Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I always enjoying seeing spider webs in the garden. It means there is some natural pest control happening! Anything interesting come out of your garden lately?

Here is the current list of seeds I have started so far. Only a few seedlings have popped up but more will come. It is still early and conditions outside are just now starting to warm up. I’m starting them in the garage under the cover of my mini-greenhouse and some plastic containers turned upside down as propagators. Spending $5.00…

Talk about a great use of an old factory space. These two green roof gardeners took the roof of a bagel factory and turned it into a vegetable garden. It’s a very cool idea! Go take a look at the Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn!

It hardly seems to me that spring had even started before it was gone.  This growing season has gone by so quickly, or maybe I’m just getting too busy!  Unfortunately the garden has been through some rough times.  Drought and unbelievable record heat have crippled gardening in many ways from killing plants to keeping gardener’s with common sense indoors (although…

Even in winter gardeners in Tennessee need to keep up with the weeds.  Cool season weeds like chickweed and henbit can easily take over while you aren’t watching your garden beds.  I actually like the look of henbit in the lawn but not in the garden beds.  If you have a warm winter day get out there and do a…

It’s that time of year when we’re all struggling to come up with great ideas to give our favorite people. I’ve always found that the best gifts are those that you can use on an almost daily basis. A couple years ago at Christmas I was given an iron skillet. I thought for second “wow, an iron skillet.” It certainly…

Yesterday I asked people what varieties of vegetables they would recommend from their own experiences.  My goal is to add a few new vegetables each year just to try something new.  Some vegetables are tried and true and will always be in my garden but there are so many types of vegetables out there that I know I will never…

This post is a post I’ve been dreading.  Mainly because this year has been tough, probably the toughest I’ve ever had to live through.  My garden projects fell by the wayside.  My projects and ambitions just didn’t matter when compared to the situations that the course of life brought us through.  But we’re getting through things, day by day.  I…

Last week I made some cuttings of my ‘Concord’ grape vine in an attempt to make a few more vines. Grapes are great edible plants to have in the garden whether you like eating them at the table, making juice, or even making wine.  Grapes enjoy a full sun location. Here’s how to propagate grapes from greenwood cuttings. How to…

While wasps certainly are a normal part of nature and serve an important function we don’t always want to be around them.  Wasp stings can be quite painful and some people even have adverse reactions to their sting (as I can attest to, see the post on my swollen foot – not for the squeamish!)  Removing wasps from an area…

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…

The blue berries I’m about to show aren’t from any blueberry bush but are from the Arrowwood viburnum!  This viburnum is one of my favorites (but really, I think all viburnums are my favorites).  Viburnum dentatum has white flowers that appear in spring and are a great source of nectar for bees and butterflies.  The glossy green leaves persist until…

Today is the day. The day when the challenge is evaluated by friends, family, and fellow bloggers through online voting at BHG.com and I need your help to win. The projects have been done and everyone has done a fantastic job by bringing us slick porch remodels, an elegant potting bench, a cool barbecue cart, and my personal favorite: a…

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….

Trees are the anchors of our landscapes. They enrich the soil, provide oxygen, offer shelter and food for wildlife, and deliver incredible seasonal beauty. My goal is to diversify our property by replacing invasive plants with a variety of beautiful, beneficial trees and shrubs. In two of my more recent videos, I discussed planting over ten different types of tree…

Over the weekend our family visited Bountiful Blessings Farm here in Middle TN.  Bountiful Blessings is in the Williamsport area about 30-40 minutes away from where we live here in Spring Hill. The big draw for us was the strawberries.  My mom gave us a couple pints of strawberries from their farm about 2 weeks ago and they were so…

I hope you’ll forgive this little divergence from the garden talk to brag on my oldest little girl. She just turned 4 today and here’s how we spent our time after dinner: Groovy Baby! And now for the ice cream shots! Yum!

Over the last two months life has thrown many curveballs that have beaned the batter on numerous occasions. You would think that I’d be making some runs here or there but unfortunately I seem to be getting out at third every time. What does this baseball analogy have to do with anything? Well sometimes we get taken away from what…