Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

It seems to me, and maybe you feel the same, that a day is not complete without some time spent outdoors. Even if all you do is walk around and look at the garden or take a walk down the street that time is invaluable. Today I went around the yard looking at the garden, the greenhouse project, the deck,…

I’m still playing in the dirt with seedlings! Aren’t you? This week I was excited to see some of my recent plantings begin to emerge from the soil. What is really cool about seed starting is the variety of plants you could potentially grow. Almost anything is possible! It’s also very cool when the plants are shared from another gardener….

Another part of our back yard patio project was fixing up the deck. I suppose you could almost call this project more of a backyard remodel. In my last post I showed you a step/landing I built to bridge the gap between our patio and the deck. Today’s post is all about (and around) the deck. In the picture below…

If you’re looking for a versatile, wildlife-friendly shrub with four-season appeal, Viburnum nudum absolutely deserves a spot in your garden. Commonly called possumhaw viburnum, raisin tree, or witherod viburnum, this native plant brings glossy green leaves, colorful fall foliage, and clusters of berries that both birds and pollinators love. Best of all, viburnums are great a native replacement for many…

Summer is the peak time for tomatoes which makes it the perfect time for tantalizing tomato talk! I’m pretty excited about this particular tomato that my wife selected from the Baker’s Creek Catalog last winter. I’m talking about ‘Woodle Orange’! It’s a funny name and prior to reading it in the catalog I had never heard of it before. Because…

No you’re not having a bad 80’s flashback. The word rad in the title doesn’t refer to big hair glam bands or jelly shoes but rather radishes! How could you even think of the other stuff? The radishes are in from the vegetable garden and are quite tasty.Here’s the bunch I pulled today. There are still a few more in…

Many people find The Home Garden in search of gardening tips so I thought today I would oblige all the seekers of garden tips with a post all about and only about garden tips! Garden Tip #1:  Daffodil Tips! Garden Tip #2Compost is good – Use it! Make it!Keep a compost pile in the backyard to get rid of your…

One of the tasks I accomplished last week on the greenhouse garden shed was to complete most of the siding on the backside. It was a complicated task due to many little cuts and some creative problem solving that was involved. One of the issues was with the “secret door.” I wanted the backdoor where my mower will enter the…

First of all let me apologize, I intended to announce the winner of the grill yesterday however I was out battening down the hatches in preparation for storms of epic proportions.  Fortunately the storms did not manifest to the extent our local forecasters predicted.  That is just fine by me! Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Arkansas and…

It is officially fall and we all know what that means – its time for the Fall Color Project! Every year I encourage bloggers to use Growing The Home Garden as a hub to share the peak colors in their area.  Fall color is different every year and in every area.  There is no way a person can see it…

It’s a little hard to see the changes that have happened over the last two years but I was looking through the pictures back in 2008 and was amazed on how much has changed. A maple tree in the back is twice as large now, the vegetable garden has been redesigned and now has plants around the outside of it,…

Rooted Cuttings – Potted up Perhaps I should have titled this post “Here’s What I Potted Up Today” but rooting is more exciting don’t you think? Anyway this morning I potted several different kinds of cuttings that I’ve been propagating inside the house. This isn’t the end of the propagation process since they still need to grow stronger root systems…

It isn’t often I have a product to test in my garden where I actually say “Holy crap, this is awesome!” when no one else is around. Really. Products that good are really hard to come by because I’m fairly picky. A few weeks ago I was sent two items from Fiskars to try out. For disclaimer purposes I was…

Parsley for me used to be that thing on the side of my plate at restaurants. I didn’t think much about it and it seemed like a useless garnish. Today though I appreciate parsley in a number of dishes and in the garden. Parsley is a very good plant to have mixed together with your garden vegetables. Here is an…

Technically my title is completely incorrect!  We did have snow in January and February but this is the first snowfall of the coming winter season.  And technically this isn’t even officially winter yet.  I’m just breaking all the rules for this post! I’m going wild! Anyway…yesterday we had a light snowfall.  It was the kind of snow that was so…

I’ve written before about propagating Husker’s Red Penstemon (Penstemon digitalis) but thanks to a garden club friend of mine I learned a new method to propagate them. She was talking to Rita Randolph of Randolph Greenhouses who passed on this little trick that I’m about to share with you. It is as easy as it gets! Here’s How to Propagate…

Sometimes you don’t really know where your garden is going to go.  Impulse plants or bargain plants can shape the type plants you put in, the kind of plant can determine where it goes, or you may even move plants to place them in better locations, but this notion of outside forces shaping your garden doesn’t just pertain to plants. …

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…