Great gardens start with great soil! Amend your soil now for good results and healthy plants this year.

Recipe for Good Garden Soil
To amend a 100 square foot are to an eight inch depth, use:

• 10 cu. ft. of Master Nursery Bumper Crop
• 5 lbs. F.S.T. Iron & Sulfur: to acidify, break up clay and add iron
• 10 lbs. Master Nursery Tomato-Vegetable or Flower Food
• 50 lbs. gypsum
• Mix well with your soil, plant and water thoroughly.

When we celebrate Easter, I am reminded of how my mother used to color eggs naturally with onion skins, turmeric, red cabbage and other vegetable scraps. The eggs were softly colored and really beautiful. My favorite was always red cabbage which turns the eggs teal blue! Coloring eggs naturally is a great way to teach kids to be good stewards of their environment. Every part of the egg is used, even the shells. Grind them up and scatter about an inch deep into the soil around your houseplants and gardens. The shells have much-needed natural nutrients!

Now there’s no real “recipe,” but here’s how I do it. You can make the dyes ahead of time and keep them in the refrigerator

Natural Easter Egg Coloring

• In a saucepan, place as many papery outer skins of yellow and/or red onions that you have. Cover with an inch of water. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook until the skins have colored the water, about 10-20 minutes.

• Use this same method for cabbage (just chunk it up). Beets, spinach, etc., even coffee grounds can be used in this manner.

• Strain, and add a teaspoon of vinegar to the dye. The vinegar will set the dye.

• To make turmeric-colored eggs, place two tablespoons of turmeric in 1½ cups water. Stir and place in pan. Cook until it starts to boil. Remove, let it cool but don’t strain. Add a teaspoon or so of vinegar. Place eggs in dye, stirring to coat. When you remove the eggs, gently wipe off the turmeric with a soft cloth or run them very quickly under running water.

• Depending upon how long they sit in the dye, the eggs made with yellow onions skins will be pale yellow to dark amber. Red onion skins produce eggs that are brick/brown red. Red cabbage is the winner; it makes beautiful teal blue eggs! Turmeric makes the eggs more brilliantly yellow than the marigolds my dad used to plant in our tiny front lawn.

Our thanks to Ron Wilson of Natorp’s Garden Stores in Ohio and Kentucky for this wonderful article.