According to a recent AJC article (“The toll of food waste globally”) an estimated 40 percent of edible food is thrown away by retailers and households. This is shocking! Remember your parents telling you to clear your dinner plate - there were starving children all over the world who need food. Well, it’s true - but remember “the world” includes Atlanta - and we can help! Do you work at a community garden, or grow vegetables that you don’t use? Are you a gardener whose neighbors turn and run when they see you coming with those mounds of zucchini? Well, don’t waste them! When you are done …

Much Ado About Nothing? The 13-year cicadas (brood XIX) are dying now and probably will be completely gone by Memorial Day. Almost 100 Georgia counties have had no indication of "the Great Southern Brood." If anyone has seen them in DeKalb please let us know. Our county didn’t report any at all! And check back next week for information on a new bug in the area. We saw them for the first time last year on our pole beans at the Community Garden, and they seem to be spreading rapidly in the Southeast – the kudzu bug. Really!  But unfortunately they don’t seem to have much effect on kudzu. …

Here are answers to your questions - thanks to Sarah Brodd, our Youth Education Coordinator and Gary Peiffer, County Extension Horticulture Agent. Sharron asked:  I don’t have space to do a garden in the ground therefore I am going to try container gardening this year. What recommendations can you give me for growing vegetables and flowers in containers? Do I need special soil/additives? Growing vegetables and flowers in containers is a great way to get the benefit of a garden setting without having to do all the heavy yard work. Vegetables will grow well in containers. You first need to have…

Sounds like SciFi ….  But you will see and hear them! Brood XIX of our 13-year cicadas is scheduled to emerge here in Georgia starting in late spring and running through June. They will come out, sing their "song of summer," mate, lay eggs, and die within just a couple of months. And we won't see this species again until 2024. Periodical cicadas emerge in the spring, have bright red eyes and orange-veined wings, while the dog-day cicadas emerge in summer (the “dog days”), are larger, and have green bodies and black eyes. Cicada nymphs emerge from the ground, crawl up trees, shed their skins, …

We are now past the last-frost date and the soil is warm enough to plant your summer veggies.  So get those tomato, pepper, eggplant transplants into the garden, and put in your bean, corn and squash seeds!  Because corn will ripen all at the same time, plant the seeds at two week intervals to extend your harvesting time.  Otherwise you’ll be doing lots of canning or freezing!  Also, since corn is wind-pollinated, sow the seeds in at least double rows, or in blocks.  Ever heard of a three sisters garden?  Let your corn grow a few inches, then put in bean seeds around each corn stalk, which …

Do you garden with your children?  Have you ever watched your child/grandchild eat peas fresh from the garden and discover that they actually like them? Or watched a child stand quietly by a lantana bush, determined to have one of those beautiful butterflies settle on the twig they are holding? Or watched your child follow an ant trail? Children are curious people.  They love bugs (sometimes from afar!), thoroughly enjoy digging in the dirt, and they like to grow things.  So what’s not to like about gardening? Children need to spend time outside.  If you doubt this, read “Last Child in the …

For the first time in several years we do seem to have avoided a late freeze, and Spring 2011 is really here to stay! I have finally found a garden journal that is good-looking enough to leave out on show – which means that I remember to write in it most days. So I know at a glance that over the weekend of March 19 and 20 we had high temperatures around 80 degrees, and several other very warm days around that time.  This was too hot for my broccoli and it started to bolt i.e. flower!  However, my lettuces and cabbages continue to do well and my asparagus tastes wonderful.  The beans have …