There are a lot of ways to compost. They don't all involve stinky piles and pitchforks and raccoons. In my garden I have been experimenting with some different composing techniques that you might want to give a try. I love the fact that I can compost my kitchen scraps. It makes me feel less wasteful when I throw things into the compost bucket instead of the trash and also my trash stinks less without the moldy fruit etc. As a gardener I like to give back to my garden and composting just makes sense. Composting begins in the kitchen. In my kitchen all of my food scraps go into a large plastic bucket with a lid. This includes all vegetable scraps, fruit scraps, coffee grounds and filters, paper towels, salsa that has gotten moldy, old pasta, stale bread, tea bags, house plant leaves, wilted cut flowers, dust bunnies, sprouting potatoes, egg shells, and many other things. I avoid putting meat, cheese, and oils into the compost because it can make it smelly and attract animals. When my kitchen compost bucket gets full I take it out and dump it into where ever I am currently collecting compost materials. My smallest composting station is my vermicomposter, worm compost, in the basement. This is a plastic bin made out of three plastic trays nested into each other but the two top trays have many holes slightly larger than a worm. The top tray holds the fresh kitchen scraps and shredded news paper, about 50/50. The worms will begin eating the scraps and mixing it with the paper to make a nice compost. The second tray has older compost that has already been worked over by the worms but they might still be getting every last bit out of it. The third tray catches the liquid produced during the composting called a compost tea. The liquid can be used as liquid fertilizer in your garden or houseplants. When the worms have finished eating all the scraps in the middle tray they will travel up through the holes into the top tray where the newer food is. Once they have traveled up then you know that your compost in the middle tray is ready to harvest and can add it to your garden as a very rich soil amendment. Take your empty tray and put it on top and start filling with food scraps and paper while the tray below is finished off by the worms. The worms used for vermicomposting are called red wigglers and you can find them at bait shops. My vermicomposter is homemade but you can also buy them. I feed this composter the most when the weather is nasty and I don't want to go outside. Because it is small it can't take all the compost I produce so most of my compost does not go into the vermicomposter. The bulk of my yard waste and food waste goes outside into my pit compost. To pit compost I dig a large pit in my garden. Usually about 2 ft deep and 5 ft wide. The hole should be about the size of the amount of material you have available for composting. I pick a site in my yard to dig my hole that has shown to have low soil fertility or weed problems or compaction issues. The soil removed from the hole can be used to contour other parts of the garden or stock piled to go on top of the pit when it is full. First into the hole goes sticks, woody stems, and rotten logs, these help to provide air during the process so it doesn't go anaerobic and stink. Next in are plants that might have weed seeds, vines, and tomato stalks, they take the longest to decompose so I want them at the bottom and not growing. Next goes in my leaves, cut grasses, and other dry plants. After that go food scraps and then the rest of the garden waste. I top it all off with left over soil and a layer of mulch. The finished product should be slightly higher than the ground level because it will settle as it decomposes. It takes about a year for it to become compost but all you have to do is sit back and wait. Tomatoes and other heavy feeders will grow well if planted immediately around the pit so that they can send their roots in for nutrients. The following year you will have a nutrient rich bed ready to plant. Each fall I select a new place to dig a pit and am gradually amending my entire vegetable garden area with this approach. I also do some more traditional composting in a commercially available bin that I dump my materials into the top and scoop the compost out the bottom. It tends to be slow and sometimes drys out in the summer and I have to water it. It works but it can't keep up with the amount of yard waste I produce in my vegetable garden and kitchen so I just use it intermittently. I think the main reason I keep the traditional composter is because I support composting and when people visit I want them to see a composter. My other two methods of composting are invisible to the garden visitor. The vermicomposter is in the basement out of sight. The pit composting is completely unrecognizable on the surface unless you happen to be there on the day I make it. Maybe I should call it stealth composting. I hope that if you have been frustrated by earlier composting attempts you will give it another try. Even a small amount of composting will benefit your garden and the landfill. There are so many methods of composting. I'm taking a class on one called bokashi composting later this year. Talk to your gardening friends about their composting and try a few things at home. I'm sure you will find the right method for you.

I seldom see mammals in my yard besides the ever-present squirls. Once there was a family of skunks in our front yard which led to our slightly delayed departure from the house, waiting for them to clear the area. I do see evidence of many footprints, burrows, and scat. However, my game camera tells a story of a very busy yard. There is a band of five racoons that visit my water fountain every night to get a drink. A family of seven woodchucks travels from their burrow along my fence line to raid the neighbor’s vegetable patch. Two old and battle worm opossums inspect my bird feeding station. There are also infrequent rabbits and once a nest of baby bunnies near the edge of the path. My game camera seems to be most successful when I point it at the pond or down our main garden path. I use a cheaper camera, so the photos are not great quality, but they are good enough to identify the critter. On occasion I will be weeding and come across moles, voles, and mice. The moles and voles build their tunnel burrows through my woodchip paths seeking out the worms and grubs that are breaking down the decaying chips. They can be a problem when they eat plant roots. Voles have a reputation for eating liatris roots. Planting liatris with wire cages around the roots is a solution for yards with big vole problems. The mice sometimes nest in my potting bench over the winter which forces me to clean out my bench each spring, which I guess I should be doing anyway. I also find their snug nests out in the little blue stem patch. I view them as cute little troublemakers that feed my owls. I like to know that my garden is providing shelter for so many. A part of me really wants to tame the animals enough so they feel comfortable being in the yard during the day, but I know that is a can of worms. The racoons already cause enough damage when they go frogging in my pond and tear up all the plants. My vegetable gardening neighbor would rather loose fewer vegetables. And we don’t really want a skunk making a home near our front door. The number of mammals already is quite a lot for the area of my garden. I guess I will just need to be content with knowing they are there and shelve my dreams of being an animal whisperer. One mammal I’m lucky not to have, are deer. Deer are beautiful to look at but often cause destruction. They can also bring chiggers and ticks into a garden. I’m very fortunate to not need to worry about those pests while working outside. The absence of deer in my yard is a sign that my yard is not connected sufficiently to wildlife corridors for them to feel safe traveling to my yard. Yards connected by safe travel corridors are better for wildlife, so that their young can disperse to new territories to find mates. Animals like deer, that need a larger feeding ground then just one yard can provide, depend on connected habitats. If a yard does have deer already it would still benefit from more wildlife corridors that allow the deer to travel and decrease the burden on just a few yards to provide all the needed food.

Rush lights were commonly used back in the middle ages. It was a cheap way to produce light from easy to find materials. The light is produced from burning the plant, Juncus effusus, after the pith has been dried and soaked in cooking fat or fish oil. These rushes are still commonly found in wetlands around Missouri and are a favorite landscaping plant today, found in the gardens of many native plant enthusiasts. The soft rush, Juncus effusus, is an excellent native plant, great for use in rain gardens. I have a big patch of it at the outlet of my roof gutter and it does the job of soaking up the rainwater where it used to flood my yard. Soft rush likes to grow in wet sun and is good for erosion control. The stems stand up about 2ft high and stay green through most of the winter. In spring, new shoots will sprout from the base, so many gardeners cut down the old shoots to give the new shoots space but in nature they just grow up through. The resulting thick patch of vegetation provides shelter for many creatures. To make the rush light, I find a few stalks of soft rush and clip them off at the base. I need the inner pith so I peel away the outside green layer and try not to break the spongy pith inside. Slitting the stalk lengthwise with my nail is easy but scraping the pith out in one piece takes a few tries. The pith is laid out to dry for a few days and then after breakfast I throw it in the dirty bacon pan to soak up the fat. The greasy mess is left to dry for a few more days, I try to lay the piths straight because they have curled in the grease. On the day of testing my newly made rush lights I take the fat-soaked piths out to the BBQ grill for safety. It is easy to light one end with a lighter. I try to pick one up but they are still flexible and droop causing me to toss it back on the grill. The light burns even through the tossing and emits a good amount of light. These candles are very smoky and don’t stay lit for long. Into the 19th century, when rush lights were a regular way of lighting at night it would be placed in a dish called a cruisie. The cruisie holds the rush at an angle so it will burn consistently and catches the oil drips so they can be reused the next night. Knowing how to make a rush light could be a good survival skill if I was lost in the wilderness and needed some light at night. I think most importantly this activity helps me to connect to the past and how the soft rush helped my ancestors to have light in the dark. Their connection and knowledge of the plants around them helped them survive and make productive use of the time after sunset.

Wasps get a bad rap, mostly because of aggressive yellow jackets. Most wasp species are solitary and so have no need to defend their colony. Wasps play an essential role in yards and natural ecosystems by controlling pests and pollinating flowers. Unlike their cousins the bees that eat pollen, wasps eat other insects, like caterpillars, flies, and beetles. They are predators or parasitoids of a variety of pest insects that are over populating. Adult wasps hunt other insects to feed their protein-hungry larvae and are important parts of the food-web. Many parasitoid wasps overwinter within their hosts in leaf litter or on senesced plant stems. Parasitoid wasps can’t even sting because that body part has evolved into an ovipositor in order to place their eggs inside the host. A wasp many of us are familiar with is the mud daubers. These parasitic wasps make mud tubes under decks that look like pipe organs by collecting mud one mouthful at a time. They stuff these tubes with spiders that they have pearlized but are still living so they don’t spoil. Once a tube has enough spiders, the wasp lays an egg and seals up the tube. The baby wasp hatches and eats its spiders and then emerges from the tube to start the process over. Cicada killer wasps are large, big enough to carry a cicada. The cicada killers nest underground, sometimes a bunch of them will nest near each other in a lawn. When there is a cicada boom year the wasps collect the cicadas and bring them down into their nests. Watching a cicada killer at work is impressive, I recommend it. I love to see the giant shinny blue wasps called the great black wasp. They can be 1.5 inches long! They are black with a blue iridescence and seem almost tame when visiting a flower so I can get some good photos. This is a great wasp because it pollinates milkweed and can eat up to 16 grasshoppers a day. Wasps spend a lot of their time pollinating flowers. The much-adored butterflies are actually not as good at pollinating as wasps are. Wasps eat nectar and in return transfer pollen between the plants they visit. Orchids lure wasps to their flowers by mimicking the scent and pattern of female wasps, but instead of a date the guy gets covered in pollen. If you want to grow native orchids, you are going to need to provide habitat for its wasp. https://xerces.org/blog/wasp-world

We can all become better insect ambassadors. Insects often are blamed for garden problems they did not cause or are even there to fix. We should not tolerate false information or negativity about insects and instead counter these negative perceptions. As gardeners we lead by example, welcoming insects to our gardens. Our gardening practices help to educate friends and neighbors about the benefits of insects. Pesticide free gardening benefits entire ecosystems and creates a delicate balance of predators and prey. Insect friendly environmental policies protect food webs including supporting birds and keeping plant populations stable. Understanding what the best environmental policies are requires good science. We can support science by joining citizen science projects in our area and encouraging others to join us. As native gardeners we are always at the front of the wave of land stewardship. We know that insects are beneficial, and we need to stand up for them. Our gardens need insects, and insects need our gardens. It is our obligation to carry insects forward with us and make sure they get the respect they deserve in the native plant movement. “The easiest way to protect habitat is to leave it alone as much as possible. Sites with ground nests should not be tilled, mulched, or sprayed with insecticides. Rodent burrows can be left to become bumble bee nests, and beetle-riddled snags can be saved for mason and leafcutter bees. Similarly, rotting logs along forest edges can be retained as nest sites for some metallic green sweat bees such as Augochora. Sites on which good forage plants grow should be protected from insecticides and herbicides. Overgrown areas, rock piles, and brush piles may be providing cover for pupating butterflies or protected overwintering sites for bumble bees.” ~ Xerces Society, Attracting Native Pollinators, p. 92

My yard is on the downhill side of a street with no curbs, so a lot of water comes into my garden every time it rains. One solution would be to put in a curb but that will just run the water down to the neighbor's garage which is not a nice thing to do, and rainwater can be a good thing as long as I can control where it ends up. An alternative solution is to try to direct and absorb the water using swales and raingardens. Swales are just shallow ditches that are strategically placed where water needs to be sent from one place to another. To absorb the most water, dig your swale on contour, parallel to the slope, placing the displaced soil on the lower side of the ditch to form a berm. At the top of my yard, I have dug a shallow ditch parallel to the slope and planted sedges in it. The sedge loves the water that gets trapped in the swale and helps to slow the flow as it comes into the garden. Since one swale didn't seem to catch all the water, I dug three more at about 5 foot intervals parallel down the slope. The top one fills up and flows into the next. The ditches slow the flow to prevent erosion and hold a little water absorbing it into the soil. The top swale also catches a lot of trash that runs off the street, so I go out and pick that up after every rain. Below my swales my garden is constricted as it goes around my porch, so I built a series of three small rain gardens to catch, infiltrate, and direct the water as it continues down the hill. We are about halfway down the garden now, so the water has been significantly slowed and during a short rain it has been trapped to absorb into the soil. However, in the spring there is still more water coming off the street and all my swales and rain gardens are overflowing so I made two more swales to bring the water across away from the porch and into another two larger rain gardens. This spring all this was still not enough to catch all the water, but I still call this success. My garden paths and patio are above water and not washed out. The rain goes from one part of the garden to another without washing out all my plants. I have trapped and absorbed a significant amount of rain to sustain my native plants through the summer. I am putting the rain to work for me, and all of my contouring has added character to my garden. Plants that grow well in swales are: Shady swales: Palm sedge, Carex muskingumensis Golden groundsel, Packera obovata Christmas fern, Polystichum acrostichoides American beak grain, Diarrhena obovata Sunny swales: Fox Sedge, Carex vulpinoidea Common spikerush, Eleocharis palustris Lizard's tail, Saururus cernuus Soft rush, Juncus effusus Cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis Wild strawberry, Fragaria virginiana

My neighbor planted a Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, on the edge of her patio to attract monarchs, Danaus plexippus, to her garden. Swamp milkweed may be their most preferred food source of the milkweed genus, which the monarchs depend on during their caterpillar stage. This specimen grew to be about 4 foot tall and about as big around. The flowers bloomed but the monarchs didn’t come. Sometimes it can take some time for an adult monarch to find a new source of host plant. Allowing the plant to become well established before the caterpillars begin feeding is better than freshly emerged seedlings being eaten to the ground by a very hungry caterpillar that showed up early. Eventually, the monarchs will arrive, seeking out each milkweed to serve as the host plant for a new generation. First the milkweeds leaves begin to be colonized by aphids. The orange aphids are milkweed aphids, Aphis nerii, an introduced species from the Mediterranean that clones itself instead of reproducing sexually. Milkweed aphids store the cardiac glycosides produced by the milkweed plant. Their bright orange/yellow warning coloration serves to warn predators that they are poisonous. When aphids colonize a plant, many gardeners reach for the insecticides but when you are gardening for monarchs, insecticides, even organic insecticidal soap, would kill the very species you are trying to attract. Other common solutions to aphids are to spray them off with water or manually squishing them. But my advice to my neighbor was to just leave them alone, let the food web naturally form, the predators will come. Of course, it is very hard to watch a plant you have nurtured from a seed be damaged by an invasive aphid, sucking all of its life fluids. But patience can bring exciting results. A few days later we were having coffee on her patio with the attacked/suffering milkweed standing nearby. The aphids were still present in force but there were also a few black and orange striped lady beetle nymphs, Coccinellidae, systematically piercing aphids to suck them dry and leaving a path of dead aphids behind. On closer inspection we found golden eggs clustered under the leaves in tight formation where the lady beetles had emerged. More pale eggs nearby were suspended on threads, these are the eggs of the aphid lions, Chrysoperla sp. Born so ferocious that their parents must separate them at birth on their own threads to make sure that they don’t eat their siblings. Aphid lions look like little alligators snapping up aphids in their tiny but strong jaws and mature into delicate green lacewings. We also find flower or syrphid fly’s youngsters, Syrphidae, which are white, pointy-ended maggots that parasitize aphids causing them to turn brown. When the maggots become adults, they are important pollinators of the plant they just protected from aphids. And, jackpot, under a leaf is the tiny crystal meringue of a monarch egg. Now that the predators have arrived on site the milkweed plant is feeling some relief from the aphids. But now our monarch babies may also be in danger as predators do not know to avoid the endangered species when they are feeding. Monarch caterpillars concentrate the cardiac glycosides from the milkweed plant in their bodies and even retain this deadly chemical in their adult butterfly form which makes them distasteful to predators. Many of the species dependent on milkweed as their host plant have learned to work around or even co-opt the chemicals the milkweed plants have developed to protect themselves from predators. Soon the monarch caterpillars hatch. They are easy to spot by the damaged leaves. Flip one over and a tiny striped monarch baby will be busily munching underneath. The caterpillars seem to double in size overnight and we must check on them daily and marvel at their growth. The adult butterflies are also seen visiting the garden more often, laying even more eggs. My neighbor is relieved that the butterflies have found her garden a suitable place to start a family. The life of a butterfly is not easy and mortality is high out in the wild even when you are a monarch. As the food web develops around the milkweed plant, larger predators arrive. Flower spiders, Misumena sp., stand guard on the flower head to nab unwary visitors, changing their color to match the flower for camouflage and ambush their prey. Praying mantises, Stagomantis Carolina, dangle from the stem grabbing bugs and beetles as they are distracted by the aphid harvest. Visiting pollinators may also be captured and although it is all part of the food web, it can be hard to watch a butterfly being eaten and its torn wings drift slowly to the ground. I find it amusing, in a morbidly necessary way, that the aphids pierce the plant to suck out the sap, and in turn the aphids are pierced by their predators, which suck out the aphids’ body fluids. The whole system is like one complicated straw, sucking nutrients upwards out of the air and soil from plant to insect, until a bird comes along and plucks an unwary predator and stuffs it into a chick’s mouth. Who needs TV when you can sit near a swamp milkweed and watch battles rage from stem to stem, birth and death, eggs becoming nymphs becoming adults, so many different species doing what they do best. Plants are eaten by aphids, then eaten by beetles, who are eaten by mantes, in turn then eaten by birds, who then disperse to far corners and eventually be eaten themselves. Eggs are carefully laid on a selected host and hatch and eat and grow. The lucky few that avoid predation become adults to start the cycle over again. We could (and do) sit here for hours, fascinated by the drama in front of our eyes. This milkweed was planted to attract monarchs, but it has summoned an entire ecosystem.

Native gardens have a reputation for not needing to be watered. This can be true once a garden is mature with all plants situated in appropriate locations. Placing plants with attention to the natural amount of soil moisture compared to the requirements of the plant will lead to happier, lower maintenance plants. Native gardens still need coddling during the establishment phase with regular watering until their roots have extended far enough to draw in the plants moisture requirements. To encourage roots to expand water the entire root zone and not just the base of the plant. Garden plants prefer being watered with rainwater instead of tap water. Additionally, why waste precious drinking water on plants that do not need or want their water purified. Rain barrels are an excellent way to collect rainwater for irrigating the yard. The regular 55 gallon rain barrel holds enough water to keep a small garden watered. If the garden contains water features, these should be filled only with rain water. Treated water may kill tadpoles and any other wildlife that depends on that pond. Water new plants weekly the first year after planting. Plants straight from the garden center are used to being watered every day. They will need some time to establish and should not be allowed to dry out during that time. Younger plants need less water to establish. Buying first year plants gives them more opportunity to establish healthy root systems in their home soil. Also, when digging a planting hole be sure to break up the clay at the base and sides so that roots can escape. Mulching around new plantings traps moisture so they don’t need to be watered as often. Health roots is the key to drought resistant plants. As our climate changes, droughts have become more common. Some of our common garden plants are being pushed to the limits of their tolerance. We must either, plant more drought/heat tolerant plants or be ready to water during droughts. Even native plants, especially trees, require water during droughts, even in winter. Saving water during times of abundance in rain barrels to supplement the yard during times of scarcity is one way to help a garden through a drought. Unfiltered rain barrel water is notorious for clogging sprinklers and drip irrigation lines. I generally run my rainwater through a hose and walk around the garden to each thirsty plant. This also allows me to personally inspect each plant in case it has other maintenance needs. If drip irrigation is already set up, it is an easy way to water a new garden. However, a sustainable yard should not need irrigation. The easiest way to avoid watering is to absorb every drop of water arriving in the garden. Use rain scaping methods such as swales and rain gardens to catch water and retain it on site. Rain scaping is beneficial to the garden and reduces storm surges in local creeks. Make zero runoff your goal.

Gardening tasks that often make me sore can be easier on my body if I stretch first. Repetitive and strenuous tasks like shoveling, weeding on my hands and knees, hauling mulch in a wheelbarrow, or pruning with pruners, loppers, or hand saws often give me a sore back, knees, and shoulders. Since gardening is a lifelong project, it is best that we all take good care of our health and stretch before gardening so we don’t get laid up by knee replacements and other inconveniences. Here are a few stretches that feel good to me, I hope you find some stretches that feel good to you too. Loosen up: Stretch your arms up above your head and then reach down to the ground rounding your back as you go down. Hinge from the hips and don’t lock your knees. Coming back up, roll your shoulders forward and back. Lean your neck so your ear touches one shoulder then the other. Standing with your feet forward, twist your torso and arms as far around as you can. Lunge twist: With your left knee on the ground and your hips forward. Shift forward toward your right foot to stretch your hip flexors. Engage your core to support your lower back. Lower your left hand down inside your right leg while reaching your right hand up to the sky for a twist. Keep your core engaged, hug your shoulder blades toward your spine, and look up past your right hand. Switch sides. Stretch out your calves with your heel to the ground while you are down there. Cat and cow: With your hands and knees on the ground, arch your back up towards the sky until you feel a stretch. Then arch your belly button down towards the ground. Repeat up and down a few times. Then lower your but down on your feet leaving your arms stretched out forward. Stretch your shoulders and back against the ground. Toe touches: Sitting on the ground, extend your legs straight and reach for your feet. If you can’t reach your feet, bend your knees, grab your feet, and slowly extend your legs to stretch into your low back and hamstrings. Next extend one leg. Tuck your other foot into your opposite thigh. Reach toward your foot with one hand while stretching your other arm up and over toward your extended foot, twisting your chest toward the sky. Switch sides. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water throughout the day and I find that a well-timed snack break always perks me up.

Summer is when my garden starts to look like a jungle. As plants reach their full size, they crowd each other for space. A full garden is good, when the soil is completely covered in vegetation there is no light hitting the ground, so weeds have no space to grow. Another benefit of having no bare ground is less erosion damage. As rain droplets fall, they are intercepted by plant leaves that slow their speed when hitting the earth. However, this is the time of year when it is a good idea to take some notes about which plants should be moved around to give every plant the space they need. If a species is prolific and is crowding its neighbor, it may be time to send some of the plants on the edge to the compost pile. Also, plants crowding the path should be removed either to the compost or cut them back for now and transplant them later in the fall. Another solution to crowded walkways is to stop using some paths for the summer. Some of my more interior paths are just open during the spring when I need to get in there to weed and the paths disappear as the late summer bloomer mature. Newer gardens will still be producing annual weeds in the summer and even though it is hot, it is best to go pull them out before they go to seed. Invasive species are a constant problem in any garden and need to be removed regularly. Spring blooming invasives will begin to produce seed and should be removed before they can infest the garden with another generation. Plant diseases like aster yellows show up in summer. Stems and flower heads become deformed because of a virus that can be contagious to the other garden plants if the diseased material is not disposed of. If anything looks unusually about a plant, it is wise to try to figure out why right away incase there is a cure. Insect damage will also occur, but this is good because healthy insect populations support healthy ecosystems. Summer can be a time of drought. Native plants are generally drought tolerant or at least more so then exotic species. Newer plantings will still need to be watered regularly until they have mature root systems. The first two years of a garden bed becoming established it is a good practice to water the planting deeply once a week if it has not rained. Trees may want to be watered for even longer since they have such large root systems. Often transplanting can be very traumatic for a tree because so much of the root system is removed. To spend less time watering, plant smaller trees and flowers so that they can grow sufficient root systems quickly and support themselves. Spring blooming flowers will begin to set seed in the summer months or even earlier. Some species will have ripe seed all at the same time and some plants may produce one ripe seed a day. Walk the garden regularly to check for ready seeds to collect. Keep collected seeds in a dry cool place free of bugs and mice. If seed propagation seems intimidating try just collecting one species to get a feel for it. Remember that any seeds left out in the garden will either become food for some creature or will fall to the ground and germinate, maybe even in a place you like, if you’re lucky.

Did you know you can turn acorns into an edible flour? Acorns are very bitter with tannins if you try to eat them raw. The process of turning acorns into flour will be a tedious one the first time. But just like shelling walnuts, each time is easier. The trick is to shell the acorns and then soak them in several changes of clean water until all the tannins have leached out. Once the bitter part has been removed it is time to bake them and then grind them into flour. Acorn flour is nutritious and makes tasty breads and cookies. There are many other unique food items just waiting to be discovered at our feet if we are willing and eager to go to the trouble of collecting, cleaning, and processing our food. Many nuts and fruits are edible. It is always a joy to happen upon an arboreal offering of ripe fruit or nuts. I feel so lucky when I find a ripe pawpaw to eat. We can also prepare for these harvests by planting the trees that produce the things we like to eat in our yards. Mushrooms are a fun item to collect out in the woods or to grow at home. It is always a thrill to discover a patch of morels or chicken of the woods. Mushroom spores can be bought and inoculated into logs to be harvested. Mushroom logs can be arranged in decorative patterns in the shady landscape while we wait for the fruits to ripen. When I’m out hiking, I often end up with a little velcro triangle seed called beggars ticks stuck to my pants. When the seeds are green I like to peel off the outer capsule and eat the bean inside as a little trail snack. I wouldn’t want to depend on this seed for sustenance, but while hiking, it is a simple thing to do for amusement. A good source of protein is to try eating insects. I have tried fried worms and grubs, and with enough salt they taste fine. Common insects to eat are cicadas, grasshoppers, crickets, grubs, and worms. Other cultures are much more open to eating insects than ours but we are missing out on a whole variety of interesting foods. I don’t have any recipes to share but I’m willing to experiment with eating insects. Foraging etiquette dictates that you only take a small portion of the harvest you find and leave the rest to reproduce into next year’s harvest. Responsible foraging allows wild populations to fulfill their role in the ecosystem and withstand the pressures of harvesting. Growing favorite foraging crops at home is a way to insure they are harvested sustainably.

No Mow May is trending now. The idea is to not mow your yard during May in order to support pollinators who will feed on common lawn weeds like dandelion and violet. This trend is misguided and helps to continue to blur the line between a yard that is just weeds allowed to grow and a native garden. It would be better if everyone had a pollinator garden where plants bloom throughout the growing season to support a sustainable habitat for all insects. Native early pollinators come out much earlier than may. Having food sources available for native insects in March and even February is important. Native pollinators are looking for native plants. Shrubs like the plum, service berry, and spicebush bloom early to sustain spring pollinators. Many of the flowers growing in our lawns are not native. Dandelions, clover, purslane, and mustards are common lawn weeds that bloom, but they are not native and we don’t need to protect them. The majority of the bees visiting our lawn are non-native honeybees. Caring for honeybees is the responsibility of their owners, we do not need to devote our garden space to their care. Lawn care can harm pollinators. Mowing can destroy hibernating butterflies and crush the underground burrows of bumblebees and beetles. Mower engines usually do not have mufflers and will drown out bird songs which can interrupt their ability to defend their territory and find mates. Lawn mowers pollute a lot, more then cars even. If you have a lawn service, they may be adding fertilizers and pesticides to your lawn that kills pollinators and pollutes soil and ground water. Let’s call it Less Lawn May, or Murder your lawn May? May is a great time to put in a new native plant garden. Less lawn and more native plants mean more habitat for pollinators, birds, and all creatures. Gardening for pollinators means you need a variety of plants with blooms occurring throughout the year. Plant asters for blooms up till frost and witchazel for blooms on warm winter days.