Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Since Labor Day is the unofficial/official end of summer I guess that means it’s time to start thinking about fall! And what else do you think about with fall?  FALL COLOR!  Which means it’s time for The Home Garden’s annual Fall Color Project! Since 2008 The Fall Color Project has been bringing fall color from Canada, The United States, Germany…

As I’m writing this post I’m hearing the buzz of riding lawnmowers from various neighbors in our community and I thought why in the world are they mowing? It hasn’t rained and dust clouds are flying up everywhere which leads me to a second question why are they mowing the dirt? Things like this drive me nuts so I thought…

When we first moved into our house back in 2007 and were discovering what our garden had in it we found very little.  A nandina, a couple cedars, some reblooming daylilies, and a teeny tiny spirea were all the plants that were there. Not much to start a garden with but I was excited about the challenge.  The spirea had…

Several years ago I used to watch a cartoon called Earthworm Jim. (Yes I’ll admit I watched cartoons in college!) It was based on a video game that I never played but I guess was somewhat popular at the time.  In the cartoon Earthworm Jim was a space traveling superhero worm valiantly ridding the universe of bad guys like Professor…

It’s been a busy weekend. We’ve been out of town since Friday visiting the in-laws house. I spent much of the weekend working on their landscape trying to get some things ready for the wedding in July. My task has been to spruce up various areas that will be around the wedding. I won’t be doing any flower arranging just…

This time of year people are looking for answers to their gardening questions.  Perhaps the most common gardening questions start with the word when.  As gardeners we realize that time is a very important factor when planting plants because it can greatly effect how a plant grows in the garden. Here are a few gardening whens that people have been…

This weekend I tackled two major garden tasks that were all about preparing the garden for fall. Task one was planting a few seeds in the vegetable garden. That task was fairly quick and easy to do in my circular raised bed. The other beds are mess still with summer vegetables going everywhere. I need to get out to the…

The legumes are one awesome vegetable family (Leguminosae).  Really, they are!  Legumes are essential to any crop rotation plan because of one major trait: legumes are nitrogen fixers!  What does that mean?  It means that legumes have an amazing ability to take nitrogen from the air and change it into a form usable by plants.  But it’s not really the…

Today I went tomato harvesting in our vegetable garden. We had quite a crop! They ranged from the little Sweet 100’s to some very large 16 ounce tomatoes. This wasn’t our first large harvest. We’ve had a steady diet of the red wonder fruits throughout this summer. We’ve eaten them sliced on turkey sandwiches with a generous helping of mayo,…

May your Christmas be a time fill with friends, family, hope, and joy!

The other day I came up with an idea for a rustic planter. I had this piece of a pallet left over from my old potting bench that I didn’t have any particular use for. The old pallet itself was the table potion of my previous potting bench and I cut off a piece of the pallet to make the…

Every now and then it’s good to take an overall look around the garden and see how it is doing. Through modern technology we can record it all and one day go back to explore and see how things have changed. With that in mind here is a video of my garden as it appears at the very end of…

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…

Not many plants bloom in the dead of winter but you can count on Mediterranean White Heath (Erica x darleyensis) to put on a subtle show.  It blooms with tiny little snow colored blossoms that (at least in my Tennessee garden) emerge during January and February.  I have five of these little winter gems located throughout our front garden and…

In our yard exist many corners that have not yet been cultivated. Most of these spots may never receive more than a cursory attempt at management. While I was mowing today I drove through one such area that completely caught me off guard. Along our back property line is an old fence that I’m sure was there before our subdivision…

Sometimes I get the urge to garden but the weather isn’t the right kind of weather for what I want to do. So what do I do? I bring it indoors! There are all kinds of ways to garden indoors but for this post I’m going to show you a little about growing peppers indoors during the winter. I’m a…

It’s no secret that this has been a challenging year for our family. My father’s health issues and fight with cancer completely drained our enthusiasm and many things have suffered.  That is one reason why this fall is so welcome.  Fall represents the closing of the growing season. Winter will come soon after and gardening chores and projects will become…

I love a nice Japanese maple! Who doesn’t? There are Japanese maples  with variegated leaves, ones with deep burgundy colors, others with interesting shaped leaves that are highly dissected and many other kinds. The fall color on a Japanese is almost always guaranteed to be something special.  Their highly ornamental nature makes them very popular trees in the landscape. Last summer I gathered…