State University has launched a new Web site with information on landscape plants of the upper midwest United States. There are over 600 plants represented here, broken out by categories: tree, shrub, vine, and groundcover. Nicely done.
Seed Catalogs at the Internet Archive
The Portland Press Herald has a wonderful article about the Internet Archive’s collection of seed catalogs. “Among that ephemera is a treasure trove of more than 18,000 seed and nursery catalogs dating back to the 18th century, all digitized and uploaded by the National Agricultural Library over the last two years. Eventually, the entirety of the Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection of more than 200,000 catalogs will be available for the public to browse electronically.”
Native Plants in California
Californians who like to garden! The California Native Plant Society has a new map of native plants. ” It’s called ‘Calscape,’ and the link to it is on their homepage. All you do is click on your location — say, Sonora — on its map of California and, voilà, you are given all the plants native to your area, with color photos, by category: perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, grasses, succulents, vines, ground covers, plants that prefer sun, shade, are drought-tolerant, attract birds and butterflies, etc.”