Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This ancient sentiment applies very well to the denizens of the garden. The tomato (tobacco) hornworm in the pictures is a being of great tomato destruction. This larval stage of the five-spotted hawkmoth is able to demolish whole tomato plants in a matter of days if not caught early. It feeds off…

Has this ever happened to you? You cut a tomato open only to find…it’s growing!Our tomato we sliced open for dinner on Wednesday was sprouting new plants inside of itself. It was ripe and was still in very good shape. I guess the seeds were just ready to grow!

Here is a picture of our new territory that I didn’t quite know I had until a couple weeks ago. It is covered in a variety of weeds including notable family favorites like ragweed, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace. Now if it were just the latter two weeds I would be OK with the area as a natural wild field…

While there may be no official contest going I’m entering a very special tomato for the ugliest tomato of 2009. I remember Carol last year challenged folks to find a tomato uglier than one she had.  If I had managed to grow this monstrosity last year I might have beaten hers for I have never seen one such as this!…

This time of year all of us gardeners are probably thankful for a little break. Winter can be a time to regenerate, rest, and plan for next year. While it isn’t technically winter yet the weather we have received in Tennessee certainly feels like it. (We had 18 degree F temperatures this morning!) This is early for that kind of…

This month’s Gardening Gone Wild Garden Design Workshop is coping with slopes. As you can see in the picture we have a pretty good sized slope. There’s a whole lot of area up there that we just really have no great way to use, at least not yet. I have ideas for what I would like to do but for…

Today I thought I would show you the before and after since yesterday I teased you on the details of the front porch garden remodel. It’s current state is still classified in the unfinished category but it is well on its way to becoming a welcoming front porch garden. First let me show you the before pictures: The crabapple is…

Snow is falling in the northern parts of our country as we are experiencing record 75 degree temperatures in Middle Tennessee in December! The forecast goes down from here with even a possibility of snow in the future for the weekend. Strange weather! Mid 50’s would not be surprising for this time of year but mid 70’s? I guess it’s…

OK so you’ve gotten your big seed order in the mail, now what?  What do you use to actually start the seeds in?  What kind of pots?  What kind of soil?  After deciding what seeds to order you need to know what medium to plant your future garden in.  There are a lot of variables out there to choose from,…

And now here comes my favorite part of the patio project so far. No project feels quite as complete as when you finally plant something. OK I suppose that only holds true for gardening projects but it really is the exciting part! Welcome to the Japanese Maple Garden! It’s a small raised bed made from the edging stones that I…

So many of us gardeners tend to think of one thing when it comes to the vegetable garden – tomatoes! I know I do, although in recent years I’ve become very partial to peppers. The garden doesn’t have to just be about those summer vegetables. In many areas you can continue to garden well into the winter months. Here in…

This plant is probably easily identifiable. In fact it’s a good bet that if you live in the south you have it in your yard, your neighbors yard, your school, your bank and pretty much everywhere you could think to put it! I saw rows of this at the home improvement store today which prompted me to make this post….

October is always a fun time of the year.  Fall festivals are in full swing, the leaves are changing, the weather is more cooperative for gardening, and of course there’s Halloween.  We don’t typically decorate much around here for Halloween.  Part of it is the difficulty of managing a whole lot of decorating with four kids running around and all…

Can you identify this plant? We shot this shrub in California in June of 2005 . It was at the entrance of an airplane museum at Edward’s Air Force Base.

Like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie they came. Our house and community were surrounded. Hundreds or thousands, I could not possibly count them all. These small black birds flew in mass formations like blackened thunderclouds about to burst.(Use the player to hear the actual birds. It’s a little soft so you may have to turn your volume up.)They…

One of the plants I was looking for at the plant swap this weekend was sedum. We have a small area between our driveway and our sidewalk that I want to convert into a sedum bed. We already had three varieties of sedum (‘Blue Spruce’, ‘Autumn Joy’, and another unidentified sedum) and we wanted a few more to add to…

This year I’m determined to grow more out of my vegetable garden than the typical summer tomato!  In the past I’ve managed to sustain herbs like cilantro throughout the winter but haven’t been determined enough to nurture many vegetables other than spinach throughout the cold months. (It’s hard to get psyched up to run out in the cold for garden…

Achillea millifolium is one of the easiest perennials to grow. Almost no care, very little maintenance, and bright punches of color make it a very good plant for low-maintenance gardens. In our garden we have 4-5 varieties which unfortunately are mostly unnamed but their colors include red, yellow, white, and pink. The only thing I do to maintain achillea is…