Now that our “Easter spell,” as my mother-in-law used to call it, is past, you may be planning to do some serious gardening.  Visit the Van Alstyne Public Library for information about how to plant in North Texas. 

Try Doug Welsh’s Texas Garden Almanac, or Neil Sperry’s Complete Guide to Texas Gardening.  McMillen’s Texas Gardening: Vegetables can help you with food crops or Alan Dean Franz’s Perennial Gardening in Texas can help with flowers.  The Planting Manual for Dallas Gardens Within 100 Mile Radius will help you decide when to plant and what to plant for our area. 

Another well known Texas gardening authority is Howard Garrett.  He has several useful titles:  Plants for Texas and his Texas Organic Gardening: the Total Guide to Growing Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, and Other Edible Plants the Natural Way.  You might also want to look at his Dirt Doctor’s Guide to Organic Gardening.  Tanya Denckla has written A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food.  Rodale press is well known for organic gardening advice, such as their Rodale’s Chemical-Free Yard & Garden: the Ultimate Authority on Successful Organic Gardening. 

Whether you are looking for something like Maureen Gilmer’s The Budget Gardener: Twice the Garden for Half the Price, or Patricia Taylor’s Step-By-Step Low-Maintenance Gardens, or Hazel White’s Sunset Landscaping Small Spaces, you will find plenty of gardening secrets at the library.

Googling North Texas Gardening will bring up several sites useful for gardeners, such as Gardening Tips for Northeast Texas, or Gardenweb-Gardening in Texas.  One site especially worth noting is Grayson County Master Gardener Association at http://dallas.tamu.edu/grayson/MG/index.htm.

The library has a program just for movie lovers who don’t want to drive at night, but love a great movie.  Stop by the library at 1:30 p.m. April 16 for Thursday @ the Movies, our monthly series of books made into movies.  Flash of Genius is a movie about a man fighting the corporate world to get credit for his invention of something we all now take for granted, windshield wipers.  Bring your own coke or tea, and the library will supply the popcorn.  Make Thursday @ the Movies your favorite activity on the third Thursday of every month.

We will offer a prize to the Best Vampire and another prize for the winner of the trivia competition.  The library will open for the movie at 5:00 p.m. 

Complimentary popcorn will be served.