Bren, a freelance photographer based in the Midwest. Social media #gardenchat guru who is passionate about growing, maintaining, harvesting and preserving food from a 2400 sq/ft traditional vegetable garden. Bren has various gardens through out her country property that included shade/ woodland gardens and developing herbaceous borders in full sun. Website:http://www.bggarden.com
Bren has written 358 articles so far, you can find them below.
Last summer I had the privilege of meeting some pretty amazing folks who provide outstanding goods for the garden industry. During these adventures into the garden industry I learned that my beloved Burpee seeds was not all about seeds. Really!
I would consider myself more of a artsy techy geek rather then a gardener. In fact, I prefer to be called a grower rather than gardener. Maybe that is why I’m totally all about the fun tech toys that we can use to share what we grow. You will find me snapping a photo with my cell phone and tweeting it to the garden network on Twitter / Facebook rather then sitting down and blogging about something. It is exciting for me to share the world I see rather and document what I’m learning in that manner so I’m totally all about this new level Burpee has ventured into.
Let me first start by explaining the Burpee has two different divisions. One is all about the seeds and the other is all about garden-ready vegetables and herbs. In this blog entry I’m writing about Burpee Home Gardens : Burpee Home Gardens is a program of garden-ready vegetable and herb plants available nationally at retail garden centers. Backed by the 125-year history of Burpee, the first name in home gardening, Burpee Home Gardens provides gardeners with time-tested varieties and information, ideas and inspiration for success. For more information, visit burpeehomegardens.com.
from burpeehomegarden.com
I’m excited to share with you the Burpee Garden Coach™ which is a Mobile web tool from Burpee Home Gardens® gets interactive with home vegetable gardeners all season long. This application will allow the average grower and easy path way into the next level of garden. The really cool thing about this new application for your mobile phone is that it is FREE! The tool is designed to help home vegetable gardeners succeed all season long because you can have access to the Burpee network 24 / 7 . Through text messages and web-based interaction via mobile phone, the Burpee Garden Coach inspires confidence and supports gardeners for the whole lifecycle of their vegetable plants — from choosing, growing, maintaining, harvesting and eating
From the press release by Erica Zipp, Bader Rutter:
“The Burpee Garden Coach is an exciting combination of information, convenience and interactive personalization of the vegetable gardening experience,” says Diane Hund, marketing director for the Burpee Home Gardens program. “This new mobile tool is easy to use and provides timely tips, advice and support for gardeners — especially handy for those who are just getting started in veggie gardening.”
Features of the Burpee Garden Coach include:
Timely Advice: Text messages throughout the gardening season provide planting date tips, maintenance reminders and support to improve vegetable gardening success.
Plant Information: Access to the complete Burpee Home Gardens variety lineup at your fingertips.
My Garden: The ability to record, document and rate plants in a personalized garden journal.
Weather: Get local weather forecasts to aid in garden maintenance.
Recipes: Harvesting ideas and inspirations from garden to table.
Retail Locator: Find Burpee Home Gardens plants at local garden centers.
Gardening enthusiasts, or those just starting out, can learn more about the Burpee Garden Coach by watching the video tutorial available on YouTube and the Burpee Home Gardens’ website. Microsoft Tags also will be standard on all Burpee Home Gardens plant tags for spring 2011. Gardeners can scan these smart tags with their phone’s camera to access vegetable variety and planting information right in the store — helping them make educated decisions about the varieties they’re planting.
A greenhouse is used to grow your plants while a conservatory is to live among and nurture the species and a The Eleanor Armstrong Smith Glasshouse is where one can awe in wonder.
Captures from the Cleveland Botanical Garden to make it this a Wordless Wednesday …. did these succulent shares leave you in awe?
On a recent visit to a local community garden I was introduced to sprouts. I know some of you are scratching your head thinking ‘what in the world is Bren thinking… sprouts have been around forever!’. Yes they have been around for a long time but I recently discovered a simple and easy way to grow them on my own in my kitchen.
I’m using this 3 tray kitchen crop kit from HomeTownSeeds.com to grow my sprouts in today. There are many different sprouting seeds available by just about every seed provider today but you want to be sure to purchase seeds that are truly grown for sprouting. Using a seed that is produced for sprouting will ensure that the seeds have been handled in a sanitary manner and do not have any seed coatings, since you will be eating the seed as well as its sprout. Some easy and effective seeds to try if you are a first timer at growing your own are Alfalfa and Mung Beans. For these recipes and video I am using Alfalfa.
I put together this quick video to show you how easy it is to grow your own sprouts in your kitchen.
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How Cool is that?! In 3 days I had this yummy handful of sprouts!
Chicken, Harvati Cheese and loads of Sprouts Melt!
It is hard to make that image of the sandwich look as good as it tastes. You can click on the image above for the super easy recipe and the video in this blog entry shows how to grow the sprouts. This is a quick and easy meal for summer or winter now that I can grow the sprouts on my own in the kitchen.
Do you have a favorite recipe you enjoy using sprouts in? I would be honored to have your thoughts on my network here at BGgarden.com blog so please leave a comment.
We are getting close to the big event and with each passing hour I can’t wait to get sharing all the seeds and information I’ve collected for #supersowsunday. Toward the end of the week I was contacted by a representative from @seedlibrary on my Facebook page stating they wanted to donate to this event. HOW COOL IS THAT?!
It has been a blast learning about the people’ behind the seeds this week. I never knew there were such things as seed banks and seed libraries. There is a wonderful piece written about Doug and Ken at New York Times sharing their story that goes back 60 years ago. The articles states that ” The preservation and propagation of the some ghost-white bean have occurred thanks in part to a former colleague of Ms. Lotvin’s at the Gardiner Library named Ken Greene, who founded a group called the Hudson Valley Seed Library three years ago. Ken chose the library model he knew well: the members of his group receive seeds each spring and then are encouraged to “return” the seeds from the mature plants in the fall. “ So that is how it works with a seed library? I love how they talking about lending fishing poles to the residents and so Ken figured they could do the same with seeds as he left his job at the Gardiner Library and became devoted full time to his seed adventures!
Seed Library is Donating 5 Seed Art Kits
Ken of Hudson Valley Seed Library is donating Five tiny tim tomato art packs to the #supersowsunday event. These Art Packs are each designed by a different artist from the greater New York region (this includes upstate New York, the Hudson Valley, the City, Northern New Jersey, and Connecticut). Each pack celebrates the beauty inherent in heirloom gardening. These artist are commission to produce new artwork every year. Ken tells me he ‘feels the artwork really reflects the beauty, diversity ,and the stories of the seeds we grow and sell.’ Ken of @seedlibrary informs me that they grow and harvest seed by hand, thresh, winnow, and clean by hand using traditional seed saving skills, and pack each pack by hand as well. They are truly a company that are hands on with their product. Check out there collection by clicking here to see all the art packs and to learn more. What a great way to share the true art behind sowing seeds!
Thank you Hudson Valley Seed Library for donating these creative seed packs to the #supersowsunday event.
Be sure to follow the Hudson Valley Seed Library on Twitter and Facebook for more wonderful seed planting ideas and events.
Read more about Hudson Valley Seed Library at the links below:
What better way to make your garden kid friendly then to get the kids in the garden and teach them how to sow some seeds of their own? Growing a garden gives children a chance to learn important life skills. Kids can experience the joy that comes from caring for something while watching it grow first hand when they start their own garden. Not to mention gardening is an excuse to let them play in the dirt freely!
In my family we used the 4H gardening project to get things started in our country garden. I must admit that Mommy learned many new techniques on seed sowing and designing a garden from these books. I highly recommend the 4H organization and suggest that anyone wanting to learn how to garden check out what the 4H organization have to offer in your area. Even if you don’t decided to join a group you can easily obtain a copy of there gardening book.
Things to Remember When Gardening With Little Fingers
Give them their own space to grow. I would recommend plotting out an area in your garden where you can both garden together learning boundaries and space. You will be surprised, in a few years your little fingers will be helping you in your garden with pleasure.
Be sure that you provided your little gardener with some tools. If they are too little to safely use metal tools there are plenty of plastic versions of the tools in the toy isle.
Start your garden from seeds. Your child will learn so much more watching the seed turn into a green plant and producing veggies or blooms!
Praise your child for his / her hard work. Nothing like sitting down to a meal and talking about the peas you are eating have come from your childs garden. That is a feeling they will never forget.
Kid Friendly Seeds to Grow
Seeds that are super easy and best if sowed right in the ground:
Sunflowers
Nasturtiums
Bush Beans
Peas
Carrots
zinnia
morning glories
Seeds that are fun to start indoors before summer arrives:
Tomatoes
petunias
snapdragons
marigolds
lettuce
pumpkins
I would love to hear from you and how you get your children in the garden. I hope you will leave a comment for me that will inspire others to get their tots in the garden.
It was a year ago this week I started to feel the power of social networking site Twitter. A group of gardeners who I enjoyed ‘tweeting up’ with met up on started sharing ideas about sowing some seeds. I blogged about the experience as it happen in my entry at Join is for #SuperSowSunday . Below is a collage where I’ve collected the cell phones shares I made during the seed season. I love using Twitter photo shares as a real time blog. In the collage below I share my collecting of the seeds, planting and growing them in the garden. I tried to hide them but that was not successful. You could find seeds in my shoe closet and in my handbags. Once I got those seeds growing they were all over the greenhouse and I had plenty to grow in the garden and raised beds. Most of these seeds came from inspiration from gardeners who shared their love for sowing at #supersowsunday. Now it is my turn to give back to everyone by hosting this years event.
Twitter Cell Phone Shares Make It Easy to Blog
Today I organized the weekly chat called #gardenchat. It has been a wonderful learning experience collecting information and highlighting a topic from the garden world each week. The transcripts that I save from each chat have 100′s of hits each week so I know someone is using the information I’ve collected. #gardenchat has featured garden celebrities like P.Allen Smith, leading plant providers like Costa Farms and Proven Winners as our guest host. The high traffic on #gardenchat is OPEN FORUM like this past week we had over 200 garden twitter users share a thought about up coming garden season 2011. Over 200 garden tweeters on one hashtag is truly a Cyber style garden party!
This Monday #gardenchat will be having the cast and crew from Growing A Greener World as our guest host. You can submit questions for the crew to be answered during the event at GOOGLE DOCUMENT. The team has a fun hour of green updates and wonderful giveaways planned.
I’m a big fan of Joe Lamp’l and team and I’ve been following Joe on his blog for as long as I’ve been blogging. Though it has only been three short years in the past year I can honestly say I’ve learned so much from his shares that I’ve gone natural in my greenhouse,garden and green I grow in my home. I talk about that all the time on my blog so I will spare you the details once again. However, I would like to share with you my image from Shawna Coronado’s garden where Joe and the GGWTV team shot for one of their episodes this summer. I had the privilege of being on location and seeing Joe in action. I’m honored to now have them on #gardenchat to share the love of growing green with you all.
Do you have a suggestion for an upcoming #gardenchat? Let me know what you want to hear more about by commenting here.
You can imagine my surprise to find Joe’s book at the Cleveland Botanical Garden Bookstore. Always a joy to find some of my favorite online authors in a city near me! There are going to be giveaways at this chat so be sure to join in the chatter.
On a recent visit to a local community garden I was introduced to sprouts. I know some of you are scratching your head thinking ‘what in the world is Bren thinking… sprouts have been around forever!’. Yes they have been around for a long time but I recently discovered a simple and easy way to grow them on my own in my kitchen.
In my family we used the 
