Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I’ll simply title this next picture the off-season. If you garden, you know exactly what I mean! The leftovers of an Echinacea purpurea (Purple coneflower) seed head after the birds have visited.

Last year I put together the circular raised bed in my vegetable garden.  It’s in the center of the garden layout which is in the parterre style garden layout I planned last year.  Of course my plans are changing a little this year too.  It never fails, the only thing I don’t change in my garden is the fact that…

Last year I embarked on a quest to start my own nursery business.  One of my dreams for a long time has been to own my own nursery and I began putting plans together around a couple business ideas that I could do from home.  I researched all over the internet to find resources and advice on how to start…

The other day I was contacted by the folks at Workman Publishing. They had a new book that they wanted someone to look at so I said I’d be happy to check it out. The book is The Garden Primer: Second Edition by Barbara Damrosch. Some of you may be familiar with the original version of this gardening manual that…

Some plants just really know how to grow! Take this Ajuga reptans (Bugleweed) that I planted in my corner shade garden area last fall for instance. I had one plant that I divided into two and planted on either side of a large stepping stone. Those two plants have now become all those that you see in the picture below….

Building a new potting bench has been on my mind for at least a year. When we moved here I threw together a makeshift potting bench that cost me nothing in materials out of an old palette and some scrap lumber. It did well for what it was but I decided that this year I would upgrade. I used many…

From my window I can see my homemade compost bin, unfinished as it is, with our poor ole jack-o-lantern resting its big orange head on the grass clippings from my last mowing. That relic of a Halloween come and gone will come around again next year in some way. Either as broken down black gold or in the seeds that…

Marigolds are beautiful annual flowers that are great to plant in the garden for a number of reasons. They attract pollinators and beneficial insects while at the same time providing benefits for companion planting. Marigolds are extremely easy to grow and you can save the seed from them each year to start again year after year. Here’s more about growing…

A shade garden just isn’t a shade garden without plants right? So what plants should get planted in a deer proof garden? Oops I said proof again. Nothing is 100% proof against a deer. Resistant is a better word. So let’s try this again.  What kind of plants should be planted in a deer resistant shade garden?  Surprisingly there are…

One of my goals this “offseason” (as if there ever really is!) is to maintain a constant supply of fresh basil from November to April. I could do this by simply planting a sequential crop of basil seeds every couple months. This will work but I have an easier way! Basil is one of those nifty plants that grows roots…

This afternoon my daughter and I were out in the garden doing a few tasks that needed tackled: we planted potatoes and filled in a raised bed with soil. We brought a bucket of water with us and stuck newspapers in the wet water before laying them over the grass clippings in the raised bed (you can see a picture…

Once you have your seedlings growing strong and you’ve properly hardened them off (more on that next week) it is time to plant your seedlings in the garden.  But where should you plant them?  It may seem like a given that you’ll just go out and stick them in a hole and watch them grow, but it’s not always that…

This week my daughter and I put together a couple more raised beds in the garden. They aren’t exactly what I planned to do in the vegetable garden layout that I made a couple months ago but the addition of the extra beds has definitely improved over the layout I had last year, at least in terms of space. They…

Being mid-November there isn’t much to show for blooms. We’ve had several light frosts and a couple hard freezes which for the most part silences the perennials and annuals that worked so hard for us during the growing season. But there is always something worth looking at in the garden! Like these pansies in the front garden. The salvia by…

This winter has been cold and nothing if not unpredictable. Here in Tennessee we’re experiencing a warm day every now and then followed by extreme cold. Hopefully now that March has arrived and spring is close things will be shaping up very soon. With that in mind I put together a project that will help me to get a jump…

With fall almost here it’s time to start thinking about gardening chores and the task that most people have to do in some way is deal with the leaves. What do you do with the leaves is an important question. For way too long many people have burned them which to me is the worst possible way to dispose of…

Neglected is possibly the worst word you could use to describe a garden. It happens for many different reasons but the result is the same: weeds growing unkempt and uncontrolled while plantings get covered. It is quite possibly the most frustrating thing a gardener has to deal with but deal with it he or she must…eventually. As I write this…

The weather this weekend was perfect. You can’t say that much here in July but it was just plain perfect. I hope you got to enjoy it as much as I did! I hope you enjoy a looking at a few pictures from the weekend! Salvia ‘Black and Blue’ and Zinnias Moonflower vine climbing the front porch.’Silver Mound’ Artemisia