Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

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…

Every weekend is a busy weekend in the garden. At least until the July heat comes sometime in June. No I didn’t misspeak, it gets very hot in Tennessee around the mid to late parts June, but that’s getting way ahead since spring has barely gotten here. For now though the temperatures on a sunny day are fantastic! Warm but…

One of my goals this year is to add more herbs to the gardens (not just the vegetable garden). Herbs have many different characteristics that can make the attractive as well as useful.Basil (Ocimum basilicum)Last year I became painfully aware that after making a delicious batch of pesto that we were out of fresh basil and it was the end…

This time of year the bones of my become very exposed. The deciduous leaves of most of my plants have fallen and blown away on the wind to reveal the stone and structures that lay underneath. It’s a good time to evaluate how the stone in the garden fits. Here is one of my dry creek beds that helps to…

In a couple days I hope to be picking some of our first squash from the garden. Squash is one of those prolific plants that will produce for long periods of time as long as you do the right thing to it help it along. It likes to be picked on repeatedly. In fact squash peters out when the fruits…

Last year we designed, built, and grew our first vegetable garden in our new home. The garden was made of two large beds that were subdivided into 3 smaller conjoined beds in an “L” shape. Unfortunately the vegetable garden layout we designed was built more around aesthetics than around function. Since then I’ve realized something: When designing vegetable gardens think…

The Corner Shade Garden – April is when it all gets seriously growing. It’s not completely full of hosta foliage since the season has really just begun but as the days pass, the plants will grow, and the garden will fill in very nicely! Looking at the corner shade garden through the arbor you can see a Japanese maple that…

Our first group of irises has just started to bloom.  The iris blooms are coming much later than last year due to the cold temperatures that have pushed everything back about nearly a month.  There are a just a couple types of iris here in my garden including the tall bearded irises, the Dutch irises, and some Siberian irises like…

Now wouldn’t this be cool to have in the yard? No not the gnomes, the green roof! I took this picture last year at the Bloom’N Garden Expo in Williamson County last year. It’s a great example of nature and man working together to make something good for both. Green roofs are catching on all over because they help to…

This spring I bought this pineapple sage at a garden show fully expecting it to thrive and burst into colorful red blooms. Well I can say one thing, it is thriving!  For some reason the blooms are just now beginning to form despite it growing to a size of about three and a half feet round.  It has nearly overtaken…

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…

To say that this month has been difficult is an understatement. My time in the garden has been minimal and its current state is more akin to a wild meadow (and that’s being kind) than a well tended garden at the moment. Fortunately we still have some very reliable blooming flowers to show for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day. I’ve included…

Yesterday we attended the Bloom’N Garden Expo at the Williamson County Agricultural Exposition. Center. It was fun to go to an event with so many garden related vendors. I spoke to the people at our local garden club, we visited a booth that was sponsored by a wildlife rescue group, and saw many many plants and other displays at the…

I found these little insects today resting and munching on our Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly weed). They are known as milkweed bugs or Oncopeltus fasciatus. According to the University of Arizona Extension the milkweed bugs feed on: Seeds and tissue of the milkweed plant (Asclepias spp.). In captivity, the bugs feed on shelled sunflower seeds. I’m trying to figure out the…

Wednesday was full of randomness, although it wasn’t all gardening.  A little bird watching, a little gardening, and a little bit of house stuff all rolled together to make a Wednesday. The day started with a trip to the home improvement store.  Not for gardening stuff this time but for painting materials.  A bathroom in our house needs redone so…

Tuesday’s task was twofold: purchase and plant a nifty new dogwood and also transplant three migrating arborvitaes from a friend’s garden to my yard. It was a busy afternoon but the mission was accomplished after some hard labor. The dogwood I picked out was a ‘Constellation’ dogwood which is a hybrid of Cornus kousa and Cornus florida. Because of the…

I have a fondness for fall color. I think we all do this time of year. We like seeing the transition of green to gold or red and oranges. There’s a little bit of a feeling of closure that begins to come to us through the fall. That the end of one chapter is almost here and soon we will…

Every now and then I take a look around the Gardening Blogosphere to see if there are any new Tennessee Bloggers. And every now and then I find a few! Of course I have to thank Gail of Clay and Limestone for finding DP at Squarefoot Gardening. One of the great things about garden blogging is that each gardener has…