Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Have you ever wondered exactly how tall a raised bed should be?  Here’s the answer: 11 and 5/16ths.  Yep that’s right, 11 and 5/16ths.  Of course not!  The real answer is that the height of a raised bed is dependent on a number of factors which makes each situation different.  Today’s Friday Fives post is another raised bed design post…

The other day I wrote about layering rosemary plants. Layering is the process of propagation where roots are formed by placing the stem of the plant underneath rooting medium (soil) to allow it to root with the support of the parent plant. If you look closely at the picture to the left you can see small roots being formed at…

Every home gardener wants their plants to thrive and do well. Often there are little, easy to do things that can greatly improve the chances of plants in your garden succeeding. Here we are going to talk about one thing you can do to help your tomato and pepper plants grow great: pruning off the lower leaves or as I…

Have you ever had one of those days where you start on one project then move to another, then another? I do it a lot this time of year where I begin something finish then move immediately to another one. It’s a kind of flow where I just can’t stop doing something in the garden. I have to be careful…

The Dandelion(Taraxacum officinale)You know this pretty little face don’t you? Staring up at you with it’s bright golden feathery petals gleaming in the sun. It is a pretty little flower in it’s own way. Almost…dandy. But its pretty exterior hides how fierce this weed really is. It spreads fast if not contained.This little flower from the Asteraceae family will spread…

Viburnum dentatum is one of my favorite shrubs in our garden.  It’s not as showy as the Japanese dappled willow or the purple beautyberry.  It’s not as flashy as roses nor does it provide year round color like the ‘Otto Luyken’ cherry laurels.  But it does have an important role in our garden.  This viburnum never fails to flower prolifically. …

The other day strong winds blew through Tennessee.  They were not just your normal winter winds, these were March winds – in February.  The kinds of winds we normally get in spring when the weather changes more frequently between warm and cold fronts.  Unfortunately I wasn’t prepared for the high impact of the winds.  Two glass shower doors were propped…

Last summer I took cuttings from one of my viburnums and a couple spireas. They have a good start this year and are beginning to put on new growth. The viburnum came from a softwood cutting that was about 3-4 nodes long. I need to transplant it into some better soil since all I used for it over the winter…

Fall vegetable gardening can certainly be interesting in Tennessee!  You never quite know how the weather is going to shape up.  Is it going to frost early?  Late?  Will the temperatures be normal or extra warm like we’ll be having this week?  You just never know.  For gardening weather this October we’ve had a couple light frosts but nothing damaging…

For a couple years now I’ve watched and waited for our hellebore to bloom. Every year I jealously read the posts of other gardener bloggers who are happily displaying their hellebore blooms but alas, I had no flowers to share! But now the single Lenten rose I have has grown into an 18″ little bush with glossy green leaves and…

I know a lot of people are busy in their gardens, spending time with family, or working from home and may not have had a chance to catch up on the latest posts and videos from Growing The Home Garden. I thought it would be a good idea to put out a summary post with the past week’s post. Enjoy!…

This weekend I worked on two garden projects. One took a a good deal of time to complete while the other only took about an hour and a half. The big project was a plant holding bin to hold my propagated plants that aren’t ready for in the ground planting yet. Fortunately I was the recipient of some old deck…

Beware gardeners for danger may lurk beneath a rock. Though a rock may be a home to many creatures there are few that rival the venomous Black Widow spider. This spider is one of only two spiders gardeners in Tennessee have to watch out for, the other is the brown recluse. The black widow loves to lurk underneath rocks and…

The most exciting time in the garden is the harvest time! It’s the time when you get to go to the vegetable garden and taste the goodies the garden has grown. All the hard work that you put into the garden shows up at the harvest stage. It’s also where you can measure how good your garden really is! I’ve…

I wrote about caryopteris last year so I won’t go deep into the details again but I thought you might like to see how I’m using it in the garden. First a bit of explanation. I once saw a picture of a row of caryopteris at Longwood Gardens and I thought “why not try that here?” The picture had caryopteris…

While earlier in the week brought progress to the outside of the greenhouse garden shed this weekend brought some progress to the inside. I had already insulated parts of the shed where there is no glass but I needed to cover the insulation. Fortunately there is plenty of scrap plywood laying around the shed from doing the outside sheathing plus…

Seed shortages on our minds saving seeds from your garden is more important than ever. So how do you save tomato seeds? There are a couple of methods that can be successful but one way you can do this is through fermentation of tomato seeds. This is not a hard process so don’t let it intimidate you! I’ve described the…

“Blame it on the rain, yeah yeah.” OK I apologize for bringing up old Milli Vanilli lyrics, but those words have been going through my head for days and I figured I would share the pain. I’m in a state of depression about my vegetable garden right now and it’s all because of precipitation. This was July and is now…