A couple of years ago I switched over to a water-wise, native buffalo grass/blue grama (BG/BG) mix, and the whole endeavor was, quite frankly, a real chore. First, there was the issue of the grass that was already there, which was Bermuda. Now anyone familiar with Bermuda grass knows that removing it from your lawn is not as simple as digging it up. Leave even the tiniest scrap of a root behind and it will bounce back like a rubber ball. It took me months to get rid of it (which I had to do because it out-competes buffalo grass), and I had to compromise my “organic” principles to do it. Even so, sprigs still pop up here and there from time to time.

by Beth Goulart

Loving to cook doesn't mean never eating out. I love going to restaurants. But letting someone else do the cooking doesn't mean I don't want to know where the food comes from. So I ask.

My friend Lyssa asks, too. She's passionate about eating only free-range meat, so before ordering, she asks her server whether the meat on the menu meets that criterium. But she says it makes her dining companions uncomfortable. They think it's rude. She deserves to know, she insists.

My friend Hillary asks, also.

She's excited about the health benefits - and the flavor - of grass-fed beef, so she asks her servers if they offer any grass-fed before she orders. But she embarrassed her husband by asking this question at a dinner with his colleagues at Ruth's Chris Steak House. Her husband was mortified - he felt the question was totally inappropriate, particularly in a business setting. (The answer was "no.")

Wanda and Neutron get to work.

March is a busy garden month. There are seedlings to transplant, seeds to sow, weeds to pull, fences to mend, and compost to spread. Of course, spreading that homemade compost is a lot more rewarding if you aren't attacked by fire ants crawling up the shovel handle. It's also best if your compost doesn't carry hundreds of seedling-eating pillbugs into your freshly made garden beds. To root out the insects that are inevitable in the compost bin but aren't so welcome in the veggie plot, I turn to my on-site specialists: Neutron and Wanda.

For years I’ve relied on the professionals to start my plants from seed, buying them whenever they’d reached the fledgling stage. But this is very limiting. There are all these intriguing heirlooms out there, just waiting to be discovered by the adventurous gardener, but the problem is, you aren’t going to find them at most local nurseries. I mean, when was the last time you picked up a six-pack of “Aunt Ruby’s German Green” or “Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter” at Home Depot?