Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I hope when you read this post that the rains are coming down in a delightful shower to water your garden, because they certainly aren’t here! It’s dry, extremely dry. Working in the ground is like cutting through a brick. Fortunately we’ve planted plants over the years that can tolerate these dry drought conditions. Autumn sage is one of those…

Skeeter has brought us our latest Fall Color Project post!  Skeeter teams up with Tina at In the Garden and offers up her garden experiences from Georgia for readers to share.  Go visit Skeeter as she strolls the Augusta Canal with the beautiful Savannah River in view. You know how spectacular fall colors and water scenes can be so go…

This afternoon the temperatures dropped enough for work outside to become “feasible.” Not ideal in any sense of the word simply feasible. Add to that this cough, sinus drainage, and a mild case of pink eye and you would think I would just stay indoors and rest. Not so for this dedicated (or dumb) gardener! My oldest daughter accompanied me…

Some days it’s good to go outside and stare off into the cosmos. As you gaze you begin to wonder what’s out there in the cosmos? Is there life to be found somewhere out in the cosmos? Not here, but we’ll keep looking. Maybe here, we should look a little closer… What do we have here? There is definitely something…

Spring weather is at best fickle. One day it’s warm and sunny with temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s then next day the weather forecasters are bringing up the “S” word – SNOW! We didn’t have any of the white stuff thankfully. Sometimes I suspect that there’s a fair amount of weather sensationalism out there where bringing it up certain…

This summer I finally went out and bought my own rain barrel to install on our house. I’ve been looking for a long time for food grade barrels to make my own but they seem to be increasingly hard to find as the idea of converting them into rain barrels is becoming increasingly popular. I found this Fiskars Rain Barrel…

Herb Garden Layout I’ve been debating on exactly what kind of herb garden to implement and after making up some rough sketches of various ideas on paper I decided to throw this basic design together. It has a somewhat formal look yet should be relatively easy to maintain. I was considering trying to do a knot herb garden but that…

This is the first year in our garden that I’m trying corn. Last year we didn’t have the space but since we expanded the garden this year with my newest layout I have an 8’x10′ area for corn. I’m planting it in succession.  The first part is planting a small square of corn. Squares are efficient for corn because corn…

At least for these plants! This time of year it’s simply amazing how lush and green all the plants are. Green happens to the be subject of the latest Gardening Gone Wild Photo Contest. This morning I went out and took a few pictures of the greenery around the garden that might be contest worthy. Here’s a look at a…

Newly formed Oak Leaf Hydrangea leaves stretch skyward as if they were hands imploring the coming cold temperatures to be gentle.

The days have once again become cold and wet. The beautiful spring like days we had in early March have been replaced (temporarily) with winter like cold and drizzle – ugh. It’s definitely disappointing for the gardener but spring is right around the corner. I can’t wait to see the sun but the wet and soggy days are ideal for…

Now here is a cool list of trees for those who may like to bring a bit of the Smokey Mountains into their landscape. On the Great Smokey Mountains National Park website they have published a list of all the trees in the park and even included the non-native ones denoted with an asterisk. What I find interesting is where…

Middle Tennessee and much of the south is expected to receive a freeze tonight.  We all know how damaging a freeze could be and we have no to look no further back than 2007 to see the results.  That year many gardeners lost trees like Japanese maples and crape myrtles due to the flow of sap in the trunks freezing…

This past weekend I put together a small corner shade garden. We have a garden spot on one side of our house that only receives 3-4 hours of morning sun per day. We thought that the spot would be a perfect candidate for a shade garden. When I think of shade gardens I think of foliage. Colorful flowers don’t come…

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…

Our front sidewalk garden has always been a tricky thing. I plant the plants I like there but I’ve rarely given consideration to other people who walk down the sidewalk which is becoming problematic. It’s a problem because of two things: many of the plants I plant attract pollinators (which doesn’t bother me a bit but does bother those who…

The last several days Mother Nature and I have had an interesting relationship. There were times when we’ve gotten along but other times are far from a friendly! Take for instance Thursday morning when I was laying bricks in the shed.  I had just finished with the second wheelbarrow load of bricks and returned to the brick pile to get…

Isn’t this just a pretty tomato? This is one of the new varieties of vegetables I’m trying this year in the vegetable garden. Cherokee purple is an heirloom tomato that actually has a Tennessee origin. In 1990 man in Sevierville, TN named John Green sent a package with an unnamed tomato variety to Craig LeHoullier in Pennsylvania. According to Green…