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…...
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 –…...
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,”…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko A couple of simple tests can tell you what steps you have to take to improve your soil– or let you know that you are already on the right track. There are three kinds of tests you might do, said John Farfaglia, extension educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Niagara County. The first is a pH test to find out how acidic or alkaline your soil is. Farfaglia recommends that every gardener do this test at…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko “We want people to come back downtown,” said Ruth Cooper of 12th St., Niagara Falls. “It’s safe here.” That was the message of the Black Squirrel Garden Walk, held July 23 as part of Garden Walk of Niagara Falls, USA. (The Black Squirrel Garden Walk is named that for the black squirrels that you can see in Niagara Falls but aren’t common elsewhere in other parts of Western New York.) The event included a garden walk…...
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…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko Do you know that there are people who essentially throw their leaves away? They rake them out to the curb and wait for someone to haul them away. I find that amazing because those autumn leaves are a valuable commodity for your garden– yet they’re free! Here are five tips on making the most of autumn leaves. Tip #1: Use leaves as mulch around your perennials to help them survive the winter. If we have a…...
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…...
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…...
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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