Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Last year I began what will become an annual tradition of laying out all the garden projects I plan to work on for the year. This way you can get an idea what I’ll be getting myself into even if I don’t! Last year’s list changed as I went through the year and inevitably this one will too. Sometimes projects…

We’re in full fledged spring garden mode here in Tennessee. What does that mean you ask? Everything is blooming or budding. While allergy sufferers dread this time of year it still remains my favorite. I love the bright green colored grass as it comes up fresh from the earth. I love the play of the colors in my yard. My…

“Blame it on the rain, yeah yeah.” OK I apologize for bringing up old Milli Vanilli lyrics, but those words have been going through my head for days and I figured I would share the pain. I’m in a state of depression about my vegetable garden right now and it’s all because of precipitation. This was July and is now…

I just wanted to extend a thank you to the Maury County Master Gardeners for inviting me to speak tonight about plant propagation and cuttings! It’s a fun topic for me and I hope I didn’t ramble too long, apparently I have that tendency (at least Jenny says so!) Thanks again!Dave

A couple weeks ago a representative for DuPont contacted me and asked me to review one of their products. It was a weed control fabric (DuPont Garden O.N.E® Biodegradable Weed Control Fabric). I was skeptical about it at first (since weed control fabrics and myself don’t usually get along) but I said go ahead and send it and I’d take…

One of the more unusual vegetables I am growing this years is the ‘Trombetta’ climbing squash. Its name is derived from the Italian word for bugle or trumpet which is the shape it resembles. ‘Trombetta’ is a climbing squash that when ideally placed has the strong support of an arbor or trellis on which to grow.  The squash itself gets…

Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek at one of my favorite perennials that I decided to try and grow from seed this year, the heuchera! The seeds came from our corner shade garden which contains a small variety of heucheras like ‘Palace Purple’, ‘Mocha’, ‘Melting Fire’, ‘Fireworks’, and a heucherella named ‘Stoplight.’ Even in the winter they keep great…

This post may be a little late in coming but I thought I would talk about how I built my raised beds for my vegetable garden. If you you are interested in learning about the advantages of gardening in raised beds be sure check out my post: The Benefits of Gardening in Raised Beds. This spring I built two large…

You can’t have a greenhouse garden shed without having a place to put the plants can you? I’ve finally gotten far enough along that I can assemble a long plant bench. Since I’ve collected scrap lumber from a variety of projects and people I decided to use that for this first plant bench. As money allows I may upgrade or…

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…

Here is a quick list of things that need done in our June garden.  Keep in mind that we’re located in Spring Hill, TN in a zone 6b-7 area and these chores may not correspond with the growing season in your area.  You’ll need to do many of these tasks too but at different times. Sucker those tomatoes!  Removing the…

I think in many ways March is the busiest month in the garden. So many chores need tackled this time of year from mulching to pruning to planting that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to tackle first! Among the major chores like lawn mower servicing and tree planting there are quite a few little chores.  Like trimming back…

Spring will be here before you now it.  Which means all that fun garden time for us gardeners.  In order to maximize the productivity of your garden and minimize the maintenance required we need a plan.  We need a spring preparation garden plan.  We need a plan of attack to get all those chores done, all those projects mapped out,…

The people at EcoSMART have offered to give away a bundle package containing an eco friendly pesticide and several other of their environmentally friendly products. Included in the bundle is an organic weed killer, a fungicide, garden insect killer and an insect repellent. All you need to do to enter the drawing for the is to post in the comments…

It’s about time! 5 years ago we bought a piece of land only 10 minutes away from where we’ve lived since 2007. We intended to start building the house soon after that but so many things happened that building a home just continued to get postponed. Job changes, life changes, society changes (COVID 19), and quite a few things have…

If you are like me you’ve been scanning the forecast trying to plan out every possible moment you can be outside in the garden! Around here Saturday is supposed to be pretty nice with scattered clouds and no rain coming in until late. And I can’t forget to mention the big 70 that has appeared in the temperature predictions! Since…

While stuck indoors over the last several days because of the cold weather I thought perhaps designing a couple vegetable garden layouts might be a fun use of my time. This particular vegetable garden design fits into the classic parterre layout. A vegetable garden with the parterre garden design would easily lend itself to a good crop rotation plan with…

You’ve probably noticed that there’s a lot of talk these days about self-sufficiency.  People are striving to reduce their impact on the environment by improving how things work.  Self-sufficiency is a great goal to have for your garden as well.  Not only does being self-sufficient help the environment but it makes a cheaper and healthier garden.  Today for the Friday Fives…