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You know me: I'm crazy about the "why's" of the garden -- about understanding what is going on beyond the obvious beauty or literal harvest of a bouquet of zinnias or a juicy tomato. (Why that frogboy, above, was waiting for me by the doormat this morning, we will never know.) Nature is endlessly fascinating, isn't it? With that in mind...
my favorite mystery-solving field guide (win it!)
Readers regularly email me photos of things they can't explain, asking for ID's of balloon-like structures on leaves and twigs; leaves chewed in a particularly interesting pattern, or with squiggly white lines etched on them. I always turn to one book to help: the award-winning "Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates," whose lead author, Charley Eiseman, was the guest on my latest radio show. Learn about galls, leaf miners and more -- and maybe win this indispensible, astonishing field guide that will even teach you the different forms of spider webs. Amazing!
links! try a new novel; can tomatoes; save 'dry' seed; fight fruit flies
I spent some of a rainy holiday weekend clicking about online, often with consecutive batches of tomato sauce bubbling on the stove. The result (besides a freezer stash of marinara): links to share! They include the free first chapter of a new botanical-themed novel by "Eat, Pray, Love" author Liz Gilbert; how experts save "dry" seed (the ones in pods, rather than inside fruits like a tomato); an ode to fruit flies (and how to tackle them); and a simple step-by-step in words and pictures of canning tomatoes, among other goodies.
did you miss the september chores calendar?
I dared you to do a survey of your garden, right this minute, as the first item in the to-do list of the September garden chores. How's it going? (Want the month's whole chores calendar, in case you missed it last issue? It is all right here.)
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