Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Every year in the garden is different. Sometimes it’s warmer than normal, sometimes colder. We may have more rain than usual or we may be in a drought. All of these factors affect how the plants grow, what comes up, and when they make their first appearance. One special event I like to notate each year on this garden blog…

Recently I highlighted a few new acquisitions to my garden under the guise of some sort of window collection. Clearly all you bright gardeners saw right through my windows and into my future plans to put together a greenhouse! Today I’ll officially tell you about my plans, and more specifically about its location, even though I still don’t have a…

It’s that special time of the year when the tomatoes start ripening up and producing all kinds of luscious fruits for our consumption. Here is what I picked today. The top box of cucumbers and tomatoes was actually from yesterday but all the rest came out this afternoon. A couple of the tomatoes have some damage from irregular water, oddly…

The weather has turn hot and humid, of course this is normal for summers in Tennessee.  We are blessed with a very long growing season but our summers can be extremely warm.  Last year on a record setting June day we reached over 110 degrees.  Which also happened to be the day our air conditioner decided to quit!  We spent…

Why do I like Red Twig Dogwoods (Cornus sericea or Cornus stolonifera)? If you look in the picture below the reason should become red-ily apparent. The multibranched shrubs stand out with a bright red coloring that looks fantastic in the wintertime. When the trees are bereft of leaves and the stems are left, the red twigs won’t disappoint for winter…

Potatoes are one easy vegetable that everyone should try.  There are a quite a few kind of potatoes that are delicious on the dinner plant that have developed over the years.  In our garden this year we’re growing Yukon Gold, red potatoes, and Adirondack Blue potatoes.  The blue potatoes are new to our garden this year.  Yukon Gold is one…

I wrote in my last post about the plant benches I was working on for the garden shed and this weekend I was able to finish installing the coated wire shelf tops. Now I can add plants in to overwinter, hardwood cuttings for rooting over the winter, or maybe even start seeds in the early spring.Each shelf is covered with…

When winter comes I really feel it and maybe you do too. I feel the feeling of melancholy that accompanies being stuck indoors for long stretches of time. There is a name for that feeling, Seasonal Affected Disorder. I’m certainly not a doctor but I can recognize when “SAD” is hitting me and the best cure for me is to…

Homesteading has seen a resurgence over the last several years which is very cool.  More people are opting to build a strong connection with the land and are moving toward mini-farms and homesteads to raise their families.  Before beginning a homestead future farmers should do one thing: learn to garden!  The garden is one major component of a successful homestead…

Lately the birds have been returning to the feeders. These goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) all dressed in their winter coats after molting are partaking of a feast of niger seed, which is excellent for attracting finches.  Like all birds they seem to prefer the seed d’jour. Afterall who doesn’t like the fresh stuff?  Thistle, coreopsis, sunflower, service berry, birch, and alder…

Every year I like to create a list of garden projects that I plan to tackle for the year. It’s a list of goals that I would love to accomplish but often due to time I find I planned for more than I can do. My goal list helps me to organize and prioritize what I need to get done…

This week I put together another project in the vegetable garden. It was a little one that was another step toward designing my vegetable garden as a parterre style garden layout.  The idea for this project was to create something that was both edible and ornamental! I decided that working in the vegetable garden was the way to go.  Vegetables…

I’m sure you’ve heard about Pinterest by now.  If you’re like me you may have thought “that’s just another online time waster.” Or if you’re a guy maybe you thought “that’s just for women!” Well I’ll admit it, those were my first thoughts.  Then I began to see people using it and sharing things from it on Facebook or Twitter….

Why should you consider planting a tree? Aside from the more pleasurable aspects of trees like flowers, leaf color, and shade there are some significant scientific reasons.I found a very interesting site called the Colorado Tree Coalition that has listed some very important information about trees and what they really do. The Colorado Tree Coalition talks about carbon sequestration. Which…

If you plan to sell plants you have to have plants to sell. So how does one go about getting a supply of plants for a nursery business? As plant retailers we really have only two options: produce the plants on our own or buy them from someone else and resell the plants. Both options have some very good advantages…

Here’s another idea I had for my herb garden. I’ve been planning my vegetable garden with a shrub/perennial ring around it. This herb corridor would lead up to a small entry gate going into the garden area. The beginning of the corridor would start close to our future patio (a project for later this year). The herb garden would have…

Today school was out, the roads were iced over, and the garden was draped in white. I always enjoy the one or two times each winter when our landscape is covered in snow. That’s the great thing about living in Tennessee – or one of the great things – the mild winters! It will snow a couple times each year…

Tuesday find ourselves cold again – waking up to temperatures in the mid teens in our little frost pocket. Fortunately the garden shed stayed about 10 degrees warmer without any extra heat. I hope to eventually add something for heating purposes but for now the shed is overwintering many of the plants I made from cuttings. Yesterday’s look back post…