Welcome to Dan's Gardening and Birding Blog

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I have been writing my blog for well over 5 years and posting on Blogger (dansgardening.blogspot.com).  As the title implies, I write mostly about gardening and bird watching.  I focus mainly on vegetable gardening but also occasionally write about flowers. and shrubbery.

I have been an avid gardener since the 1970s inspired by my parents and grandparents.  My first love of gardening came from starting and growing Mammoth Sunflowers, which relates to my second topic, bird watching.  My Mom loved starting and growing tomatoes, which i also enjoy.  I particularly focus on the heirloom varieties since the flavors of these are second to none.  Some of the varieties my parents and grandparents grew are now considered heirlooms.

My posts deal with all aspects of gardening, from starting seeds to preparing the soil to cultivating to harvesting, and of course I document the process with many photos.  I also try some different vegetable varieties each season and evaluate them.

I also have enjoyed bird watching since the 1970s.  I remember making my own suet cakes by rendering beef suet and adding sunflower seeds.  I would not recommend this to anyone, especially if done indoors since it can be rather messy.  There were not suet cakes available to buy back them.  I also remember making my first bird feeder from scrap lumber, it even had a shingle on the roof!

My Dad was a plumber, so it only made sense that the bird feeder pole was a galvanized pipe mounted to the feeder using a pipe flange,  I still use this method today.  I remember feeding chickadees from my hand and overall really enjoying the birds.

Today I participate in Project FeederWatch  and The Great Backyard Bird Count. 

So take a look through my posts and enjoy the articles and photos.  Thanks for visiting.