Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to use my greenhouse lately. There’s just enough complete on the greenhouse construction to tantalize my imagination and since people use greenhouse in so many ways that the options are virtually limitless.I don’t grow orchids or many tropical plants which means the greenhouse won’t be used for them. It’s not ready to use…

I’ve seen many posts around the garden blogosphere about signature plants. That’s a hard one for me because there are so many plants I like and every year I find a new one that seems to be the best of the best. Picking one plant from the hundreds of thousands of possibilities really seems futile. So rather than talk about…

I don’t have any pictures ready for this post although I did take some. I’m working to prepare my in-laws landscape for my brother-in-law’s wedding in July. Here’s just a quick list of some of the projects we’re working to complete.Weed the various gardens including a patio garden, a front yard sidewalk garden, a shady woodland garden and a raised…

When transplanting plants it helps to have a great container that allows the seedlings to flourish. I’ve found over the years that coir pots are a great option. I used to use them as part of my farmer’s market plant sale business. Today I use them in my garden every year as I transplant tomato, pepper, and all sorts of…

What do you do when cute little furry bunnies that eat your strawberries? Good question! I’m not sure I have the best answer and maybe you have some suggestions for this issue but over the weekend I found a solution that so far seems to have worked.  First let me share with you how I found bunnies in my garden….

You just have to love a flower that brings the sunshine down into the bland February garden. Winter Jasmine (Jasmine nudiflorum)  is a perfect fit for those gardeners who are fed up with winter and can’t wait for spring. It isn’t very showy the rest of the year with its normal looking deciduous green foliage but just before spring this…

A Couple weeks ago a friend from Texas sent me a 5 tiered Greenstalk Vertical Planter. It’s an interesting concept for a planter that allows you to grow vertical and save on garden space. The planter came shipped with the 5 tiers, the top watering reservoir, a stand with wheels, a short drain tube for excess water, and of course…

Over the weekend I tackled more prep work in the vegetable garden. I’ve already planted several things in the raised beds including onions, potatoes, lettuce, and spinach but planting wasn’t the main weekend task. One of the things I really didn’t like about my vegetable garden is now officially a thing of the past – the grass! In each of…

Periodically I like to walk around the yard to see what there is to see. I was out around 7:30 this morning and took these pictures of the yard. The plants are really showing their eagerness for the spring season.I don’t think many people consider maple trees for their flowers but maybe we should all take a closer look. The…

As you can see from the picture to the left that this tree has taken a beating. Last fall when the deer were out in force a buck decided to rut against several of my favorite trees. Coincidentally all the deer damaged trees were young trees that I had planted in the yard including two maples, a dogwood and one…

Before I began building my greenhouse shed I did some research into what makes a good greenhouse. Among many important aspects like positioning (for ideal sun), materials, and passive heating I learned that a porous surface for flooring is essential. It makes sense, plants need water – plants will drip water, it has to go somewhere! In my greenhouse shed…

My lately planted vegetable garden is doing its best to get back on track!  It’s been a busy spring time and everything got delayed until the official “whenever I could manage a few minutes” time.  But one of the great things about gardening in Tennessee is the long growing season.  Even if you don’t get the vegetable garden planted within…

Here’s another question for another Sunday! What are the best ornamental grasses in your garden? Ornamental grasses are great plants to use whether as a background or as a feature plant. There are all kinds of ornamental grasses to choose from; some are native and some exotic. In our garden we only have two varieties but I hope to add…

The passage of time is an amazing thing, especially so when applied to the garden. To me the passage of time in the garden involves three different dynamics: time over long periods, through the seasons, and how you spend time in the garden. The first dynamic is not as easy to see as the other two and unless you have…

Fall is creeping closer and closer each day which brings to mind cool evening breezes, pumpkins, festivals, the Fall Color Project (more on that later), and of course the fall vegetable growing season.  Most gardeners seem to garden almost exclusively in the spring or summer and don’t even consider the fall.  It’s probably since starting plants this time of year…

As I mentioned yesterday I had a visit from another garden blogger to my garden. It’s not often that my garden gets company and I’m always a little nervous about the things someone might see. Like the loads of Johnson Grass invading the beds (all the beds) or the currently unkempt nature of certain areas of the garden I just…

Gardeners garden for many reasons.  Perhaps the most common reason is to get back to that part of us that belongs with nature.  We want to see the world around us come through our garden and provide for its positive growth.  How we do that can vary in thousands of ways but almost every method provides some sort of food…

We’ve all heard about the infamous teenagers who go around neighborhoods looking for pumpkins to smash. Smashing pumpkins is one of those activities I never did and frankly always found rude and obnoxious, unless of course the smashers purchased their own pumpkins but that’s rarely the case. In fact I find the current state of my own pumpkins to be…