Celebrating National Learn About Butterflies Day - A Giveaway!

Although any day is a good day to eat pie (I'll take Dutch apple, please!), March 14th is designated National Pie Day. Actually, it's "Pi" day – the day we honor the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. This unique number in math never ends.

So far, it's been calculated to 22.4 trillion digits with no pattern repeats, and named for the Greek letter π. We usually say pi equals 3.14, so that's why March 14th has been chosen as the day to celebrate this imaginary number. (This might help you understand imaginary numbers. Or not.)

Now you understand why we are all eating pie today.

Today is also National Learn About Butterflies Day. That, I can get into, even more than pie. These days, I'm spending a good deal of time sharing information about butterflies, specifically, the monarch butterfly.

Monarchs are unique among their kind. They do things that no other butterflies do. You know, like travel up to 3000 miles to a place they've never been before – a very specific place – the same place their ancestors have gone for thousands of years.

Cerro Pelon monarch sanctuary, February 22, 2018

I just returned from visiting three of the monarch sanctuaries in Central Mexico, where these beautiful butterflies go to wait out the winter until it's time for them to make the return trip north. (They're heading north now!) As I stood high on the mountains in the sanctuaries (around 10,000 feet above sea level), I considered this insect and its story. I thought about just what it took for each of those thousands and thousands of monarchs to get to where they were at that very moment.

El Rosario monarch sanctuary, February 21, 2018

If you don't know about the unique life cycle (including the migration) of the monarch, you're missing one of nature's most fascinating phenomenons. I suggest that you pick up a copy of my book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, to learn about it. At a current price of $12.88 on Amazon, this 160-page hardcover book is a bargain, packed with facts, anecdotal stories, projects, plant and predator information, and resources for learning even more.

Today, in honor of National Learn About Butterflies day, I'm giving away one signed copy of my book. All you need to do is leave a comment on at least one of these places:

• Here on this blog post 
• This post on my book's Facebook page
• This post on my personal Facebook page

On this coming Sunday night, March 18, 2018, at midnight EDT, a random winner will be chosen from all the entries. You can enter on all three locations, which will increase your chances of winning, but only three total entries are permitted per person.

If you don't want to take your chances on this giveaway, signed copies of THE MONARCH are also available for purchase in my Etsy shop, Folio and Focus Co. Signed copies of my first book, Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook For Houseplants, are also available, as well as a unique handmade butterfly bracelet (only one left!).


Enter to win now, and then go have a piece of pie.

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CONGRATULATIONS to Gail for winning the signed copy of my book! And thank you to all who entered here and on Facebook.

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Niki Jabbour's VEGGIE GARDEN REMIX - Win One!

One of the best things about gardening is that there is an unlimited choice of things to grow. We tend to grow those things that we love, year after year, but it's always fun to try something new, too.

In 2008, I grew a lot of purple veggies. This
is Phaseolus vulgaris 'Purple Queen'.

One year, I decided to grow purple veggies. Researching what vegetables came in purple, I was surprised to find out how many there were. I already knew about eggplant and cabbage, of course, but there was also sweet corn, okra, potatoes, “green” beans, carrots, kohlrabi, lettuce, and several others.

Seeds were purchased and planted, and my purple vegetable garden was born.

When I would talk about my purple veggie garden, the number one question I got was, “Do the purple ones taste the same as the regular colored ones?” And the answer was yes. There was no discernible difference, other than slight variations you would expect from one cultivar to another, independent of color.

Besides being fun to do, I learned something along the way. Those purple beans magically turned green when they were cooked! We called them our magic beans.

For all of you adventurous gardeners, there's a new book that will have you salivating at all the wonderful and quirky choices available for growing. Niki Jabbour, star of growing year round, even though she lives in Nova Scotia, and author of bestselling The Year Round Vegetable Gardener, has written a fun new book – Niki Jabbour's Veggie Garden Remix.

This book is like looking at a catalog of 224 choices of a wide variety of edibles that you may not have thought about growing or may not have even known existed! But better than a plant catalog, Niki shares growing tips, plant origins, how and when to plant and harvest, different ways to use them, and a host of other information.

If your vegetable garden has become a little ho-hum, or you've lost a little enthusiasm for gardening in general, Niki's book can jump start it all again. How can you get bored growing things with names like 'Poona Kheera' (cucumber) and 'Orange Jelly' (turnip). I'm not a turnip fan, but ORANGE JELLY!

A carrot in parentheses!

I can think of no better way to begin this year's garden than flipping through this book and making a list of seeds that will elevate my veggie-growing space to stellar star status. It's like how I used to go through the Sears Christmas catalog the day it came and I made a list of all the toys I wanted. That was such fun, too.

We've been doing the Blue Apron thing for over a year now, and we've been introduced to some foods that we might otherwise not have known about. We found new foods to love, including some you'll find in Niki's book.

Win a copy of Veggie Garden Remix!

I was sent a complimentary copy of Niki's book and you could win a copy of your own! 

Just comment on this blog post by midnight, EST, on Sunday, February 25, 2018. One random commentor will get a copy of Niki Jabbour's Veggie Garden Remix sent to them from her publisher, Storey Books. Be sure to indicate how you'd like for me to contact you, in case you're the winner.

Good luck!

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Niki Jabbour is the award-winning author of Niki Jabbour’s Veggie Garden Remix, The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, and Groundbreaking Food Gardens. Her work is found in Fine Gardening, Garden Making, Birds & Blooms, Horticulture, and other publications, and she speaks widely on food gardening at events and shows across North America. She is the host and creator of The Weekend Gardener radio show. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is online at nikijabbour.com.

Gilmour Spray Nozzle and Flexogen® Hose Review and Giveaway

When the 4^th of July happens around here, it seems like summer is half over. Of course, this isn’t true, except for the school kids and that was a long, long time ago for us. There’s a lot of summer left in the garden too, and one thing that we’re sure to be doing in the hottest and driest part of summer for us here in NW Ohio, is some watering.

Recently, the Fiskars people contacted me about trying some of their products. I’ve always been a fan of Fiskars and somehow missed the fact that they acquired Gilmour, maker of garden watering products, back in 2014.

Among the things they sent me to try were these Gilmour products: 

Of all the things I received to try, the Super Duty Thumb Control Watering Nozzle was my favorite. In their description, they talk about a nozzle having “the right heft” to it, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. This just feels right in your hand. And it’s really easy to control with that thumb lever.

The nozzle head itself has eight spray patterns: Flower, Sweep, Garden, Shrub, Clean, Soft Wash, Rinse, and Jet.

It has stainless steel connectors so it doesn’t corrode and get hard to disconnect from your hose. They also sent me some Quick Connect components though, so I don’t even have to unscrew the nozzle to remove it. I just pop it off.

The Quick Connect set makes it easy to take the nozzle off and on from the hose.

Oh, and it comes with a lifetime warranty, too. I. Love. This. Nozzle.

They also sent me a Flexogen® Super Duty Hose. If there’s one thing that I hear gardeners complain about, it’s hoses. First of all, they don’t like heavy ones and secondly, they hate how they kink. I’ve complained about these very things myself.

The Flexogen® IS lightweight AND it honest-to-goodness DOES NOT KINK. I can't believe it, but it's true. Now this is saying something, because we have really low water pressure. I've had hoses that are supposed to resist kinking under pressure, but when you've got low water pressure, it's hard to make a product that simply won't kink. But Gilmour has done it.

The other thing is, this Flexogen® hose really is pretty lightweight. As someone who suffers from degenerative disc disease in my neck (as so many my age do), I appreciate how much lighter in weight this hose is than some. There's nothing I hate worse about water hoses than dragging one around that behaves like it was a 50-lb. boa constrictor.

Flexogen® hoses have eight layers and have been tested and proven to be the strongest and longest-lasting hose in its class. It's made with heavy-duty brass couplings to hold up well under use.

Also, the polished exterior resists dirt collection, unlike some other hoses I’ve tried. Of course, it’s gray, so it wouldn’t show much dirt anyway, but still. It's my new favorite hose!

It's a GIVEAWAY!

Now, the folks at Fiskars and Gilmour have been so kind to offer both the Super Duty Thumb Control Watering Nozzle AND a Flexogen® hose to one of my readers. If enough people enter, they’ve said they might give away two sets! So enter now and tell all your friends and neighbors. The more people that enter, the greater chance there will be two sets to give away! (And no, I do not know what the tipping point will be. LOL)

This giveaway will end with a random drawing on Saturday evening, July 9^th, at midnight EDT. All you need to do to enter is to fill out the Rafflecopter form. That’s it. But if you want bonus entries, check out the extra options when you fill out the Rafflecopter form. There are lots of ways to get a bonus entry!

a Rafflecopter giveaway    

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*I received these products from Fiskars/Gilmour for the purposes of reviewing them and hosting a giveaway. As always, I won't say anything about a product that isn't the truth from my own personal experience with it. I have received no other form of compensation for writing about these products.   

A Taste For the Exotic: A Holiday Giveaway with Longfield Gardens

From my earliest days as an honest-to-goodness gardener, I've been fascinated with unusual bulbs. Tulips and daffodils are nice, of course, but those quirky ones that you can't find just anywhere always grab my attention.

I've grown quite a few tropical bulbs over the years, in summer and winter, depending on availability, including Scilla peruviana. It's an unusual one, but not so much as its cousin, Scilla madeirensis, commonly known as Giant Madeiran Squill, which until now has not been available to the general public. If you wanted to see it, you either had to view it at a botanical garden or in its native environment.

Found on the Portuguese islands of Madeira, off the coast of northern Africa in the Atlantic, this beautiful and rare species of hyacinth is only hardy to Zones 9-10. It is easily grown in containers as a houseplant and is now being propagated commercially in Israel. Longfield Gardens sent one to me in a kit a couple of weeks ago so I could grow it for myself.
 

Everything I needed was contained in the kit: a birch bark container,
potting medium, a nice-sized bulb that was already showing signs
of growth, and some decorative Spanish moss to top it off.

I've grown bulbs from Longfield Gardens before
and they've always been some of the biggest
and healthiest bulbs I've ever seen.

All I needed to do was pot it up and water it, which didn't take me more than a couple of minutes. (Instructions for planting are found on the website.)

The bulb itself is somewhat pretty, foretelling the bloom color. It will first produce strappy foliage, sometimes freckled, and it should begin flowering in about 4-6 weeks - maybe in time for Christmas or New Year's!

Planting and care of Scilla madeirensis is similar to that of amaryllis.

Longfield Gardens' photos show its bloom to be a beautiful shade of lavender blue. Bulbs typically begin to bloom at a relatively young age (around four years), and hopefully I'll see some offsets form as it matures over the next few years.

The flower stalk has a bottlebrush silhouette that will
reach about 15" in height.
(Photo of Scilla madeirensis courtesy of Longfield Gardens)

A GIVEAWAY! 

Would you like to grow one too? Longfield Gardens has graciously allowed me to give a gift kit away to one of my readers. All you need to do to enter to win is to leave a comment to this blog post, telling me the most exotic flower or bulb that you've ever grown. If you've never grown anything you consider to be exotic, then tell me what you've always wanted to try, but haven't just yet.

Be sure to provide a way for me to contact you, should you be the lucky winner. (You can include your email address by spelling out "at" and "dot" to avoid spambots.)

At midnight on Black Friday, November 27th, I'll randomly pick a winner and contact you so that I can get an address for shipping. Longfield Gardens will then send you a gift kit in time for holiday planting. Good luck!

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UPDATE: Congratulations to Louise Hartwig, whose comment was picked by Random.org as the winner of the giveaway. Thank you to all who entered! If you still want to grow this great bulb, you can purchase it here.

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Photo of Scilla madeirensis courtesy of Longfield Gardens

Further reading about Scilla madeirensis: 

http://www.longfield-gardens.com/article/All-About-Scilla-Madeirensis

http://blog.longfield-gardens.com/topic/indoor-bulbs

http://blog.longfield-gardens.com/grow-this-an-exotic-fall-blooming-bulb

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I received a complimentary kit to grow Scilla madeirensis for the purposes of introducing this unusual bulb to my readers. I agreed to do this at the request of Longfield Gardens because I've had good experiences in the past with bulbs I've received from them and I can recommend them because of those experiences. The free kit was the only compensation I received for writing this blog post.

Have You Seen What Ball® Has in Store This Year? (+ a giveaway)

Gardeners have been busy canning and preserving for the last few months and it's not over yet. Just this week, I pulled my beets for pickling, as I do each summer. It's one of our very favorite goodies from the garden. I've also got some Mexican gherkin cucumbers (they look like miniature watermelons!) that I'll be pickling for the first time this year.

Since 2010, Ball® has been celebrating the bounty of the garden with their annual Can-It-Forward day. Held in August, its intent is to help people with making the most of their garden produce. The Can-It-Forward pages have all kinds of wonderful tips and activities, including downloadable and printable labels for your jars.

Though we've never preserved the majority of what we grow (we eat it and share it with neighbors and family), when we do, Ball jars are what we do it in. We also use Ball® jars for our maple syrup we make in late winter.

This year, Ball® sent me some of their products to use and I was of course delighted to get the latest and final edition of the American Heritage Collection Series of jars, commemorating their 100th anniversary.  1913 saw the launch of the first true “Perfect Mason” jar followed in 1914 by the “PERFECTION,” then finally by “IMPROVED” in 1915. This year's jars are purple and follow the previous years' green and blue.

Photo by Jenna DeCraene

Also new this year are the Sip & Straw lids, which are pure genius. How many of us have used Ball® jars as drinking glasses? The Sip & Straw lids take it to another level and are just plain fun, for both kids and adults.

You just use regular rings (not included) and screw them over the lids, which do include sturdy reusable straws. They come in blue, red, or purple. You can use them on your regular Ball® jars or you can get jars with handles too.

Photo by Jenna DeCraene

I also received a copy of Ball's handy dandy Blue Book Guide to Preserving. It not only tells you how to do it, it also has over 500 recipes. This 37th edition, which is new this year, includes 75 new recipes.








Want some pretty purple jars of your very own?

If you've never used Ball® jars and for those of you who already do, here's a chance to win a set of six of this year's purple American Heritage Collection jars:

Just leave a comment on this blog post, telling me how you'll use the jars if you win (What will you can? Or will you use them for crafts?), as well as filling out the Rafflecopter form. You'll see bonus entry opportunities when you fill out the form, with a possible total of eight entries:

a Rafflecopter giveaway
The giveaway entry period will run through midnight EDT, Sunday, October 4, 2015. A winner will be randomly chosen by Rafflecopter and notified via email. Good luck!


If you've never checked out all the valuable information on their website, you're in for a treat. Ball® knows canning!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Julie Thompson Adolph! Rafflecopter chose you as the winner! Thank you to all who entered, and happy canning!

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I received products from Ball®/Jarden Brands for the purpose of review. No other compensation has been given to me and all opinions expressed here are my own. I am an Amazon Affiliate and this blog post may contain affiliate links to Amazon.com.

Fiskars PowerGear2: A Review and a Giveaway!

I love to prune. I mean LOVE it. Ask my husband and his face will cloud over, because he hates pruning. He gets ouchy about it not because he actually hates the act of pruning; he hates that I love it so much. He isn't convinced that pruning trees and shrubs is altogether good for them. It's one of the Top Ten Things We Argue About. (I know you have silly things that you argue about with your significant other too, so stop laughing.)

When Fiskars, a company who has been in business for 365 years now (!!!), asked me if I wanted to try out some of their PowerGear2™ products, I got all giddy. It's not that we don't have any pruners or loppers, or hedge shears, because we do, but to get to try out some brand new ones? Let me have at 'em.

Here's what they sent:

PowerGear2™ Bypass Pruners

• PowerGear^® patented gear technology multiplies leverage to give you up to 3X more power on every cut
• Fully hardened steel blade stays sharp, even through heavy use
• Rugged DuraFrame^® construction provides superior strength and reduced weight
• Contoured, rolling handle fits the shape and natural motion of your hand for comfortable use and reduced hand fatigue
• Maximum cutting capacity: 3/4" diameter

PowerGear2™ Hedge Shears

• Powers through tough branches that traditional hedge shears struggle to cut
• 10" blades cut all the way to the tip
• Shock-absorbing bumpers help reduce the jarring conclusion at the end of cuts
• Tough steel construction with riveted handles offers lasting durability
• Rounded ergonomic handles with Softgrip^® touchpoints enhance comfort and control

PowerGear2™ Lopper (18")

• Patent-pending design with modified gears and cam mechanism optimizes your cutting power in the middle of the cut where the branch is thickest and you need it most
• Fully hardened steel blade stays sharp, even through heavy use
• Rounded ergonomic handles with Softgrip^® touchpoints enhance comfort and control
• Low-friction coating helps the blade glide through wood, prevents the blade from gumming up with sap and debris and helps the blade resist rust
• Bypass blade style
• Maximum cutting capacity: 1-1/2" diameter (Larger-sized PowerGear2™ Loppers allow cuts up to 2".)

I'd actually won a pair of PowerGear2™ loppers at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show, but that was in early March and with the weather we were having after we got home from that, not much pruning was being done. But I've had a chance to try these out for a little bit and here's what I think:

Overall, all three products I tried were easy to use and with one exception, I had no problems. These are quality tools that come with a Lifetime Warranty. What I liked most about them were the relatively light weight, compared to some I've used, and the mechanisms operated extremely smoothly.

We I had quite a bit of pruning to do on both trees and some flowering shrubs, so last week I really put the loppers and the pruners through their paces. Easy breezy, and I mean that. I've got a little bit of arthritis in my right hand (my pruning hand) and they both cut through what I was pruning so easily that there was no stress on those joints at all. Fiskars actually did an extensive study of how the human body interacts with tools and used what they learned to ergonomically design these tools for the optimum comfort and performance.

Also, the non-stick surface of the blades made cleaning them a breeze. That was especially important to me with the hand pruners. It seems like I'm always cutting something close to the ground or unfortunately, using them in a closed position to dig dandelions out. (Yeah, I know, pruners aren't supposed to be used for digging, but when they're in my hand and there's a dandelion...) With the spring we've had and all the rain, mud happens.

I only used the hedge shears a little bit, because we really didn't have a lot of that type of work to do just yet, but I found them to be just as smooth to use as the other two tools.

I mentioned one problem earlier, and that was with the hand pruners. I'm a hand pruner hussy, in that I will try any pruner that I can get my hands on. You can never have too many pruners, right? I've tried a LOT of them and I have my favorites. I'm still getting used to these, because they have this really cool ergonomic feature, in that the handle rolls as you squeeze them shut, to help eliminate blisters and hand fatigue. That's different and it feels different.

The pruners, I think, must be designed for a larger hand than mine (which is small), because I felt the need to hold them closer to the blade than I think was intended. I say this, because more than once when I squeezed them shut to prune, I caught the fleshy part of my index finger in the rolling mechanism and it pinched. To be fair, I've had a similar problem with another brand of pruners (in about the same position of the handle), so I think it must be more me and the way I hold them than it is the pruners. But I wanted to mention it. I'm going to keep using them though, because they really do perform well, and perhaps I'll get over that pinching business.

That said, Fiskars is allowing me to give away five pairs of the PowerGear2™ hand pruners!  

FIVE!

So if you want a chance at winning a pair of them for your very own, just leave a comment to this blog post and tell me, yes or no, if you like to deadhead/prune your flowers or not. Some people hate the job, and some people love it. I love it, but if you hate it, you're probably going to want these to make quick work of it.

When you leave a comment, be sure to also provide a way for me to contact you, should you be the winner. (Email address is fine.) The giveaway will run until midnight EDT, Sunday, June 28, 2015. I'll use Random.org to randomly pick five winners from all the comments. Good luck!

Giveaway rules here.

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Fiskars website:  http://www2.fiskars.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/fiskars

Twitter: @Fiskars_HQ

Instagram: @Fiskars_HQ

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/fiskars_hq
Google+ : +Fiskars 

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Fiskars sent me the three tools featured above for purposes of testing and review. All opinions stated here about the tools are my own, based on my experience with them. No further compensation of any kind was given. This blog post contains my affiliate links for Amazon. If you decide to purchase anything through these links, I thank you. It won't cost you any more, but it may add a few cents to my account.