What’s in a name?

Down at my garden center I’m busy inputting all the products I intend to sell this gardening season into the sales computer. At times it’s dizzying inputting all the names of the plants both common and Latin. After inputting hundreds of plants one can’t help to reflect on the power of their names.

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The Big Thaw

It’s not uncommon to have a ‘January Thaw’ where snow and ice melts down only to have more snow and ice again in February. Well so far this February we’re still in the January thaw mode and plants and critters are waking up. At least in central Wyoming, the ground is without frost. I say this as I’m seeing night crawler activity in my yard. Night crawlers are worms that come up to the surface of the soil at night to feed on dead vegetation and to mate. They leave behind them in the morning a mound of soil that they’ve pushed up the night before. The fact is these worms don’t tunnel through frozen ground.

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The Herb Effect

Down at my garden center, we’re all getting antsy for the new growing season. We’ve ordered all of our annuals, perennial flowers, trees, shrubs and ornamental grasses. Just about everything a gardener may need this season, including herbs. I don’t consider myself an expert in herbs, so I did a little research on companion-planting herbs with veggies

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