This is a weekly feature where Suburban Hobby Farmer recaps the best gardening posts from other bloggers.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Northern California Farmer Sings Praises of ‘Bee-friendly’ Farming
Paul Kaiser at Singing Frogs Farm has found that creating a healthy, biodiverse habitat was better for resolving pest issues than using organic pesticides. Can backyard gardeners also benefit from including pollinator- and bird-friendly habitat in their edible gardens?
You Grow Girl
Tomato Plants Offer Cheap Therapy
In the depths of winter, gardeners everywhere miss the beautiful, invigorating smell of tomato plants growing. It could be the smell we miss the most when the garden is frozen. Gayla at You Grow Girl suggests that we can grow tomatoes indoors in winter just to make us feel better.
Urban Garden Solutions
Advantages of Raised Beds
This post makes a very good case for the advantages of raised beds. It links to a handy chart for suggested spacing of plants within a bed and provides an estimate of the yield. I think the chart is rather aggressive, but at the very least it gets you thinking about intensive planting in your beds.
GrowVeg.com
Getting a Good Stand of Garden Spinach
The GrowVeg blog has the unique characteristic that one blogger is in the UK and the other in the States. As a result, they bring a unique bi-continental perspective to their blog. This post discusses what you need to do to ensure a good crop of spinach.
Cornell Gardening Resources
Mulches for Landscaping
This paper provides a detailed comparison of the pluses and minuses of the different mulches. Issues such as soil moisture retention and temperature control are discussed for each. There’s a lot of good info in this paper, but I did not agree with the suggestion that herbicide should be used in some cases.
National Public Radio
A Tale Of Two Seed Farmers: Organic Vs. Engineered
This NPR article describes how farmers growing genetically engineered seeds and farmers growing organic seeds are butting heads in Oregon’s Willamette River Valley.
Related articles that might interest you:
1. Best of the Blogs Jan. 21
2. Best of the Blogs Jan. 14
3. Best of the Blogs Jan. 7
Ben — Thanks for listing this post on Topsy and the tweet.