Sustainable Gardening News Jan ‘09

Blog version.  The whole newsletter with off-topic sidebar is here. 

And Happy Inauguration, everyone!

 In the News

• Annapolis, Maryland has passed a promising new law prohibiting the sale or use of lawn fertilizers that pollute.  Lots of exemptions, but a good start at trying to stop toxic runoff into the Chesapeake Bay.

• Students at LSU have created a lawn-care robot, the fully customizable AgBot. They say the robot is an environmentally-friendly lawn care machine containing a seed dispenser, high-torque auger, fertilizer tank, and remote control capabilities. It’s solar-powered and can move as fast as 6 miles per hour for at least 4 hours.  Via the Weekly Dirt.
  

• Can sustainability go too far?  Read about the  Sustainable Guitar Movement before answering that question.

On GardenRant

• Keeping track of your garden’s blooms – with the humble bar graph.
• What about wrapping evergreens in burlap for the winter?  Lots of opinions in the comments.
  
• Great discussion of the economics of growing your own food.
• Artificial turf isn’t weed-free after all.
• Worm Composter Round-Up
• Can the world be fed without industrial farming practices?
• Can the "organic" label be trusted?  In California, maybe not.
• Contributor Allan Armitage ventures into the Great Native-Plant Debate.

  New on Sustainable-Gardening.com

• We welcome our newest sponsor – Fiskars Tools!
• New contributor Kathy LaLiberte of Gardeners Supply Company offers three meaty articles:  3 Keys to Organic Gardening Success,  the Secrets to Great Soil, or How Fungus Turned my Thumb Green, and Know your Climbers.
• Contributor Jeff Gillman’s first edition of New Hort Research that Gardeners can Use is terrific and will be archived on Sustainable-Gardening, along with his quarterly reports yet to come. 

Out and About and On the Air

• Coming up, join me in Richmond, VA Feb 4-6 for "Gardening in the Era of Climate Change"
• It’s been a big radio month for this gardener.  First I chatted with Ken Druse and Vicki Johnson on "Real Dirt Radio" – about sustainable gardening and GardenRant.
• Next, Joe Lamp’l (joe gardener) interviewed me on his show "Growing a Greener World". 
• And on Louisville NPR’s "HomeGrown Radio" show I talked about blogging with Bob Hill and Jeneen  Wiche.
• Slate.com gave a nice boost to garden-coaching (and this coach).
• At Baltimore’s Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show gardenwriters were feted by Spring Meadow Nursery.
• I’m finally getting the hang of social networking, kinda.  That means I’m on Twitter by myself and as part of GardenRant AND on Facebook, where I rediscovered my college boyfriend!