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Marion's UpBeet Gardener
Newsletter has been
replaced by Marion's blog
which you can find at:
www.marionowen.wordpress.com

• Organic Gardening Tips: Answers to your questions about compost, rhubarb, edible landscaping, pests, seedlings and lots more.
• Indoor Organic Gardening: How to care for your houseplants, organically
• Odds and Ends: Photography tips, recycling, food, your health, inventions...
• Unusual Recipes: These recipes and tips are not from your average cookbook
• Essays, Inspirations and Lite Stuff: To get you thinking and wondering
• Read Selected Stories from Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul

Organic Gardening Tips

• Flower Bulbs for Cool Climates: Tips and Tricks from my garden in Kodiak, Alaska
• Create a Garden That Looks Good Enough to Eat : The Associated Press interviews Marion Owen about edible landscaping
• Need a Garden? Go to a coffee shop! Burlap coffee bags make great container gardens!
• Captain Cook's Love Affair With Cabbage: If he were alive today, he'd say, "Ahoy there, grow this vegetable in your garden!" Learn how to grow cabbage and more...
• Acid or Alkaline?: What pH means in garden-speak
• Gardening by the Moon: May the Force be with you, in the garden!
• Easy Transplanting Tips: Plus a lesson from bald eagles...
• "Manure Matters": How different manures rate; how to use them
• Are You a Beginner-Gardener?: Here's a list of easy to grow varieties for cool climates
• Why Roto-tilling is a No-no: For years, all those ads have been leading us astray...
  
• Seed Starting Tips
  • Seeding Is Believing! Easy, step-by-step guide for growing your own bedding plants
  • What Seedlings Want How to raise seedlings and bedding plants
  • What's a Soil cuber? Seed starting is easy and sandbox-style fun! Featured on HGTV.com
  • Do You Love Pansies? How to grow your own flowers from seed
    
• Compost Tips
  • How to Compost Dog Waste An easy and safe backyard solution
  • Compost Happens! Plus, it solves ALL of your soil problems!
  • 163 Things You Can Compost: And we're still counting!
  • Make the World's Fastest Compost And take care of all those grass clippings!
    
• Coping with garden pests (see "indoor organic gardening" below for more tips)
  • Here kitty kitty! Safe and effective ways to shoo cats from your garden.
  • Have you been slimed? How to get slug slime off your hands It works!
  • Slug and snail baits: Learn your choices, and how coffee helps you win the war against slime
  • Aspirin Water Aids Plants: Research, interview and links I've tried it and it works!
    
• Weeding Tips
  • The Art of Weeding (Part 1)--Year-round strategy for organic weed control
  • The Art of Weeding (Part 2)--More strategies for organic weed control
  • Seven Ways to Get Rid of Dandelions -- Without those darned chemicals!
  • Weeding Tips from Shakespeare--Weeding tips, plus a look at how Shakespeare used weeding as a metaphor in Richard II.
    
• Artichokes in Alaska! Coastal living off the land Featured in Organic Gardening magazine
• Elvis and the Year of the Pea: The how, what, when, where and why of growing peas
• Seaweed and Kelp: How ocean plants help our garden plants
• So Many Choices! What to look for when choosing a potted plant
• Have Your Landscape and Eat It, Too! How to landscape with edible plants Very Popular!
• Rhubarb: America's Favorite Pie Plant Recipes, folklore, history, and sources A Favorite!
• Learn about PlanTea: The chemical-free, organic fertilizer in tea bags Ideal for outdoors and indoors
• What's Up Doc? Carrots! How to grow and use Bugs Bunny's favorite snack
• Learn why organic fertilizers and organic gardening are darn good ideas Experts tell us why

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Do you have a comment, suggestion, or question? Send me an email.

• What Bugs You More? A telemarketer calling during dinner, or fungus gnats?
• It's the Pits! How to grow a houseplant from a mango pit
• Amaryllis care: Now and forever! Plus, how to get free amaryllis plants
• There's Always Room for JELL-O, but on your plants?
• Dust Bunnies on your African violets? How to clean fuzzy houseplants
• Is Your Christmas Cactus Misbehaving? Does it wilt, shrivel, look pale or refuse to bloom?
• How to Grow a Pineapple Plant And actually get fruit!
• Spider Mites--Ackkk! What they are and how to get rid of them
• Lemon Tree, Very Pretty...': How to grow a lemon tree indoors
• How to Re-Pot Tired Houseplants: Without the fuss!
• Aquarium Water and Coffee Grounds: Houseplant food comes in many forms!
• Chase Away the Winter Blues: Grow a simple window garden
• Spice Up Your Inner Life: Grow herbs indoors and enjoy them year-round
• Add Years to Your Houseplants with these simple cleaning tips
• Three Cheers for Houseplants! The unsung heroes in our homes and office spaces

A Little of This, a Little of That

• Why Grow Your Own (Reason #25): Even just a teensy-weensy bit
• Want Healthy Kids? Turn off the TV!
• Gardening Behind Bars: Plants can transform lives, even in a women's prison
• International Plant Appreciation Day: Imagine a world without plants (no toilet paper, either). Annual celebration on April 13
• How to Predict the Next Frost: How to read the signs
• Easter Egg Colors to Dye for; From fruits, vegetables and other foods
• Who Invented the Garden Hose?: And what was the first hose made of?
• Why Do Leaves Turn Color? Tip: It has something to do with egg yolks)
• Cabin Fever Gardening: Seven cures for a gardener's winter blues
• Gardening is Like Falling in Love: Head over heels stuff. Remember? (You'll discover lots of gardening tips, too)
  
• Photography Tips Lessons from Marion (your friendly photo pro)
  • The Rule of Thirds When taking pictures, this tip is tops
  • What are Apertures? Improve your photos by understanding this overlooked camera feature
  • Flower Photography for Everyone: Tips and tricks for taking pictures in bright sunlight
    
• Recycling Tips and Green Shopping Tips
  • Recycling for Gardeners: Discover 27 uses for garden catalogs
  • 35 Uses for Plastic Milk Jugs: For home, garden, garage, and boat
  • Unshopping: 25 Ways to Get and Give What You Need Without Money, by Co-op America
    
• Health Issues, Safe Food, and More
  • Home Cooking, Now More Than Ever: Discover easy ways to avoid junk food, right in your own kitchen Includes link to free audio article!
  • Talking Fruit: Those little produce labels have something important to tell you. Popular!
  • How Gardening Can Weed Out Diabetes
  • Dr. Andrew Weil Reveals His Top Three Foods (and his least favorite vegetable!)
  • What's REALLY for Dinner? A shopper's list of produce that's the most and least contaminated by pesticides
    
• The Veggie Bra: A breast cancer awareness fundraiser that gets 'support'
• What Gives? Attitudes and simple gifts for year-round giving
• Renee Shepherd: America's 'Seedy Lady', meets Kodiak, Alaska
• Natural Care for Cut Flowers: How to keep fresh cut flowers looking fresh longer
• Blue roses: The race is on, plus an inside look into the not-so-clean cut flower industry
• A Pencil Is a Gardener's Best Friend Seed-sowing tool to swizzle stick!

Back to the top
Do you have a comment, suggestion, or question? Send me an email.

Unusual Recipes and cooking tips

• Dust Off Your Waffle Iron! For pennies, you get a million dollars worth of nutrition with these oat-bean waffles!
• Quick and Easy Appetizer: Layerer Hummus dip is tasty and healthy, too!
• Are your spices and herbs dead or alive? How to keep spices and herbs singing with flavor
• More Rhubarb Recipes: Readers share their favorites
• Nasturtium Pesto: A recipe to die for!
• Alaska Raspberry Mint Punch A treat for every occasion
• Poor Man's Capers Make your own gourmet capers from nasturtium seeds
• Potato Fudge Recipe With a serving of humor on the side Yummy!
• How to Use a Carload of Carrots Harvest, storage tips & recipes that'll make you smile
• Chocolate Beet Brownies: They can't be beat! All about beets and a recipe to fool skeptics
• Northern Lights Pumpkin Pie: An American classic gets healthy with an Alaskan twist
• Dilly Snap Peas: Fun facts about snap peas and a wonderful pickle recipe

Essays, Inspirations and Lite Stuff

• Like Leaves On a Maple Tree--When you become aware that you are not a leaf but the tree, something amazing happens in your life...
• Weeding Tips from Shakespeare--Weeding tips, plus a look at how Shakespeare used weeding as a metaphor in Richard II.
• Don't Check Your Email on Sundays: 12 little New Year's resolutions that promise big results
• Tom Hanks' Four Percent Solution: By Tom Hanks
• The Power of Purpose: By Roy H. Williams
• The Smell of Green: Personal essay by Marion Owen
• Beyond Dirt and Plants: Gardening is good for your mind, body and spirit
• What Is a Garden?: The word means many things to many people. How about you?
• Equinox Egg Balancing Myth: How my sister eggs me on, plus gardening and the equinox
• For the Love of Peanuts: A short essay by Marion Owen
• A Garden for Kaye: How to plant a garden near a hospital bed
• Lighten Up, Gardeners!: Forget about weed wars and soil NPK's
• Dream Big, Start Small: Encouraging you to do what you love
• Joseph Mohr's Gift of 'Silent Night' and other Christmas timelines
• Great Garden Goofs: Life in the garden wouldn't be complete without them
• Small Wonders of the soil, plants, trees, and critters--fun garden trivia
• How to Communicate with Plants: Step-by-step guidelines for everyone
• A, B, C, D, E, F, G (for garden), H... An inspirational alphabet

Stories from
Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul
(The New York Times bestseller, available through Amazon.com)

• A Bedside Story--What makes a great doctor? (Hint: He talks to his veggies)
• Plant a Row for the Hungry--How the author is inspired by homeless to begin nationwide program where gardeners are encouraged to grow an extra row of vegetables and donate them to food banks.
• Plum Pretty Sister--Nature and babies have their own schedules!
• Madeleine's Wheelbarrow--How the author pictures recently deceased friend Madeleine pouring wheelbarrow loads of prayers and love over her to heal her
• An Angel in Shirtsleeves--Retiree Mickey Weiss started a program that gives hungry people the slightly damaged produce that was being thrown away.
• The Wedding Gift--A guest at the bride's wedding brings her a special gift -- 20 years later.
• My Money Tree--A family surprises Mom with her very own "money tree."
• Planting Day--A 6-year-old girl learns, when another mother dies and leaves a memorial garden for her own children, how precious it is to spend planting day with Mom.
• Yellow Irises--A mother raises a family in a caring but mentally troubled life. The day she died, the author found something very special...