Tag: gardening

Study Hal: Week 39 – Online Shopping

Leila Mullison 1 Comment

Ahh, online shopping. What a wonderful, miraculous, and fickle thing. While trying to get the garden ready for spring, Hal noticed that his bird bath broke over the winter. He thought he caught a lucky break finding a cheap replacement online… It was only when it arrived that he discovered he’d bought a bird bath for a doll house!

Hal was chagrined, but I had a good laugh about his mistake. I’ve done the same thing before by speeding through an item description. Hal is too stubborn to return this one, so maybe it’ll become a candy dish. Has anyone else ordered something unexpected because they only skimmed the specifications?

If you’re new here, welcome in! Despite his absent mind this week, Hal is, in fact, only a few weeks from getting is U-M diploma. He posts here on Tuesdays to share his experiences, but if you’d like to see the rest of the videos, check out the Study Hal tag!

Indoor Home Garden

Jordan Brown 7 Comments

Winter in the midwest is the time for everyone to stay inside and wait until April before venturing outside, it’s too cold to go outside and play.  In the southern hemisphere winter is the time for people to be outside and enjoy the nice weather. Over winter break I was lucky enough to take a 10 day trip to Ecuador and learn all about food sustainability.  The winter season for them is when they start to plant their crops so that they will grow nice and large for picking season in the late summer.

This got me thinking about planting in the midwest in the winter.  It is too cold to go outside and enjoy gardening, but it is the perfect time to start a small indoor garden of your own.  Some very good indoor plants that are hard to kill are string of pearls, succulents, and prayer plant. Succulents are already very popular and famous for not needing much attention, but these other plants are also easy to keep alive and they will add some color to your room/house.

Other plants are nice to have in your home because they have a purpose.  Some purify the air, some can calm you down. The Peace Lily and Snake plant are great for purifying the air, and they  only need minimum light to keep alive, which is great for winter months when there isn’t much sunlight. Other plants like aloe and lavender are great to have to calm down and help you sleep.

The last type of plants that are great to have indoors all year round are edible plants.  Some herbs that are easy to grow, and can be useful very often are basil, thyme, and parsley.  These plants are easy to grow, and will be very useful when cooking. Another good plant to grow is mint, but that is a little harder to grow inside.

While winter is a time to stay inside, it doesn’t have to be the time to stop gardening.  These are just some of the easiest indoor plants to grow, but there are almost unlimited options to start growing an indoor home garden.

Gardening in the City

Jordan Brown Leave a comment

It is becoming more and more popular for people to be growing their own food, or at least part of their food.  Many people have small gardens in their yard that they will grow tomatoes and other vegetables that they can put into their meals.  For people in larger cities this is a challenge because they do not have the outdoor space to plant a garden. People in larger cities are becoming creative in the way that they can plant things, even with their limited resources.

Several new trends has started in some bigger cities that don’t offer much grass and land to garden in, like New York City.  One is rooftop gardening. Most people are familiar with this concept from seeing it on TV shows and movies if nothing else. This idea utilizes the space that is available in bigger cities with lots of buildings and not much grass or open area.  It is also a great spot for a garden because of all the natural light that rooftops get. Some rooftops are also used as a community leisure area, with tables, chairs, and a grill for the residents of the building to go up there and enjoy themselves.  These rooftops are an alternative to a backyard.

Some other cities, like Ann Arbor, utilize community gardens.  Community gardens are spaces with lots of land that anyone can come and plant food or flowers in and they can continue to visit the spot to water them and let them grow.  Some, like the one in Ann Arbor, are sectioned off by the type of plant to keep the area organized. Community gardens are used in areas that don’t have a lot of grass in the city but the roofs aren’t built to have people utilize them.  For example; Ann Arbor utilizes a community garden because the houses on campus and downtown have little to no yard, and even if they did most yards are not suitable for gardening. So the community garden is a great place to go and make the garden that they can not have at home.