Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Mid July finds my garden a little bit rough around the edges. The need for more garden time is always present with gardens needing weeded, the lawn needing mowed and cleaned up, tomatoes that need re-staked, and many other garden chores. It’s not just the lack of garden time though, the weather has played a significant role. No rain for…

Many people have patios with permeable materials like sand and pea gravel in the cracks. These patios are open invitations for weeds that decide to drop in and make themselves at home in those cracks! It doesn’t take anymore than a seed to sprout an annoyingly hard weed to pull out. There are many methods that will work to clean…

Friday we had thunderstorms rolling through Middle Tennessee. The rain came down fast with the accompanying winds. This storm cleated tornadoes that tore apart homes one county south of us. Here are some pictures I took of the storm coming. The rain fell very quickly. Our rain gauge measured at least half an inch of rain in 15 to 20…

Last year I embarked on a quest to start my own nursery business.  One of my dreams for a long time has been to own my own nursery and I began putting plans together around a couple business ideas that I could do from home.  I researched all over the internet to find resources and advice on how to start…

Each year I try to expand the vegetable garden a little bit more. The first year in our home I didn’t have time to put together a garden before the growing season started and we missed out on any vegetable garden. The “L” Shaped Raised Beds: The second year I put together a set of raised beds that were arranged…

Monarda is called bee balm for a reason! This bee balm was brought home as a division from a plant in my wife’s aunt’s garden in West TN. Monarda is a great plant for attracting pollinators! It doesn’t only attract bees, butterflies are more than happy to land upon this flowering perennial. I planted it just outside our vegetable garden…

Today is the Monday morning of what promises to be the coldest week of the Fall/Winter season 2010. The temperatures are predicted to be in the 30’s for highs and teens for lows with is about 15-20 degrees colder than the normal temperatures. I thought I would take a moment with this post and tomorrow’s post and think about those…

Here’s a list of this year’s gardening events that you don’t want to miss! Click on the links for more informationNashville Lawn and Garden Show – March 5-8, 2009Bloom ‘n’ Garden Expo – April 3-5, 2009Perennial Plant Society Plant Sale – April 4, 2009Middle Tennessee Hosta Society – Annual Hosta Sale – May 9, 2009Middle Tennessee Spring Plant Swap –…

The fifteenth of another month has arrived which means it’s time for Bloom Day! This bloomday just finds me happy that I have plants alive and virtually ecstatic that I have blooms. If you’ve been reading along lately you probably have heard me complain before about the lack of rain and the really high temperatures. Water is so vital to…

Every garden experiences pest issues form time to time.  Insect pest can be frustrating and sometimes when you discover what is damaging your plants it’s already too late to do anything about it.  Here are five common insect pests that you may see in your garden for today’s Friday Five post!   Pest #1: Flea beetles You’ll first notice flea…

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…

Every now and then I take a look around the Gardening Blogosphere to see if there are any new Tennessee Bloggers. And every now and then I find a few! Of course I have to thank Gail of Clay and Limestone for finding DP at Squarefoot Gardening. One of the great things about garden blogging is that each gardener has…

There are very few gardens I know of that don’t have some sort of wind chime.  Wind chimes add an extra audio element to the garden as well as a touch of whimsy.  There is quite a variety of wind chimes to choose from out there and it all depends on what you like.  Recently Windchimesonline.net sent me three bamboo…

Here is Part 9 of The Home Garden’s weekly series about gardening on a budget.Plant propagation, at last, my favorite subject! I was saving the plant propagation post for the last few segments of this series on gardening cheap. Plant propagation is one of the most inexpensive ways to make more plants and expand your gardens. There are several methods…

You may not believe me but snakes really can be a garden’s (and gardener’s) best friend!  Many people carry a fear of these creatures.  I can understand being afraid of poisonous snakes but the others are quite beneficial.  Yesterday while I was outside near my vegetable garden putting in some outdoor plant shelves (made from old wooden pallets) I moved…

This are warming up again around our Tennessee garden this February.  While I’m writing this post spring-like storms are pouring down outside.  February again seems more like March than February!  But that’s how it is sometimes with our weather patterns in TN.  We get some crazy stuff sometimes.  The unseasonable warmth has given rise to many things that would normally…

Through the diamond shaped hanging frames of the Arbor I spied a daylily and a salvia in the front garden. The blooming of the daylilies has begun!  Arbor voting is still in progress!

It may seem like I’m jumping ahead a bit but here is a picture of our first raised bed. I’ll be putting together a step by step post on it later. There is still one more bed to build and both of them need to be prepared for planting. As you can see the small bed is actually a little…