Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

It’s been days since we’ve seen any sign of the sun. He was back today and even a little yesterday. I don’t think I’m alone in missing my friend the sun, am I?

This past weekend while the weather was looking pretty close to awesome we re-made the roof window on my greenhouse shed. The first attempt was leaking in a couple small spots which prompted me to re-think the whole design before the project was too far along. I found out while I was removing the first attempt that if I had…

A couple weeks ago I was sent a copy of William Woys Weaver’s Heirloom Vegetable Gardening from Mother Earth News. I’m always excited to get more information on a favorite subject of mine, vegetables! The book was first published in 1997 and is now available on CD. Unfortunately you don’t get the tactile sensation of reading a book on paper…

I’ve been looking back at my photo albums lately.  Looking back at old photos helps to get a perspective of where the garden is going by remembering where it’s been.  I can see how effective my efforts are at developing a garden, how much things have grown, and remember old plants I might not have anymore.  While perusing the photos…

There are some plants that are tricky to propagate but stevia isn’t one of them! In fact stevia is very easy to root from cuttings. Read on to learn more about propagating stevia from cuttings! Why Would You Want to Propagate Steve from Cuttings? Stevia rebaudiana is an herb often used as a substitute sweetener for sugar.  It isn’t reliably…

This summer heat, humidity, and assorted family issues have kept me behind in most of my goals.  One of which was expanding the side border garden so that the caryopteris wasn’t completely absorbing the whole area. I tend to take a more conservative approach to pruning my caryopteris and consequently I didn’t prune them back enough this spring. They responded…

It that transitional time of the growing season where the spring weeds are coming to an end and the warm season weeds are beginning to arrive.  This time of year is also when many of our warm season crops and plants are coming up too.  Sometimes it isn’t easy to distinguish between a weed and a seedlings planted from seed…

Maybe you’ve heard of this already or maybe you’ve seen it in the stores yourself but Triscuit is promoting the “home farming” movement. It’s an interesting idea that backyard gardeners have been doing for many many years. Simply put home farming is growing your own food in the home garden. While gardening may be an all inclusive term to describe…

I put together a short slideshow of the greenhouse pictures I’ve taken since beginning the project. They start in August with pictures of the site and end with the greenhouse’s current state (in December 2009). I hope you enjoy the look back!

So what can you do while it’s under 20 degrees outside and you are stuck inside but still want to do something garden related? Extract seeds from ornamental peppers! That probably wasn’t the first thing on your mind but it works for me! Extracting the seeds from these ‘Black Pearl’ ornamental peppers was one of those small items on my…

Yesterday the weather was great so I went outside to tinker and putter around. Tinkering and puttering is just when you look for little things to do that don’t take a lot of time but you need or want to get done. Here’s what I did:I trimmed the ornamental grasses down. They were looking pretty ragged and since they never…

We all know that Christmas is on it’s way and the gift buying season has commenced! Fortunately gardeners are easy to please with presents! Just find them something they can use in the garden and they will be thrilled! Below are some easy gift ideas for gardeners that you can use to give those with green thumbs something for Christmas!…

If you are like me I didn’t know the answer to that question a couple years ago. It’s a strange concept when you stop to think about it. How can you claim sole proprietorship for something that is alive? It seems strange but when you consider it more it can begin to make sense.First of all what exactly is a…

For today’s issue of Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day I can actually share with you some very nice flowers all thanks to the recent rains. The extra water perked up enough of the garden for it to be almost perfectly presentable just in time for the 15th of July. I hope you enjoy them as much as this happily buzzing bee…

I’ll continue with the Seed Starting 101 Series tomorrow but I thought I would use today’s post to share with you a related project. Recently I purchased a seedling heatmat that I’ve been testing in the garage to see how seedlings will grow out there.  The results have been pretty good so far with good germination rates for kale, chard,…

It’s been a while since I posted about the corner shade garden.  Last year it really wasn’t anything to write about, it was a mess.  I neglected it due to other issues and now comes the time when I need to get it back into shape.  A year of neglect in the garden can mean a lot of work later…

I successfully rooted a Florida dogwood (Cornus florida) from a cutting! This is a tree that’s been tricky in the past for me to propagate, and I finally had some success I think is worth sharing. In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly what worked, step-by-step instructions for how to root flowering dogwood cuttings yourself, and some tips and…

I’ve been a fan of oak leaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia) for a long time. The large oak shaped leaves and white flowering panicles are two of its best traits but in the fall its color changes are very nice too. The leaves change through a range of colors from the year round greens to the autumn golds and reds. Our…