from Landscape Fancies. I love it!

I worked the native wildflower beds at the Indiana State Museum with my friend David today. Later we met up with Dave's fiancee and walked over to the Earth Day Festival at White River State Park and met Lou Ann and Paul from Veiola Water. They were giving out native plants.  I got New England Aster. The guy digging is Donovan Miller. I think he started the bed and he knows a lot about native plants. Fun day.

Then I dug up some native flowers from my neighbors Susan's house.  They pop up through the leaf waste of her wooded areas during early spring. When the trees leaf out, they go dormant.  This is trillium (now in my yard).

Erosion can do major damage to water quality, silting streams and lakes and dumping fertilizers and pesticides into the water supply. Fertilizer runoff is responsible for a vast “dead zone,” an oxygen-depleted region where little or no sea life can exist, in the Gulf of Mexico. And because it washes away rich topsoil, erosion can threaten crop yields. (More)

Bigger, more perennial, maybe a bit wiser. The expansion area (left photo) was prepared with winter cover crops. The original area (right photo) was covered with leaf waste for the winter.  Yesterday I formed the leaf waste into a raised bed and then filled the area with homemade compost, aged manure, and then topped with a few yards of finished compost. The areas covered with straw are potatoes and strawberries.  The foliage is arugula, spinach, garlic and onions.  The hill in back was planted with apples, peaches, grape vines, raspberries and blackberries.

My all-male Jersey Knight asparagus have arrived. No harvest until next year. They need to get stronger.

Left photo: Hardening off the starts. Gradually increasing their exposure to outdoor conditions.
Right photo: The last of the winter arugula.

On the left is Dr. Jane Frankenberger. She is leading Watershed Leadership Academy at Camp Tecumseh. The Tippercanoe River is in the background. 

On the right is my birthday booty. Thank you family and friends for a wonderful birthday party.

Seedlings, Manure, Brambles, and a Vineyard

Please do not walk on the lawn until the toxic chemicals have leached into our water supply.