Walk around any American suburbs and you’ll notice how people love their green lawn. And there’s lots of work to keep it nice, from watering, cutting, to adding fertilizers.

Busy bee and clovers. Photo from Nye Noona.

For a safe lawn, we need to avoid using pesticides and other harmful products. Especially if you have children and pets playing in the yard.

First step to natural lawn care is to keep the clovers. Because clovers are good for the lawn, despite what weed chemical companies want you to believe.  Clovers are nature’s fertilizer factory because it has the ability to store atmospheric nitrogen in its root systems. They also attract bees, great for pollination.

Paul Tukey from People, Places and Plants encourages us to go organic when it comes to lawn care. That doesn’t mean it’s going to make for ugly lawn, but you’ll be using alternative and safer choices. Watch this segment for more info.

You can learn more by visiting SafeLawns.org and check out this HOW-TO DVD: “How to Make the Organic Lawn Care Transition” featuring Paul Tukey for only a $10 donation to the SafeLawns Foundation. The DVD includes 16- how-to segments that cover an entire season of lawn care from spring through fall. It’s applicable to warm- and cool-season climates.

As noted in The OC Registar:

Every year:

* A lawn-mower user pollutes as much in one hour as he does driving an automobile for 20 miles.

* 30 to 60 percent of urban fresh water is used for watering lawns.

* $5.25 billion is spent on fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers for lawns.

* 67 million pounds of synthetic pesticides are used on lawns.

* 580 million gallons of gasoline are used for lawn mowers.

* $25 million is spent for the lawn-care industry.

* $700 million is spent for pesticides for lawns.

* 30 million acres are planted with residential lawns - enough lawn to carpet New York state.

This trailer on is about one town’s move towards natural and eco friendly lawns: “A Chemical Reaction” Trailer (Keep off the lawn!) Hudson, Quebec.

Note: If I had my way, I would opt for no lawn and just have a small garden with a patio area. And grow drought resistant plants, lay out river rocks, and maybe a water feature. Anything but a front lawn!

The Japanese have been using buckwheat pillow for centuries.  Buckwheat hull pillow provide firm and even support for your neck and back.   It has the ability to perfectly conform to the contours of our head.  Thus resulting in better and sound sleep.

Buckwheat pillows can be expensive.  So I decided to make my own using buckwheat hull and some linen fabrics.  Having a zipper is also helpful as you can adjust the amount of hull for personal comfort.  And with zipper openings, you can remove all the hulls before washing the pillow case.

The list of benefits for using buckwheat hull as pillow filling includes:

grown without pesticides as they are naturally pest resistant

biodegradable (can be composted and even used as mulch)

naturally hypoallergenic (for those allergic to feathers)

odorless, pest and fungus resistant

I used 100 % linen fabric and filled it with 1 lb of buckwheat hull.  The hull is very light but feels substantial once stuffed inside the pillow. It may be a small pillow for most, but it works fine for me.  Maybe it’s more of a travel pillow.

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M and I visited Blackberry Farm in Cupertino, CA. It reminded me of the blackberry farm in Pescadero. Except we were not near the ocean. But it was nicely tucked in amongst the suburbs. And the entrance was free, plus eating tangy blackberries optional. There was also a small creek that ran through the park, complete with river rocks too.

The best part of this farm was the community garden and the local 4H club animal farm. There were even some real live bee hives! Even though I love bees, I was still very scared to get too close to the hives. Maybe if I had a bee suit.

The 4 H club had many animals. But I was particularity interested in the goats. There are three different breeds of goats, diary goats, meat goats, and other dual purpose (fiber) goats. There were goats with small ears and some with big ears. The small ears one were called La Mancha and the big floppy ears named Nubian. The La Mancha are a medium sized breed, developed in the USA from goats of Spanish origin. They are known to have an excellent dairy temperament (good for producing goat milk). And these La Mancha are considered to be very friendly, naturally healthy and sturdy animals.

My favorite type of goats was the Pygmy goat. They are small and cute. Pygmy goats are one of the most popular breed for meat, but now are more popular as pet. They are small goats of African origin. This one in the middle (looking at camera) let me pet it’s chin for the longest time! I would love to have Pygmy goats as pet some day. As well as other goats for the milk.

I was looking for a beekeeping store in Northern California and was happy to find one located in Sacramento.  So on my latest trip to the city, I was able to stop by and see it for myself.  The only downside to the shop is that they close at 5:30 pm so I really didn’t have time to look around or ask much questions.

As I walked in, I could hear one of the staff (or owner of the shop) discussing something about beekeeping with two fellow shoppers.  It was fun to eavesdrop on that as I have been so intrigued by bees lately.

Some of the cool supplies I got at the Bee shop for making soy and beeswax candles.  Notice my “hand-rolled beeswax candles”?  Also got a jar of Buckwheat honey.

I was also glad that had a selection of soap making and candle making supplies too.  Although the soap making oils were a bit pricey.  Either way I was in “craft heaven”.

I have always wanted to make my own soy wax candle since I learned about how clean it burns.  Beeswax is also great, clean burning and smells great.  But soy wax is more economical.  So I bought 1lb bag of soy wax to make my own candle.  I think this would be a good project to make since boutique soy wax candles are so expensive.  The instructions are really simple, just put the soy wax in the microwave, add 1 oz of fragrance or essential oil to it, then pour into a good container.  And of course don’t forget the wick too.

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It’s starting to feel like the height of summer is here.  We have plenty of plums and peaches that our neighbors and friends have shared with us.  They are fresh and sweet too.

Best of all, the flowers I planted in my mom’s garden has finally started to bloom now.  This is my first time growing Dahlias from seeds.  They don’t really have a floral scent to it.  I think they are really pretty, especially the ones with stripes.

But unfortunately all the Gladiolus bulbs I planted in late spring didn’t make it.  The leaves just turned brown after I thought a bud was forming.  When I went to touch it, the leaves just fell off the bulb.  Gladiolus has always been very easy to grow in the past.  Maybe there is a gopher that’s been eating my bulbs?  Oh well, better luck next year.

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Today’s photos come from Nye Noona.  The beautiful photos were taken at the Biltmore Estate and garden in Asheville, North Carolina.  You can learn more about the Biltmore from my little post here.

It would be a dream vacation to visit the Biltmore sometime in the future.  In the meantime, I will enjoy the visit via Nye Noona’s photos.  Thank you Nye for letting me use your photos as part of Cambree Notes “Garden Photos of the Day.”

The water lilies (or lotus) are ready to meet the day and start blooming.

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I have always noticed the different colors of honey in the market.  But I never realized the colors are due to the different varieties of flowers the bees visit.  Actually I learned a lot from reading Fruitless Fall and have even more appreciation for these tiny little busy bees.  And possibly eating more honey as well!

As far as the color of honey goes, the darker the color means more antioxidants in them.  And Buckwheat honey tops the list, it is considered one of the healthiest.  It is dark in color and rich in iron.  I will keep my eye out for this variety next time I’m at the grocery store.

But I did end up finding organic multi-flower (wild flowers) honey in a large 48 oz jar at my local drug store (Long’s Drug, which is now CVS) for only $12.  The label said it was wild harvested in the mountains of the Himalaya.  Far from smogs and pollution.

The color is much darker than the honeys I’m used to.  The taste is surprisingly very good. It reminded me of maple syrup and would be great with pancakes.  But so far I have only drizzled it on top of my toasted bagel and cream cheese.

Some other varieties of honey include:

Alfalfa, blackberry, blueberry, buckwheat, clover, orange blossom and wild flowers.

There are even white colored honey as well.  Some of them are from Hawaii and looked more like condensed milk.   I think that would be interesting to try as well!

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In the past few days, I’ve had what began as spring allergies but felt more like the flu by the end of the week.  I tried all my homemade remedies such as drinking ginger, honey, and lemon tea. Plus chewing on garlic as well. I’m not sure if it helped, since now it’s more of a cold.  But maybe if I had some local honey, I would have been better off.

Lovely jars of local honey for sale at Alaska Farmer’s Market.  Photo from AK Root Cellar taken by Alison Arians, of Rise and Shine Bakery.

A while back, I remember hearing about eating local honey to help combat allergies.  The idea is that you are ingesting the pollen (from the local honey) that caused your allergic reactions in small amount, so you begin to build up a resistance to it.  The same with allergy shots.  Dr. Leonard Bielory, an allergist and immunologist at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, said there is no data supporting this case but he does believe there is something to it.  Since honey does have small antimicrobial effects when put on the skin and more potential medical benefits.  Honey is also a natural substance that prevent mold growth.

Tom Ogren, a California horticulturalist and botanist is an advocate of consuming local honey.  Tom Ogren likes the idea of using honey instead of getting shots, as it is less expensive, easier to manage and painless and taste good too. He explains in more detail at Local Honey and Allergies.  Local honey is described as being harvested within a few miles of where you live. I suppose if you are lucky enough, you will find them at your local Farmer’s Market.

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