Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

The vegetable garden is finally taking off! Even though it feels like things have been moving slowly, we’re already seeing exciting progress — tomato plants are starting to flower, and our pepper plants are showing off their first baby peppers. This year, I planted around 36–38 tomato plants of various types and a generous amount of both sweet and hot…

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…

You’ve probably heard of adding lime to soil.  Farmers and lawn experts recommend it frequently to add to gardens and lawns to help your plants grow, but why? Why should you use lime for your tomatoes? What is Lime? Lime is calcium carbonate.  Which leads us to one easy answer for why it might help tomatoes – to combat blossom…

Featured in today’s photo post are two types of gaillardia, ‘Oranges and Lemons’ as well as offspring of ‘Oranges and Lemons’!  The offspring gaillardia is more of the typical gaillardia (Blanket flower) with the dark red flower petals highlighted with yellow on the tips.  It’s a beautiful flower that starts blooming and doesn’t quit until the frosts come.  Both gaillardias…

Over at Clay and Limestone Gail celebrates the diversity of native plants with Wildflower Wednesday so I thought I would join in this week to share a few of the native plants I’ve run across over the past week.  Let’s start with a shrub!  This is what I believe to be a gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa).  It has white clusters…

There really is more in my garden than tomatoes, really! I know, the one vegetable I talk about the most is the tomato but I do try to diversify my garden. I dabble with the herbs, I really dig ornamentals, but you might also say I like a mean melon. Unfortunately this year my melons haven’t been as perfect as…

It’s January but if you are like me you’ve been rapidly perusing the seed catalogs about as fast as they come in looking for new and exciting plants for this year. It seems that each day a new plant catalog comes in the mail and I see all kinds of plants that I’d love to have in my garden, but…

October is always a fun time of the year.  Fall festivals are in full swing, the leaves are changing, the weather is more cooperative for gardening, and of course there’s Halloween.  We don’t typically decorate much around here for Halloween.  Part of it is the difficulty of managing a whole lot of decorating with four kids running around and all…

When the opportunity presents itself I take cuttings. Who am I kidding? I make the opportunity to take cuttings! When I successfully get a new plant to root it’s like finding gold. OK, not really, but it really does save a few dollars. Think about it for a second, if a perennial at the store costs $6 but instead you…

Fall color is still around but you may have to look beyond the foliage. The berries presently on display are like a natural nod to the holiday season. Check out the berry good post below! (Sorry, I just had to make the pun!) Chris over at Garden Sense has really enjoyed the fall color this year! This week’s fall color…

It is full fledged spring around our Middle Tennessee garden.  There is no shortage of work that needs to be done in the form of weeding and mulching on top of a myriad of miscellaneous projects.  For now though let’s just take a few pictures of the garden and we’ll think of that monster spring to-do list a little later….

Here is the beginning of a running tally of vegetables we collect from the garden. I’ve noticed that several other garden bloggers are doing similar vegetable counts and it’s just too cool of an idea to pass up! Hopefully I can keep it updated on a daily basis. Keeping track of the total vegetable crop should be a good way…

This post is a little bit of a Hodge-podge of topics. A conglomeration of a couple of interesting things and one maybe no so much for you (but something I can whine warn you about!) Sunrise This morning we had a gorgeous sunrise that highlighted the early morning clouds.  I snapped I picture from our upstairs bathroom window. It’s a…

Wilted ‘Oranges and Lemons’ Gaillardia As most of you already know the weather here has been abysmal. Temperatures have been in the mid to upper 90’s frequently with little rain to cool things off or water the plants. In most cases I’ve let the plants fend for themselves. Many are drought resistant/tolerant and should come out OK in the end…

In my last post I told you how to begin planning for an edible landscape and how to determine what to grow. Today let’s examine what elements you need to incorporate into the plan.  With an edible landscape we need to focus on one thing: sustainability.  Sustainability is a word used a lot these days and for our gardening goals…

Today I thought I would show you the before and after since yesterday I teased you on the details of the front porch garden remodel. It’s current state is still classified in the unfinished category but it is well on its way to becoming a welcoming front porch garden. First let me show you the before pictures: The crabapple is…

An important thing to consider on your way to developing an edible landscape is how you want to grow your plants.  What growing system do you want to use? As part of your plan you will need to figure out how you want to structure your garden and the growing system you choose can provide that structure. There are several…

With the rise of gardening in America lots of people new to gardening are taking up trowels and digging in the dirt. Some people are just returning to gardening while others are trying for the first time. Here is just a little advice for those starting off to help you along. 1. Start Small. Don’t bite off more than you…