If you think money grows on trees, you may be right. Or at least, maybe you can get grant money to grow trees!

Several sponsors and gardening associations offer grants throughout the year, typically for schools or non-profit community groups that have a vision for a gardening project but just need a little head-start in the way of funding. Here is a list of a few, along with application deadline information. This should help you and your group get started thinking about a community improvement or education project that will let you all play in the dirt...for free.

Fiskars Project Orange Thumb
Twenty groups will receive up to $1,500 in Fiskar tools and up to $800 in green gardening materials. The mission is to encourage creative expression in gardening. All kinds of community groups, schools, and church groups are eligible.
Application: Available now online. All materials due February 17, 2009.

Wild Ones Seeds for Education Grants
K-12 schools or parent groups associated with schools can receive up to $5,000 toward projects with a permanent impact such as facility enhancement (both indoor and outdoor) as well as landscaping/clean up type projects. Projects that encourage parent involvement and build stronger community spirit will be favored. Examples projects include reading gardens, vegetable gardens and nature trails.
Application: Lowe’s will accept up to 1,500 applications for consideration. Application period ends when either 1,500 applications are received, or February 13, 2009, whichever is earlier.

Wild Ones Seeds for Education Grants
Schools, nature centers, churches, and non-profit education centers are eligible for $100-500 grants to encourage natural landscaping with native plants.
Application: Due November 15 each year, awarded in February.

The following grants are available through the National Gardening Association:

Bayer Advanced Grow Together with Roses School Garden Awards will provide rose bushes and educational materials to 25 schools to establish rose gardens designed to nurture peaceful relations and instill a strong sense of community.
Application: Due January 23, 2009

Mantis Awards
25 programs will each receive a Mantis Tiller/Cultivator (a $349 value, although they're currently on sale on Amazon.com for $250) with border/edger and kickstand, and their choice of gas-powered or electric motor. The grant is open to any non-profit group with a gardening program that enhances the quality of life in the community. Past recipients have included schools, churches, correctional facilities, parks departments, youth camps, community gardens, and many others.
Application: Due March 1, 2009.

Hooked on Hydroponics Awards include hydroponic garden systems, lighting, and reference materials for elementary, middle and high schools.
Application: Available in February, due in fall 2009.

Healthy Sprouts Awards are given to organizations that create youth garden programs that focus on nutrition and hunger issues.
Application: Available in February, due in fall 2009

If you're like me, you think of yourself as just a little more self-sufficient than most people. My friends oohed and aahed, for instance, after finding out that I make my own butter from raw cream I buy from an Amish farmer. I shrugged it off; I pick up the food from a drop point about 10 minutes from my house, I told them, and "churning" butter is as easy as shaking a sealed jar for 20 minutes or so while checking my e-mail with the other hand.

But secretly, I enjoyed that praise. I enjoyed thinking of myself as the kind of person who doesn't use paper towels or own a television. I flattered myself that I could "rough it" as well as my great-grandmother, Amish herself. Then my brother dealt me a cruel hand: he embarked on a solo road trip from Baltimore to Montana, where he spent the summer wrangling horses in the wilderness, camping outside and growing his hair into one giant dreadlock. And before he left, he gave me this book.

Don't get me wrong - Country Wisdom & Know-How is about as good a manual for living as you'll find anywhere. It's exhaustive and exhausting all at once. There is almost no domestic or agricultural task that is not represented here; the printing is tiny and the pages are large, no-nonsense newsprint with hundreds of carefully labeled line drawings. But if you thought you were pretty countercultural, it will school you within an inch of your life.

The book is a compilation of information from Storey Publishing's Country Wisdom Bulletins, small booklets which were published in the 1970's during the "back to the land era." They were simply and directly written, with easy-to-follow diagrams, and millions of copies were sold to eager do-it-yourselfers. The Bulletins have been divided into six basic categories, all of which are tied in some way to agriculture and gardening, in keeping with the belief that natural is better.

Animals: Here is where you can easily get lost for hours learning how to identify, attract, feed, bathe, house and care for all kinds of wild birds (including a formula to be fed to abandoned babies, every fifteen minutes for twelve hours a day, until you can get more professional help: dog food, egg yolk and baby cereal!) Or you could learn what to look for in buying a horse, how to build a beehive, or the ten most useful herbs to improve feline health. And if you ever need to butcher anything, you can consult the diagrams here to ensure you do it correctly.

Cooking: This is far from an exhaustive primer, but there are very detailed sections on a dozen different ingredients, from winter squash to green tomatoes and basic breadmaking. The dairy section is especially useful; people used to know how to make clabbered cream cheese and use a spoonful of yogurt to start another batch, and once you've done either, you'll be hard-pressed to continue buying an inferior product at an inflated price. The section on preserving food is also a great place to start, if you've never done canning or pickling before; there are lots of recipes for simple jams and relishes, vinegars, and (woo-hoo!) a whole section devoted to homebrewing, from hard cider to beer and wine.

Crafts: Try to imagine the exact opposite of the plaques with misspelled, pithy sayings you've seen at craft fairs! All of these goods are useful as well as beautiful, from candlemaking to quilting and basketweaving. In every case, the instructions are comprehensive and clear, and the projects simple enough for a complete novice to attempt. The best section, "Gifts from Nature," features ideas like wreaths, soap and gingerbread houses (think elevations and fretwork details, not graham crackers and Tootsie Rolls). Having long believed that the best gifts are the ones made by hand with love, I couldn't wait to try some of these.

Gardening: In this section you'll learn to grow the plants you'll use for projects all over the book. It begins with a thorough tutorial on types of soil and seed, garden planning and layout and prevention of weeds and pests. Then there are over a hundred pages (roughly a fifth of the book) devoted to individual types and categories of plants, from flowers to herbs, vegetables, roots and fruits. You can find out how to grow the grapes you'll later make into wine; propagate lavender for use in medicinal salves; or transform an existing field into a meadow of wildflowers. Each section contains detailed information about growing conditions, transplanting, maintenance and harvesting.

Health and Well-being: Not to worry, there is no "miracle cure" being promoted here - just the sensible advice of generations who have relied on plants to keep their bodies in balance. There are recipes for bath salts and aromatherapy oils, primers on the care and use of healing herbs like echinacea and goldenseal, and ideas for herbal teas, soups and medicines thought to be beneficial for a variety of ills.

Home: More proof that this book will appeal to both genders! This section runs the gamut from fairly quick (repairs to leaky faucets or broken windows) to very involved (construction of sheds, fences and root cellars.) But both are treated with equal efficiency, and as always, quality and beauty remain important. Ever wanted to learn how to cane a chair, braid a rug or sew a curtain? All are detailed here.

Overall, the best feature of this book is its unpretentious and direct language. No stone is left unturned, no aspect of a project ignored, but the editors have taken care to retain the down-to-earth quality you'd expect from a book based on passed-down knowledge from largely agrarian societies. If you fancy yourself a lover of nature, you will find this book a joy to read for all the years it will take you to do so!

If you're not a gardener, gardening can sound pretty intimidating - planning, weeding, watering and fending off various predators for months at a time - and unless you are growing edibles, your reward may only be a pretty picture. Those of us who are already invested wouldn't give it up for the world, but we want you to give it a try, too - and there's no better way to start than with containers.

These two books - Little Herb Gardens, by GeorgeAnne Brennan and Mimi Luebbermann, and The Ultimate Container Gardener, by Stephanie Donaldson - each contain numerous projects that can be completed in an hour or an afternoon, but will provide enjoyment for weeks and months afterward. Even if you think you are hopeless with plants, these charming arrangements will make you want to try again. And if have a "real" garden, like me, you'll find yourself flipping the pages with increasing restlessness and finally heading out to the basement or tool shed to get some use out of those old pots you'd almost forgotten about.

Little Herb Gardens was the book that inspired us to begin our own herb garden several years ago, mere months after moving into our house. I've mentioned before that herbs are almost impossible to kill; a loose definition of the word might be "a weed that people have figured out how to use in cooking." Once established in the ground, they rarely need watering, and they will produce until the first frost; I have even dug through the snow to find sprigs of thyme in February. Most of them re-seed themselves and come back year after year to delight you with their fragrance and flavor. And if you've never cooked with fresh herbs, you can and should afford the luxury!



The book begins with some basic information about herbs in general, listing the most common annuals and perennials; it then gives some basic information about the best conditions for soil, watering and fertilizing. (We're talking eight pages total, and half of that is pictures!) Projects are then grouped by location: Fire Escape for city-dwellers, Inside Porch, Outside Porch and Patch of Ground for suburbanites, and Vast Vistas for those with a little more breathing room. Each project fits on a double-page spread, with a lovely, inspiring photo, a specific list of materials, and guidelines for where and when to place the plants. Most of the suggested herbs are fairly traditional, but there are a few, like green garlic and nasturtiums, that I had never thought of growing indoors and will certainly try now. At the end, there's a brief section of recipes that can be adapted for many types of herbs: flavored oils, vinegars and desserts.

The Ultimate Container Gardener is a far more extensive and adventurous book, and it favors more decorative arrangements than practically useful ones. However, the photographs are seductive in the way only do-it-yourself photographs can be; if you are familiar with DK books, you will be especially intrigued. The plants for each project are pictured separately, so that you can bring the book with you to the garden center and compare; then there are several step-by-step instructional photos and a photo of the end result, pretty but simple enough to make you think you could do that!

There is another section on gardening techniques and tools; it's longer than the one in Little Herb Gardens, but it does include lots of helpful photos of, for instance, how to propagate a plant from a cutting, and several methods for pest removal. These projects are grouped by several different variables: color scheme, season, and location. There are also special sections of projects for children, plantings that are edible or especially fragrant, and lots of ideas for decorating containers with shells, paint and a variety of other media. Altogether, there are probably 150 projects, and there are very few duds, at least for my personal taste (I have never really understood the garden-in-a-boot thing) They range from very simple to somewhat complex; the common thread is that all of them can live on your porch, deck or fire escape. A little water and sunshine, and a lot of admiration, are the only requirements.