Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I’ve been framed!  The greenhouse-shed almost is framed that is. The framing is coming along slower than I had hoped and as usual my goals prove to be loftier than time actually allows. I do this to myself all the time with projects, underestimating the actual amount of time necessary to complete it. My goal for Wednesday was to finish…

Recently I was invited to the 48-Hour Challenge with Better Homes & Gardens. For my project I chose to build an arbor! I’ve highlighted a few aspects of it over the last several weeks but I haven’t put down a play by play of our challenge. Hopefully you can follow along and if you want to tackle this project you’ll…

Almost sounds like a Christmas song but White Nose is the name of a squirrel that frequents our yard and our back deck. He’s a pretty big little guy with a furry white nose, hence his name. He feels quite comfortable partaking of our bird buffet. I really don’t mind the squirrels visiting the bird feeders. The only bad thing…

Things are growing very nicely in the vegetable garden. The tomatoes (which are our favorite crop no matter what else we try) are growing like crazy, the zucchini has almost produced it’s first zucchini, and the cabbage are …well…you’ll see… Here are two of my raised beds full of tomatoes. The bed on the left contains mostly Roma tomatoes while…

The summer heat is coming and with the heat comes a whole new set of rules for gardening. The warm season vegetables grow great while the cool season plants bolt quickly. What if you want to keep your cool season plantings growing longer into the summer? Is there a way to do that? The answer is yes there is, move…

It’s time for me to plan out my garden activities for February. There’s always something that needs done and for some reason I always seem to be able to create even more for myself! This list of things to do in the garden this February is specific to my garden but may have some relevance to yours as well. Things…

August isn’t a great month for planting plants here in Tennessee but it is a good time to get other projects done. That is if you can stand the heat! I have several things that I would like to get finished before the beginning of fall and I thought I would write a list to help keep myself organized.Here’s what…

I was out today looking at the sorry state of the gardens and though it might be an interesting exercise to look back at how the gardens appeared last spring and compare them. Over the next few posts I’ll go back for a few photos of the spring time version and contrast it with that same garden today. Let me…

This week we began a series of posts on edible landscaping.  Below you will find several articles to get started on creating a productive and beautiful edible landcape.  There are many more articles to come in this series so please check back or bookmark this post for updates! How to Begin a Plan Create a “To Grow” list, identify a…

Before the first frost of the fall I took a few cuttings of my Persian Shield (Strobinlanthus dyerianus) to hopefully overwinter it as a houseplant. This was the first year for Persian Shield in my garden and I’ve only seen it at one nursery around so I wanted to be sure I had some for next year in the garden….

Fall color is still around but you may have to look beyond the foliage. The berries presently on display are like a natural nod to the holiday season. Check out the berry good post below! (Sorry, I just had to make the pun!) Chris over at Garden Sense has really enjoyed the fall color this year! This week’s fall color…

Today I stopped by one of our big box home improvement stores and visited the declining stock in their gardening area. I’ve mentioned before about the good deals you can find there and so today I found a couple deals! While they are desperately cleaning out their summer and autumn wears to make room for Christmas trees, I picked up…

Meet Prunus caroliniana, better known as a cherry laurel. This evergreen tree makes an excellent privacy screen and is great for attracting birds. It’s a native to the eastern United States from Florida on up to North Carolina. It very low maintanence as my parents can attest. Just plant it and water it then let it grow. They planted cherry…

Rather than continue with lyrics that will end up stuck in your head for the rest of the day, let me tell you why I say “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.”  The weather has turned back toward winter which brings with it clouds and cold, but the unseasonable warmth of the last month has led to earlier show…

Over the past month quite a few people have hit this blog searching for information on various topics. Sometimes their searches are in the form of a question and I thought it would be fun to go back and answer the questions. Most people looked for information with the word “how” but a few used “what”even fewer used “where” and…

Well you just know it had to happen. Another gardening season and another lawnmower incident. At least this time it didn’t involve flames! And I have to admit I am very thankful to have a nandina! How does a nandina fit in with the story? Let me recount the tale for you as I experienced it. It was a beautiful…

‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum seed heads persist through winter. This time of year the flowers are mostly faded and few things have retained enough foliage to be markedly interesting.  But those faded flowers have left something behind – seeds!  Seeds can do a few of very cool things: They sustain the plant species for the coming year as new plants are…

Another unforeseen issue has arisen in my garden: blister beetles!  These voracious beetles are systematically devouring the foliage of our plants.  So far they’ve taken turns tasting our tomatoes, tomatillos, and even a clematis.  I’m not heartbroken over the clematis as it’s a sweet autumn clematis that grows like a weed – it will come back.  But I do want…