Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

One of my greatest gardening pleasures is that of making a new plant, for free!  Well I don’t actually do the work the plant does, but knowing how to give the plant the optimum conditions for rooting is important for success!  The plants I’m listing today for The Friday Fives are easy to propagate plants from cuttings.  In case you…

The gardening adventure is full of ups and downs. Of excitement and disappointments, of frustration and elation. It wouldn’t be exciting any other way I suppose but those low periods sure can be low. Take for instance the deer infultration this week. The vegetable garden is my main concern – I want to eat food from this garden – it…

This weekend found me still digging the greenhouse foundation out. Digging out a 10’x16′ area by yourself takes some time, especially when it rains more often than not. But in gardening, as in life, you take what comes and do the best you can with what you have. In three digging sessions I excavated three 4’x8′ areas to eventually remove…

This time of year there usually isn’t much to see in the garden. Lately we’ve been pounded with rain shower after rain shower. We’ve had so much rain that the Duck River south of us in Columbia is about to crest at 45 ft. which is more than it did in the historic floods we had in 2010. There’s not…

New to our garden this year ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia is proving to be a powerful perennial plant for foliage! I’ve always enjoyed artemisias for the silver foliage and really liked the ‘Silver Mound’ artemisia that we put in the front sidewalk garden so once I found this cultivar at a local nursery I thought I would give it a try….

Mid July finds my garden a little bit rough around the edges. The need for more garden time is always present with gardens needing weeded, the lawn needing mowed and cleaned up, tomatoes that need re-staked, and many other garden chores. It’s not just the lack of garden time though, the weather has played a significant role. No rain for…

Fall web worms (tent caterpillars) appear this time of year but it doesn’t have to be a problem. You don’t need chemical sprays to remove them, just one simple thing – a stick! Use the stick to stab open the caterpillar web to break it open. Give it a twist like you are turning cotton candy at the fair. It’s…

Kids in the garden are funny creatures. Although your kids may be too young to do many of the garden chores that need done it’s important to get them out there not only to learn but to get fresh air. Gardening is an invaluable educational tool because children can learn how to do things, procedures, why things are done a…

Over the weekend I tackled more prep work in the vegetable garden. I’ve already planted several things in the raised beds including onions, potatoes, lettuce, and spinach but planting wasn’t the main weekend task. One of the things I really didn’t like about my vegetable garden is now officially a thing of the past – the grass! In each of…

The garden is coming alive now that February is in full swing.  The extra warm winter is supposed to become much more normal over the next week but that won’t stop our spring growth.  Yesterday I saw the ‘Okame’ cherries beginning to bloom.  Unfortunately I don’t have any here in our garden to show you but it won’t be long…

This week has been eventful. I haven’t been able to post much about the garden due to the happenings here but I did want to catch everyone up on how things are growing.  Here’s a quick update on the garden. The beans are climbing the bamboo trellis I put together.  I gathered it up from a roadside where someone had…

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday this Thanksgiving! Visit well, eat well, and most of all give thanks for all the wonders of life that we take for granted each and every day. I would like to thank everyone who reads this gardening blog for adding something extra to the enjoyment of my favorite pastime! Without the…

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…

Previously in my new series of posts about how to garden on a budget, Thrifty Gardening Tips, I wrote about finding and saving discount plants. After writing that post, I had an urge to go out and look to see what I could find. It was the Thursday before the Fourth of July holiday and I had this feeling that…

While the winter is still in gear I thought it might be helpful to begin reviewing some of the toughest plants I have grown over the years. I’ve grown a lot of them (and killed a few of them along the way). In my garden it has to be a tough plant to survive over the years. Today I’m going…

As a member of the Troy-Bilt Saturday6 I was provided compensation and products to review from Troy-Bilt.  All opinions and statements in this post are of my own observations and experiences. Today though I’d like to share with you my experiences on the Troy-Bilt RZT Mower. The 46″ RZT Mower is a 0-turn mower which allows the rider to quickly…

Do you want to dig a little deeper into the science behind the magical fall colors we see each fall? Or maybe you just want to take a peak at the fall show of a Continus coggygria (Smoke Tree). Either way stop over and visit Joco in the UK at Joco Serious. Joco posted a very detailed and thorough explanation…

You may not believe me but snakes really can be a garden’s (and gardener’s) best friend!  Many people carry a fear of these creatures.  I can understand being afraid of poisonous snakes but the others are quite beneficial.  Yesterday while I was outside near my vegetable garden putting in some outdoor plant shelves (made from old wooden pallets) I moved…