Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

When gift giving holidays are upon us (and happen during the growing season) I like to find gifts that can be planted in the ground and will give back the pleasure of the first gift many times over. I did that again this year with Valentine’s Day. My usual gift to my wife is the sweetly scented hyacinth.  The flowers…

Yes you read the title right. My greenhouse shed project is mostly screwed. Rather than use nails to hold everything together we’re using coated deck screws as they tend to hold things much better and if you mess something up it’s easier to fix!  The three disadvantages of this is it takes longer, the drill eventually runs out of power…

It’s Sunday and another family wedding is complete! The happy couple said their vows yesterday before the thunderstorm arrived. Since the wedding was outdoors at my mother-in-law’s house it was fortunate that the rains only came during the reception that followed. Rather than talk too much I’ll show you the results of our wedding preparations.Here is the arbor with the…

I’m waiting on my garden.  Everything is growing nicely (except for plants that got eaten by the deer but taht’s another story).  Tomatoes are hanging on the plants, peppers are growing profusely, eggplants are putting on flowers, but everything has been slow to ripen!  It’s frustrating but that is just part of the art of gardening. We have to wait….

There’s no rhyme or reason to the pictures in this post. It’s all random and just for fun! Or does saying that give it a theme or a reason? Hmm…. Verbena bonairensis beginning the process of reseeding in the self-sowing garden. Celosia in the reseeding garden! The front garden on October. I’ve noticed that this year there is a definite…

The weather in Tennessee is extremely volatile this time of year.  One day it could be in the 70’s (as it was today) and then the next day it could be a 40 degree high (as it is predicted for tomorrow!) This makes it a challenge to garden in the spring time.  There are a few things you can do…

Among many garden chores that come in spring perhaps the biggest is the trimming of the ornamental grasses. Trimming back perennials can be time consuming but the ornamental grasses can be a bear. It’s not the tiny little hair-like strands of the Nassella tenuissima (Ponytail grass), or the tall and narrow ‘Karl Foerster’ Feather Reed Grasses. The panicums aren’t a…

Here you can find links to my posts about building a rain garden.The First Step to RecoveryDigging the Rain GardenWorking on the Rain GardenThe Rain Garden is Almost DonePlanting the Rain Garden(still to come)

Do you want an easy to grow shrub that has very few pest problems, isn’t munched on by deer or rabbits, and looks great at the end of summer? No it’s not impossible, think caryopteris! Caryopteris (Caryopteris x clandonensis also called blue mist shrub, bluebeard, or blue mist spirea) is deer and rabbit resistant if not proof, blooms in the…

A few weeks ago I happened to be in an antique store (I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming!) when I stumbled across this rusted old candle holder. It was only 5 dollars and I thought that it had some potential. If I cleaned it up and repainted it I could put it on our front porch during the growing…

The garden is gearing up for growth are you ready?  Have you prepared the garden and gotten everything set to grow?  I haven’t but the warm weather is going to be here this weekend and I’ll be making some headway into my garden’s preparation.  When to prepare the garden varies depending on where you live but several of these tasks…

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…

I hope you have had a fantastic week in the garden and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! I hope you have a wonderful day today! For this post I wanted to simply sum up what went on the garden this week. Most of the content this week was on my YouTube Channel which you can subscribe to here:…

Fall is fast approaching.  No matter how much we may wish to pause time and reap our summer garden harvest we have to start thinking about the fall garden.  This weekend I redid and rebuilt one of my garden beds to update it for fall crops.  If you’ve followed me for a while you may remember the raised circular garden…

If you are like me, you may have never given your wheelbarrow much thought. It really is a gardener’s best friend. This garden companion is with you in all seasons and through all manner of tasks. The poor little guy is taken for granted yet never complains and always does the job. Often it isn’t until the morning after that…

Since my garden shed’s construction was complete my updates have been less frequent. OK it’s not really complete yet but the physical structure is finished. (Feel free to check out the YouTube slideshow on the shed’s construction) There is a huge list of things I would like to add or improve on the shed and over time I’ll be tackling…

Last year I wrote a post called 10 Easy Plants to Propagate for Your Home Garden. Picking only 10 is a challenge when there are so many out there that the average home gardener can have fun with so here are six more that I’ve found to be easy to propagate in my garden. Caryopteris – I have several of…

Yesterday I watched and shared this video from Quiet Creek Farms and the Penn State Extension Service on the Growing The Home Garden Facebook page.  The video has some great techniques for seed starting including a recipe for their seed starting soil.  It has a business slant geared toward developing a CSA but the techniques described are very usable in…