Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Yesterday was a day of many minor accomplishments. The sky was overcast but no rain came down while I worked out in the yard. I managed to attack several nagging chores that needed done. While I work I always try to look around and take some mental notes of things that need done and what’s happening in the garden. Here’s…

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…

Whether you want to learn more about growing bell peppers, banana peppers, or hot spicy peppers there are a few things you need to know! Peppers are a popular vegetable among home gardeners, prized for all kinds of vibrant colors, flavors, and great nutritional benefits. Peppers are absolutely one of my favorite vegetable garden plants to grow. Here is some…

Today we have three more submissions for the Garden Blogger Fall Color Project! Nancy in Canada, TC in Pennsylvania and Liisa in Vermont.Take a road north to visit the wonderful fall colors in Nova Scotia with Nancy of Soliloquy. Canada is where the fall colors start their colorful journey to the south and we are lucky to have Nancy to…

The foliage is still there on some if the trees and shrubs in our garden and is fading fast. Most of what remains now has a reddish hue in the leaves but in some cases what remains isn’t just the leaves. The ‘Shasta’ viburnum is showing red in the last few of it’s remaining leaves. In my garden it’s the…

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

A little more guessing fun on this first day of winter! Do you know this evergreen tree with the black berries? I’ll give you a hint – I’ve written about it before! No links – that would be too easy! No rhymes either – that would be too cheesy! Oops… Yesterday’s post “What Seeds are We?” were the  seeds of the…

In the fall there are several iconic thoughts that spring to mind of most people. Cool crisp days evoke good feelings and memories created around fall festivals, apple cider, holidays, and other fall activities. One way to share the fall experience with your family is to add a backyard fire pit. What could be better than a cool crisp evening…

It’s that time of year again!  The end of the old and the beginning of the new.  It’s at this time of year that I like to review my project list to see how well I accomplished my goals.  Every year I come up with a list of projects I hope to complete in my garden then review it at the…

Over the weekend I spent about 30 minutes piecing together a cold frame to do some hardwood cuttings.  The process for building a cold frame is very similar to building a raised bed.  I used some old pressure treated lumber that used to belong to a deck, an old storm door without the glass, and a couple 4″x4″ scrap pieces…

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…

Once your plants have rooted they need potted up or planted. In most cases I will pot up the newly rooted cuttings to help them grow stronger and more established root systems before planting in the garden. Potting up cuttings is a very simple process but there are a few small things to keep in mind. For information on growing…

The recent snowstorm here in Tennessee has given us some very nice images.  I showed some of the images from some ornamental grasses and other plants a couple days ago but here are a few from around my still incomplete greenhouse shed project. The trees behind the greenhouse are covered in ice making them appear made of crystal.    Icicles…

Have you ever wondered “How in the world do I keep the squirrels from emptying out our birdfeeders?” It’s a common problem that so many of us have while trying to feed our fine feathered friends. We spend all kinds of money adding seed to the feeders to feed the birds only to have it thrown all around on the…

I’ve always thought that in order to have a garden with year round interest some plants need to be planted in every season. The plants you see in the nurseries are typically presented in their prime season (unless you are talking vegetables in which case they could be out several weeks before you should plant them!) and if you plant…

Welcome to Tennessee where spring comes early, leaves again, comes back, leaves again and repeats that process until April! We really have about 4-8 different “Winters.” Somewhere along the way to springtime we are blessed with a bounty of blooms that brighten moods while the long awaited anticipation of the start of the gardening season is almost at it’s end….

Here’s look at where I’m at with my cobblestone patio project. It’s still not quite finished but I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s been a couple weeks since my last update on the patio and my progress has been very intermittent. Last week I woke up on Wednesday morning nearly immobilized with a terrible…

Since changing my URL to www.growingthehomegarden.com from thehomegarden.blogspot.com over the summer I’ve realized that I have been under-utilizing my fancy new domain name. There’s this whole concept of subdomains that can fit right in with your main domain that can really enable blogs to branch out in different directions, which is what I’m in the process of working on right…