Adventures in Organic Gardening By Laura Sileo-Lepkyj I tried an experiment this summer. I wanted to see how much difference it really made deadheading my flowers. Until this past growing season I had been a dedicated deadheader (not to be confused with a similar-sounding fan of the Grateful Dead).  I’d pop off a few Coreopsis tops on my way to the car, bring the pruners with me to cut off spent Echinacea on my way to gather vegetables, and so…...

by Connie Oswald Stofko If you want to make sure your garden has pollinators, you might want to try beekeeping, as we discussed in a previous post. Today we peek inside to see how a bee hive is constructed.  Building a hive would be a good winter project, or you can purchase a hive. Philip Barr, who presented a workshop on beekeeping for Buffalo ReUse, builds what are called Langstroth hives, seen below right. The hive is named for its…...

by Connie Oswald Stofko If you want to make sure there are plenty of honey bees around to pollinate your garden, consider beekeeping. Philip Barr recently presented a workshop on beekeeping for Buffalo ReUse. “I got into beekeeping because I wanted more vegetables,” he said. Bees are important pollinators, but a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder has reduced the number of honey bees. No one knows why this is happening, but Barr thinks traditional beekeeping practices might be overtaxing bees…...