The Wildlife-Friendly Vegetable Garden: How to Grow Food in Harmony with Nature
by Tammi Hartung
Genre: Gardening
Publisher: Storey Publishing
Publish Date: December 31, 2013
Format: Paperback | 144 pages
Rating: 4 of 5
Publisher’s Synopsis:
This one-of-a-kind book shows you how to create a peaceful co-existence between your vegetable garden and the wildlife who consider it part of their habitat. By understanding and working with the surrounding environment instead of continually fighting it you ll reap a larger harvest with much less stress and effort. Tammi Hartung explains how to start with a hardy and healthy garden, create beneficial relationships through smart planting, attract helpful insects and pollinators, intentionally create habitats for wildlife, and much more.
My Thoughts:
The Wildlife-Friendly Vegetable Gardener was a fun, easy read with many organic gardening tips and suggestions offering a variety of ways to live in harmony with the environment plus plenty of cute, whimsical illustrations. The author uses her years of gardening experience on her small farm, a certified wildlife and botanical sanctuary in Colorado, as a basis for the book.
The author begins by urging the gardener to observe and understand the wildlife that visit the garden, to rethink our relationship with nature. Not every bug is harmful, not every bird is destroying the crops. By observing we learn which are good and how to identify them. Those green caterpillars on your parsley? They won’t eat a lot and in a few weeks will be on their way to becoming the beautiful Swallowtail Butterfly. In my own garden I plant a few extra parsley plants especially for them and when I find a caterpillar, I move it to their plant.
Becoming wildlife-friendly is not something that will happen overnight. Following the approach in this book requires patience and time to watch, wait, and learn. Take ten minutes here and ten minutes there to see what is happening around you. The author recommends keeping a journal, observe your yard, take photos – it’s time well spent in learning about your own garden.
Many of the techniques mentioned in the book are probably already known to seasoned gardeners. I’ve been gardening for many years and yes, some of these have worked well for me, others were new ideas. Plant parsley around my lettuce to deter rabbits? They’ll eat the parsley instead? I’ll have to try it but if the bunnies bring their friends, the wire fence goes back up!
Although I wouldn’t call this a reference book or how-to manual, it does contain a few quick reference charts and garden design suggestions. The book reads like a conversation with the author as she takes you on a journey through her garden. She explains why pollinators – bees, wasps, butterflies, beetles, hummingbirds, bats even the housefly – are so important. She warns us to plant perennials carefully and pick the right variety for our part of the country. Just because the big box store sells it doesn’t mean it’s right for your yard. Sadly I made that mistake – my apple tree has contracted fire blight; I bought the wrong variety for my area.
The wildlife-friendly method of gardening is an approach that I have used for years in my own yard and I recommend it for the patient gardener. There is plenty of inspiration and information here for everyone although new gardeners will likely benefit the most.
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Source: eGalley provided by Storey Publishing
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Almost wordless: I didn’t see him get up there but I did watch him fall off many times before he was successful. And no, he wasn’t able to get at the seed or get up there again.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2014 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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Welcome to Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia of To Be Continued, a place where readers share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.
After several years of being on tour with different blogs as the monthly host, the Mailbox Monday Blog is now the permanent home for the meme.
Another light week for my mail carrier with only one print book and one audio download.
New Arrivals
The Visitors by Patrick O’Keeffe
From Viking Adult
As he did so masterfully in the connected novellas of The Hill Road, Patrick O’Keeffe’s first novel moves back and forth in time and place to weave the story of two Irish families forever linked by love, secrets, and their heritage.
The Ascendant by Drew Chapman
From Simon & Schuster Audio
In this taut and cunning novel, Drew Chapman takes readers into a scenario that is eerily plausible and utterly terrifying—an unconventional war capable of bringing a superpower to its knees. The Ascendant is a brilliant new twist on the art of the white-knuckle thriller.
What are you reading?
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© 2014 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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Thank you to everyone that stopped by to enter last week’s giveaway for a chance to win a copy of:
To Tuscany With Love
Winner: Emma @ Words and Peace
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© 2014 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Sparrows are one of the more common birds in North America. The one most people are familiar with is the House Sparrow, a friendly little brown bird that readily comes to feeders and inhabits backyards and city parks, but there are over 35 different species of sparrows in North America.
Many types of sparrows are difficult to find and spend their days deep inside the grasses and undergrowth of the marshlands and prairies. Some are so elusive that while I hear their calls, I rarely see them; others are more sociable and will venture out into parks and backyards. The Tree Sparrow is one that is fairly easy to find in the winter months.
American Tree Sparrow
A few weeks ago while doing a bird survey for the forest preserve I came across a flock of about 30 Tree Sparrows in a hedgerow along the river foraging for seeds and berries. I was able to get some close-up photos detailing the field marks that distinguish the Tree Sparrow from other species: the bi-colored bill and the dark spot in the center of the breast.
Tree Sparrows are long distance migrants and in the winter can be found across southern Canada and the United States except for the far southern regions. They prefer open woodland habitats, fields, marshes, hedgerows, and will even visit backyard gardens and feeders. Their summer breeding grounds are in the far northern tundra of Canada and Alaska.
Similar Species
The Tree Sparrow is most often confused with the similar looking Chipping Sparrow, especially during migration. For most of the year their ranges rarely overlap. Project FeederWatch has an excellent, easy to understand page that compares the field marks and range maps of the two birds.
Interesting Fact
Tree Sparrows are ground birds and forage and nest on the ground. Why are they called Tree Sparrows? Early European settlers named them after their own Eurasian Tree Sparrow back home.
Saturday Snapshot was originated by Alyce at At Home With Books. For the summer it will be hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.
Game
by Anders de la Motte
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Publish Date: December 3, 2013 (Orig Aug. 2010)
Format: Paperback | 400 pages
Rating: 4 of 5
Publisher’s Synopsis:
Aimless young Henrik “HP” Petterson finds a cellphone on a Stockholm train that invites him to play a game: in no time, he’s embarking on daring, high-stakes missions that turn his ordinary life extraordinary. HP loves the thrill, and the rewards, but is there a sinister side to the seemingly innocent contest?
Meanwhile, ambitious Detective Rebecca Normén is moving up the career ladder in the Swedish Secret Service but is troubled by the handwritten notes she keeps finding in her locker. Whoever writes them knows way too much about her past. HP’s and Rebecca’s worlds inevitably collide. But if reality is just a game, then what is real?
My Thoughts:
If I find a shiny new phone on a train, I’m heading for the lost and found – but that’s not what Henrik “HP” Petterson would do. Someone meant for HP to find that phone and they knew he would pick it up and keep it; they knew he would play “The Game”.
At first “The Game” directs HP to pull a few pranks and cause some mischief and in return awards him online status and nominal cash payments. HP can certainly use the money having no other income, and he loves the online attention and comments he gets from video posted of his game missions. But soon these tasks begin to escalate into dangerous assignments that can cause real harm to HP and to others.
HP was not a very likable character, nor was he someone I could feel much sympathy for, and yet his antics were compelling enough to keep my interest. As awful as he was in the beginning, his character does show improvement by the end of the book. Rebecca, a young police detective, is responsible and likable, the opposite of HP, but a troubled woman guarding a secret.
The novel shifts perspective between HP and Rebecca, often multiple times within a chapters. At first I wasn’t always clear who was speaking, but once I became accustomed to the style and the relationship between HP and Rebecca was revealed the book flowed much more smoothly. While these are not well-developed characters, the author peels back just enough layers to give us the information we need to understand their motivations. The main focus is on the action and “The Game”.
This was an interesting premise and something that could actually happen – or maybe somewhere it already has. The concept is original, fast-paced and fun. I enjoyed the humor and cultural references scattered throughout. One that made me laugh was when a small airplane chases HP across a field and tries to mow him down and he begins to yell that he’s “Cary Grant stuck in a Hitchcock movie”. (Ok, it was funnier in context.)
The final third of the book accelerates keeping the reader on the edge of their seat for a mostly unexpected ending. I say mostly because I did see one of the twists plot coming, but that in no way diminished my enjoyment. In the end, enough of the major plot points were wrapped up to make this work as a stand alone novel but there are also many questions left open for the second novel in the trilogy. The game isn’t over.
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Source: Review copy provided by Atria Books.
© 2014 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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Today I’m participating in a blog tour for the new thriller Inside Passage with a guest post by the author, Burt Weissbourd.
Inside Passage
by Burt Weissbourd
Published January 15, 2013
Rare Bird Books
Synopsis:
Corey Logan was set up. She knows Nick Season’s terrible secret. Coming home from prison, all Corey wants is to be with her son. To get him back, she needs to make a good impression on the psychiatrist evaluating her. But Dr. Abe Stein doesn’t believe she was framed–until his well-heeled mother falls for the charming state attorney general candidate, Nick Season.As the dogs of war are unleashed, Corey and her son run for their lives–taking her boat up the Pacific Northwest’s remote Inside Passage. Inside Passage is the first in Weissbourd’s haunting, heart-stirring Corey Logan trilogy.
On Challenges and Motivations – Burt Weissbourd
One of the challenges in, and motivations for, writing Inside Passage was creating an original and compelling psychiatrist as a protagonist.
Early on, I made several decisions about Abe Stein, my protagonist:
• Abe has worked very hard to be comfortable with who he is. He’s self aware. He really doesn’t worry about what others think – about how he looks, how he thinks about things, what he does in his spare time.
• Abe has an intense inner life. He may not have an easy time with practical tasks – he’s always having trouble lighting his pipe; he often tosses his spent match into the waste basket only to find that it’s still burning and he’s started a fire – but he’s a master at navigating his way through psychological complexity. He gets what makes people tick and often thinks about people in unexpected, especially insightful ways.
• Abe is often preoccupied and distracted. Because his inner life is so intense and interesting, Abe will often loose his focus as he follows a train of thought down some winding back road. The judge has taken away his drivers license because he keeps getting distracted with some thought and sideswiping parked cars.
• Abe focuses intently on his patients and genuinely believes that it’s on him to help them in real and meaningful ways. He’ll be sitting in his office staring at the ceiling apparently not listening to what his patient is saying. In fact, he’s turning over every word, doing everything in his power to get inside his patient’s skin, feel what he or she is feeling. He has remarkable empathic capacities.
So I paired this self aware, inwardly oriented, not-at-all good at negotiating his way in the world, master of emotional complexity with a tough, self reliant, not so self aware, literally able to navigate on her own in wild country, extremely able-in–the-world woman, and as they fall in love, we find that there’s very little they can’t do together.
I gave an early draft of Inside Passage to a psychiatrist friend and was touched and honored that she asked if she could give the passage about Abe’s personal experience in therapy to her patients.
The passage reads, in part:
“At first, you work to understand why you feel what you feel. There’s lots of talking about that. Then there’s one failure after another. It’s discouraging. But you just keep after it. The fear is still there, and it’s real, but at some point you’re ready to take a chance again, try a worrisome thing. And little by little you begin to do things you thought you could never do. There are lots of setbacks, but when that happens, you talk about what’s holding you back and how you could handle it differently, and eventually you try it again… And then sometime later, you begin to see how you’ve grown stronger. It’s incremental change, baby steps, but the time comes when you know you can do hard things, even if you make mistakes….”
Connect with Burt
Facebook | Goodreads | Webpage
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This guest post is part of a blog tour by JKS Communications
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