By Vanessa Richins

As money gets tighter and the focus on the environment grows, many people are giving their old possessions and found items new life through recycling.

Here are some innovative projects that reuse everyday items.

-Garden Table Made From Pallets

I have always been a little envious of those who had garden luxuries such as greenhouses and potting tables. Homegrown Evolution presents the idea of making a garden table from a pallet.

There are no specific instructions given, but as the picture shows, it is simple enough. A pallet is cut in half and used to create the two-tiered table, held together with a few pieces of lumber. While the table won’t Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

As we begin another new year, many resolutions are being made.

A main goal for many is to improve their health and lose weight.

As you may have suspected, gardening is an excellent method of exercise with many other health benefits.

Gardening is good for the body. Exercises like jogging and aerobics can sometimes be too stressful for a person’s joints.

A study discussed by the Virginia Cooperative Extension shows that gardening is also a challenging workout, but carries less stress than many exercise activities. For example, raking leaves and planting seeds uses the same effort as bicycling (less than 10 mph). Light shoveling is the equivalent of Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

Urban gardening comes in all shapes and sizes.

Some people have the luxury of a dirt plot to work with.

Some only have pots on a deck or patio. Many others don’t even have that much space.

One product that you may have seen is the Aerogarden. This self-contained garden allows you to grow herbs and other produce on a counter or tabletop using aeroponics.

As their website explains, “Aeroponics is a dirt-free growing method where plant roots are suspended in air within a 100% humidity, highly-oxygenated growing chamber. Because the roots are Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

The 14 acre garden in South Central Los Angeles, California, started as a way to repair the damage done by the LA Riots in 1992.

The end came due to problems such as government corruption.

Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s documentary film, “The Garden”, tells the story of the largest community garden in America.

The film chronicles how the garden came to be a source of hope and healing after troubling times. Lower income residents were able to feed their families healthier food and work with their neighbors.

The troubles began when Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

For those of you who haven’t been introduced to it, Twitter is a popular social network service.

Participants write miniblogs of 140 characters or less.

You can choose to “follow” other people’s “tweets” (the name for the postings) and see what they have written, as they post.

What does this have to do with gardening?

Over the past few months I have been able to discover many other gardeners who use Twitter. I’ve been able to read articles people have put on their blogs and websites (I share my own articles and blogs this way). I’ve been able to Read the rest of this entry »