Jamie McIntosh's Blog
Posted by Jamie McIntosh
I continued my Florida trip this week with a stop in Tallahassee. Although the weather was cooler, we were still able to have an afternoon in the park. I sat on a retaining wall, enjoying the unusual feeling of bare feet in December. I was snatched from my reverie by a painful sensation: No! My feet were enrobed with a swarm of biting ants. After entertaining the children with my herky-jerky “ant dance,” I managed to dislodge the pests before they made it past my knees. Unfortunately, the mulch we use in our parks and gardens also makes a fine home for many species of ants. If ants overrun your garden, try organic methods to reduce their numbers.
Posted by Jamie McIntosh
I was in Mount Dora, Florida this week, taking a welcome respite from our dreary Midwestern winter. Although I lived in Florida for many years, the lush foliage surprised me: variegated philodendrons scrambled 20 feet up trees, leaves the size of dinner plates. Ferns with tall lacy fronds and stout leathery leaves formed glades on riverbanks, and inhabited the rotting trunks of cypress trees. Purple and green striped zebrina, a popular plant for hanging baskets, formed a natural groundcover in the forest.
The forest canopy was as alive and varied as the forest floor. Anhinga birds commandeered the branches of dead trees, spreading their wings to dry in the sun. Spanish moss lent a thousand beards to every available oak branch. Huge platform nests in the treetops provided a refuge to Great Blue Herons, or perhaps another species. The abundance of mature trees and snags gave the appearance of an ancient forest, unchanged for thousands of years. I know that this sense of permanence is an illusion, and that its burgeoning population threatens Florida’s sensitive ecosystem. If every Florida gardener replaces one conventional gardening method with an organic alternative, perhaps our children can enjoy the same hike I took this week.
Posted by Jamie McIntosh
Our landscape experienced a stunning transformation this week as an ice storm encased every twig and leaf in crystalline beauty. I held my breath as supple branches groaned with the weight of the heavy ice, and the tips of 20-foot tall trees nearly touched the ground. Would the trees bear the weight without snapping? If all of the trees survive, we can be thankful for the precipitation the storm provides: the dry winds of our Midwestern winters are harsh on the garden, and this storm means I won’t need to supply any additional water to the garden this month.
Posted by Jamie McIntosh
We’re lucky to have a backyard full of deciduous trees that provide us with almost more than our two compost bins can hold in the fall. Of course, as we feast on carbon rich materials, we experience a famine of green matter to speed decomposition. I miss the bags of spent garden plants and grass clippings that ramp up the heat in the compost pile. It’s a good thing that this cold weather has stimulated my coffee-drinking activity; the grounds are the only source of green matter for the bin on some days.
Posted by Jamie McIntosh
I stopped in the bookstore last night, hoping to accomplish a large chunk of my holiday shopping. As always, I gravitated toward the garden and landscaping book aisle. So many titles beckoned! What a different landscape we organic gardeners live in today, where dozens of wonderful books vie for our attention. Twenty years ago, people viewed organic gardening as something of an oddity; and we had to rely more on word-of-mouth advice and tips from other like-minded gardeners, supplemented by a few fine organic book and magazine titles that are still out there.
Although I had to forgo any additions to my organic gardening library this week, I did allow myself one treat to further my writing craft: a new thesaurus. Skipping straight to the entry in Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus that shares word choice alternatives for “organic,” I savored the choices these lexicographers used to describe our passion: “elemental, essential, fundamental, integral, necessary, and vital.” Yes, those words encapsulate the organic gardening philosophy and spirit quite nicely.
