Category: Garden Composting

Garden composting for the Buffalo area.

Seed-starting tips & more help from Master Gardeners

You started some seeds inside and watched them grow into healthy seedlings. Soon after, they were dead. This sudden death is “damping off,” and it can be prevented. Find out how to avoid damping off in an article by Carol Ann Harlos in this month’s edition of WNY Gardening Matters. It’s produced by the Master Gardeners of Cornell Cooperative Extension in Erie County. In addition to the article on damping off, in this edition of WNY Gardening Matters you will…...

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Apr 9, 2019
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Eastern coyote

Coyotes: Another reason to use a covered compost bin

When you started your compost pile, you may have worried about attracting mice and rats. But here’s a new concern: coyotes. Eastern coyotes are well adapted to suburban and even some urban environments. They are becoming a more common sight to gardeners in Western New York, and you don’t want to attract them to your yard. One thing gardeners can do is to enclose compost piles so coyotes can’t get at them. That’s a tip from the New York State…...

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Mar 19, 2019
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plastic bottle protecting sprout

Tips on deer, composting & more for Western New York

  by Connie Oswald Stofko I am fortunate that so many Western New Yorkers share gardening tips with me. People often share tips with me after I give a talk. Unfortunately, I am so busy scribbling down notes about the tips themselves that I don’t always get the name of the person who shared the tip. My apologies. Today I’ll share a few of the tips I’ve accumulated. If you have a tip that worked for you, you can share…...

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Apr 3, 2018
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orchid dyed blue

Don’t be misled by gardening myths; learn more at Plantasia

by Connie Oswald Stofko “I finally got fed up with the baloney I saw on the Internet,” said Carolyn Stanko, associate professor of horticulture and biology at Niagara County Community College and a senior CNLP. She’d see posts of bogus gardening information, but other readers would think it was true and share it. “I finally had to stand up and preach the truth!” she said. She will help you separate gardening fact from fiction when she presents “Garden Myth Busting –…...

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Mar 20, 2018
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wrapping paper to compost

What wrapping paper can you compost and which will contaminate your soil?

by Connie Oswald Stofko It’s so exciting to see beautifully wrapped gifts, but what happens to all of that wrapping paper once the gifts are opened? Can your compost it? You can compost some kinds of wrapping paper, but many kinds contain heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and arsenic that will contaminate your compost, said John Farfaglia, extension educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Niagara County. “Those heavy metals don’t break down and could end up in your vegetable garden,”…...

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Dec 19, 2017
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front yard on Garden Walk Buffalo

Tip on planting in tiny yard; get more tips at Garden Walk Buffalo this weekend

by Connie Oswald Stofko Rosemary Lyons has an ingenious way to squeeze plants into the flagstone patio that takes up all of her tiny yard. One place where there aren’t any pavers is where the wrought iron fence is set into the ground. Lyons set some bricks on each side of the fence, then filled the area around the fence with fresh soil and lots of compost. There was enough room to plant purple pole beans, and the fence was…...

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Jul 25, 2017
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shredded paper for compost

Save yourself some cleanup: Line kitchen scrap container with shredded paper & add to compost

by Connie Oswald Stofko A lot us of keep a container in the kitchen so we can collect potato peels, orange rinds, tea bags and other scraps for our compost pile. I use an old plastic container that has a cracked lid. Your container might be as simple as a used coffee can. You don’t need anything fancy. Here’s my big confession: I don’t like to wash out the container. I mean, you’re basically using it to collect garbage. It’s…...

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Nov 4, 2014
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Kate Johnson at Dairy Ag Festival Springville NY

Got clay? Don’t want to dig? Want a new bed over lawn? Try lasagna gardening in autumn

by Connie Oswald Stofko It’s autumn, and here’s an outside project you can do today: create a lasagna garden. Lasagna gardening is a method where you apply material to your garden bed in layers, like in a lasagna. Lasagna gardening has several advantages: You don’t have to till or dig your garden bed. The technique works with clay or other poor soil. You can create a new bed over lawn. It’s not labor intensive. It’s organic. You don’t have to…...

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Oct 14, 2014
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video on how to protect herb garden with leaves

Did you rake leaves this weekend? Use them to protect your herb garden

by Connie Oswald Stofko If you’re like the folks in my neighborhood, you were raking up those dry autumn leaves during the beautiful Western New York weather this weekend. But I hope you didn’t set those leaves out to the curb just yet. Instead, use those leaves to prolong the productivity of your herb garden. Caesandra Seawell, garden manager at the garden at City Honors School in Buffalo, also known as Pelion Community Garden, shows us how they use a…...

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Nov 19, 2013
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Learn how to compost indoors using worms– & get worms!– in workshop at Reinstein Woods

by Connie Oswald Stofko Learn how to start composting indoors with red wriggler worms in a workshop at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 30 at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve & Environmental Education Center, 93 Honorine Drive, Depew. The workshop is for both children and adults. You can get a starter kit, which includes worms.  The kits are $4 for the public or  $2 for Friends of Reinstein members. Please make reservations so they know how many starter kits to have on…...

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Nov 19, 2013
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