Flowers for a butterfly garden

Butterflies are a beautiful addition to any flower garden. Having Monarch, Swallowtail, and other garden variety butterflies in your yard is also an easy way to get kids involved in gardening. Here at the Farm in northern New Jersey, we provide plants and gardening tips that can make your yard butterfly friendly, either with a large perennial flower bed or containers full of garden plants butterflies love. From Jersey City to Short Hills, and Basking Ridge to South Orange, the Farm is your Butterfly Garden headquarters.

A garden needs both host plants and nectar plants to be butterfly friendly. Host plants provide shelter for butterfly eggs and food for newly hatched caterpillars, while nectar plants provide nourishment for butterflies. Host plants include dill, parsley, mallow and hollyhocks.

Gardeners have lots of choices in nectar plants for a butterfly garden. Butterfly Bush, one popular nectar plant, blooms all summer long in many shades of pink, blue, purple and white, and comes in a variety of sizes. For small outdoor spaces, Lo & Behold Butterfly bushes make an ideal selection, growing only 3 feet tall. For distinctive orange flowers that pop in any bed or planter, Butterfly Weed is your choice. Common milkweed has pink and white flowers that bloom throughout the season, drawing butterflies from spring to first frost. Coneflowers, another nectar bearing bloom, come in a variety of colors including pink, purple, yellow, orange and red.

These host and nectar plants are all perennials, and deer resistant as well, so once planted in your yard or garden they will return year after year. You can also simply get a container of annual flowers or plants that butterflies are drawn to, such as Verbena and Lantana.

We look forward to seeing you at the Farm for all your garden and nursery needs. Our advice and high quality plants and gardening supplies have made us the top choice for nursery and gardening supplies throughout the northern New Jersey area, including Basking Ridge, Jersey City, Livingston, Mendham, Montclair, Randolph, Short Hills and South Orange.

This is a guest post written by Elizabeth Krause

Elizabeth Krause publisher of an Italian food website featuring simple Italian recipes.

Gardening is becoming a popular hobby in recent years. One can attribute a few factors for this increasing trend. First, the trust people have in many of the companies that supply our food has been shaken. Because of salmonella outbreaks from food in Mexico to even within the United States, some of us begin to wonder if it just wouldn’t be safer to grow our own vegetables at home.
If you are interested in having your own garden, whether small or large, here are a few tips to help make your garden as green as possible:
1. Use organic soil and fertilizers. This insures your soil is free from harmful chemicals and pesticides.
2. Use only water from a trusted source. Tap water or water supplied from your city contains large amounts of chlorine. Of course, this is needed to kill the bad bacteria which otherwise could send us to the hospital. But the contribution of chlorine to our plants is unnecessary. Use either fresh rain water by using a rain water bucket (enclosed so it will not attract mosquitoes), or use filtered water. This is common practice in places in Italy which cannot rely on city water. Many Italian farms are not equipped with water irrigation systems and instead place huge water tubs or barrels in the field.
3. Use drip irrigation systems. These work in a way that you can position the hose, and mark where you want the water to drip out – obviously only at each plant. This has two main benefits – first, less water is being wasted. Second, by concentrating the exact place where you need the water, you will experience fewer weeds in the surrounding area because most weeds need water to grow. By limiting or eliminating the water to those pesky weeds, they will have less chance of survival.
4. Use organic pesticides. These products are made of natural ingredients, such as garlic, water, vinager etc. There are many homemade concoctions available online. You can also check your local nursery to see if they carry these products.
5. Use organic compost. This is not as intimidating as it may appear. By now you pretty much have an organic garden more or less. So when you use your fresh fruit or vegetables such as tomatoes, zucchini or peppers, do not throw away the unwanted leftovers. Instead, place them in a composting unit, or for some people, a pile at the back of the garden. Give them a good turning from time to time throughout the season and let them decompose, thus turning into a rich organic material loaded with nutrients for next year’s garden.
There are many ways you can make your garden greener. By following these 4 steps you will be on your way to a healthier garden and therefore a healthier food supply for you and your family.

This is a guest post written by Elizabeth Krause

Elizabeth Krause publisher of an Italian food website featuring simple Italian recipes.

Less than 50 years ago, growing your own food in your backyard or using indoor pots was common practice. As society progressed and much of the food industry became larger and more powerful, we soon found many new stores began to meet all our culinary needs.
Gradually over time more and more homes soon turned into two career households. Less time at home meant less time to garden. Buying your own food was extremely convenient and fully embraced.
But in recent years the 30 and 40 year olds who had previously spent their time focused on their careers and fast paced life, between yoga work outs and kick boxing classes, have begun to cultivate a desire to learn more about this dwindling activity – growing a vegetable garden.
Growing your own food is still very popular in many European countries, for example Italy. Italians belong to a culture where food is very important – not just to live, but to also be enjoyed. Much of their day to day recipes involve the use of fresh ingredients – most of which are grown in their own yards or on their balcony.
Being able to learn the skills of gardening isn’t hard, yet it is not magic either. It takes time, patience and a willingness to learn from mistakes. For example, planting basil too early can cause it to go into shock and die. Understanding that basil is a fragile herb susceptible to the cold weather and therefore must be planted only when it is certain there will be no more frosts is critical.
Learning to manage your own garden whether you choose container gardening or not, holds many advantages. Here are three of them:
1. Vegetables in your back yard are not subject to major price fluctuations caused by troubled economic times, as are retail stores. If tomatoes increase in price to $3.99 a lb, you can get your free right outside your door. You can also recycle your seeds from one year to the next – now that’s efficiency!
2. Understanding how to use organic pesticides (or even making your own), you can grow your own organic vegetables and fruit. This is a lot less expensive than buying organics at the store. Having control over the quality of the soil, seeds, fertilizers and even water is a huge benefit.
3. Convenience is key. Yes, buying your food is convenient, but when making a dish of fresh pasta or when craving your favorite chicken cacciatore recipe which calls for a bell pepper – isn’t it more convenient to just walk out to your garden and pick one fresh off the plant rather than postponing the recipe until you can find time to go to the store?
The old phrase, “You can give a man a fish to eat or you can teach a man to fish…” is very true. Learning to grow your own food will help you in times of plenty as well as in times of need. There are a variety of benefits to this practice, and with some planning and thoughtful preparation you will soon be able to experience them firsthand.

Ever since humankind figured out how to successfully plant and farm vegetables, gardening has been a way of life. Gardens have become not only a viable food source; they have become creations in living art.
Not that you need to make art with your food, but planting a garden can be a cheap source of food, as well as a wonderful therapy.
To plant a garden, all you need is a little bit of sunlit land, some good soil, and some seeds. Then all you have to do is water every day, make sure the weeds don’t take over, watch your little seeds grow into delicious fresh vegetables ready-to-eat.
There are several ways to go about getting the land ready for planting. If you’re starting from scratch, you can either dig it up, turn it over, and mince it into loose soil, or borrow, buy, or rent a rototiller and let it dig and turn.
Depending on where you live, your soil may be already good and rich. If your soil is full of rock, too sandy or full of clay, you may need to add a layer of top soil to supply the kinds of nutrients your plants can use to grow healthy and strong.
Then you need to decide which way the water is going to run. You don’t want runoff to strip away the soil around your plants budding roots will it tries to grow. Water your soil after all the digging and mincing and observe how it flows through your garden. When you start planting your rows of seeds or starter plants, you’ll want the rows to go in the same direction as the water did, so the water runs down your rows, not over them.
Decide which vegetables you want to grow. And plant them at least 4 to 6 inches apart. They look little as you plant, but as they grow, they’ll need room. Water them at least once a day and watch them grow!
Planting some marigolds her and there throughout the garden will help keep pests away. And a good pest repellent made of a little dish soap and water can be sprayed on your plants if they start having little holes.
Yes, this is a simple version, and getting a good garden book will help, but planting isn’t very hard and you can have wonderful fresh vegetables to go along with your natural meats, and enjoy meals that cannot be duplicated!

Here are a few links to my favorite blog directories. I plan on updating this list often so keep checking!

We’ve just been buried in snow and more is in the forecast, but I’m dreaming of springtime. Yes, I know it’s only February, but now is the best time to start planning what I’m going to plant in the spring. Last year I planted perennials – some peony and geranium plants – as a foundation for my flower bed. But I need to plan how I’m going to add that extra pop of color or that new sweet floral scent to my yard this year.

I’m considering night phlox (zaluzianskya) or perhaps night scented stock (matthiola bicornis) for a rush of scent in the summer night air. For color, I’m thinking about zinnias, cosmos, and Gerbera daisies. But… I suppose that mixture of plants lends itself to a bit of a mish mash of design. That’s why I rely on The Farm at Green Village.

I love gardening. I love digging in the dirt and watching plants grow. However, I’m not very talented when it comes to landscaping. Colors sometimes clash. The plant sizes are all wrong. Whole sections of the flower garden are out of bloom at the same time. Since I found The Farm at Green Village, that’s not the case.

Last year, I was meandering through the rows of flowers, adding plants to my basket and removing them in a bewildered state, when a staff member noticed the look of uncertainty on my face. He asked about the layout of my flower beds, even asking me to sketch them for him. Then he recommended which groundcover would be most suitable for yard. He even gave me tips on the best mulch and how to perk up a little lilac bush that was dying.

So while my flower beds may be sleeping beneath a foot (or two!) of snow, my mind is thinking about planting flowers in the spring.

Not many hobbies provide as many benefits as gardening does. Sandra Mason, Unit Educator of Horticulture & Environment for the University of Illinois, realizes the physical and health benefits of gardening. In her article, The Health Benefits of Gardening*, she writes: “What if I told you there is an activity that can provide strength and cardio training and increase flexibility. Plus the activity can relieve stress and provide nutritious food. You get all that and you don’t have to buy an expensive towel rack to do it.” The bending, digging, hauling, and squatting involved in gardening provides physical exercise to strengthen and tone muscles, lose weight, lower blood pressure, and prevent disease – such as heart disease, osteoporosis, and diabetes. However, most people don’t garden simply for the health benefits. Exercise is simply an added bonus, like chocolate chips in your zucchini bread – you love it, but you’d eat the bread even if it didn’t have chocolate in it.

Many people derive joy simply from creating something with their hands. Watching a plant grow from seed is like watching a miracle. A tiny seed, the correct mix of water and sunlight, and a green sprout emerges from the dirt. Soon that sprout is a large plant bearing fruit of its own. The act of growing more and more plants – exotic plants and those which are difficult to grow or just a favorite kind – is what makes many people happy.

One major benefit of gardening is the ability to grow your own food. Some people enjoy reaping the benefits of their hard work, while others like that they can save on their grocery bill. Gardeners love to share the fruits and vegetables that they grow with neighbors and friends, whether in raw form or in a recipe, like chocolate chip zucchini bread, for instance.

Mason, Sandra. (2005, January 3). The Health Benefits of Gardening. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from University of Illinois Extension website: http://web.extension.illinois.edu/champaign/homeowners/050103.html

A few potted plants and flowers, some interesting garden accents, and you’ve got an instant garden. That’s the beauty of container gardening, one of the top garden trends we see for 2010 as we talk to garden supply center customers. It’s easy to see the appeal. The variety of flowers you can have is endless. And it’s very quick and easy for semi-gardeners who don’t want to dig and plant and wait for their garden plants to grow. Read more…

Watch a spring video at The Farm Green Village New Jersey: Home gardening, roof gardening, events, seminars, nursery garden, accents and more

I’ve been blogging about trends in gardens and gardening that we’re seeing here at the Farm at Green Village, New Jersey. One of the biggest trends is a move to native species, with less emphasis on high-maintenance exotics. Garden plants native to a region are easier to maintain, because they can thrive in their own habitat. Read more…