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The Scene Around the Arbor
A couple years ago I was fortunate to participate in the Better Homes and Gardens 48 Hour Blog Challenge. Three other blogs and myself competed with projects subject to online voting to see who would win. The winner took home $5000, unfortunately it wasn’t me but the whole project was fun anyway – and it paid for the arbor! My…
A Garden Blogger Seed Swap
I had an idea a while back that needed a little more refining before I posted on it: A Seed Swap! At first I thought I would just offer a couple types of seed to trade among anyone who follows this blog but then I thought a little bigger. I thought “What if a bunch of garden bloggers hosted their…
Fall Colors From My Garden
The fall color may be winding down across the northern hemisphere but I still haven’t showed you what autumn foliage we’ve seen around here in Southern Middle Tennessee. I hope you will forgive my lateness at my own entry for the Fall Color Project. I’ve taken tons of pictures of our fall colors and have selected a few that are…
What Causes Catfacing in Tomatoes?
Before I delve into the catfacing issue let’s clear up a big misconception: catfaced tomatoes do not actually look like catfaces! Now that we’ve covered that important fact that let’s talk about what catfacing is and what causes your tomatoes to look like deformed monstrosities. Catfacing is a general term gardeners use to describe deformations of the tomato fruit. It…
Companion Planting and Raised Beds (A Growing Challenge Post)
I’ve been planning my raised bed garden for a while now and now I’ve come to another phase. Figuring out how to plant the garden. I’m planning on using a technique called companion planting. Carol at May Dreams Gardens mentioned this a couple weeks ago although she called it Three Sisters gardening. It’s concept is pretty simple, plant plants that…
A Few Facts About Echinacea
From time to time I’ll be posting some new graphics about specific plants with a little important information about them. Today I share a few echinacea or coneflower planting facts. Echinacea is one of my favorite choices to plant in sunny areas that don’t receive a lot of moisture. Coneflowers love the sun, are drought tolerant, attract beneficial pollinators, and…
How to Grow Sweetbay Magnolia from Seeds
No matter where I go when I see seeds that are ripe I’m tempted to collect them. That was the case when walking around Knoxville last year and seeing some ripe magnolia seeds on some Sweetbay magnolia plants. Sweetbay magnolias have several names including: sweetbay magnolia, laurel magnolia, swamp magnolia, white bay magnolia, (simply) bay magnolia, or even beaver tree….
A Review of the Troy-Bilt Bronco Axis VTT Vertical Tine Tiller
Recently I had the pleasure to try out the new Troy-Bilt Bronco VTT Vertical Tine Tiller which they sent me to test and use in my garden. I’ve used tillers periodically before in my garden and I was very curious to see how this one functioned. It’s design is significantly different from traditional tillers. The tines extend down like a…
Black Blister Beetle Battles
Another unforeseen issue has arisen in my garden: blister beetles! These voracious beetles are systematically devouring the foliage of our plants. So far they’ve taken turns tasting our tomatoes, tomatillos, and even a clematis. I’m not heartbroken over the clematis as it’s a sweet autumn clematis that grows like a weed – it will come back. But I do want…
The Adventures of Skip the Skipper for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day
Welcome to Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day and the adventures of Skip the Skipper. Skip is a butterfly called a skipper, and a happy one at that. He spends his time skipping from flower to flower happily grazing upon the pollen he finds. Let’s see what Skip the Skipper has found today!I found our little friend resting upon a volunteer zinnia…
Fall Color Project: Colors of Toronto and California Wanderings
Helen at Toronto Gardens is treating us with a blast from last year’s fall foliage past. The palette of colors along the hillside is nothing short of stunning. The pictures are taken from Leaside bridge and offer a nearly bird’s eye view of the leaf landscape. Hopefully the leaves will be on the trees when Helen gets back home so…
Here’s a Pickle For You
I’m in a bit of a pickle. Sorry if you thought I was handing out pickles with my post title. In this case the pickle refers to a dilemma or situation. It’s not a bad situation by any means. Something I suspected since we moved into our house was confirmed to me yesterday.While outside doing some winter sowing I thought…
The First Tomatoes
I’ll admit the title is a bit misleading. You would think that the first tomatoes I would be talking about would be the first ripe tomatoes, I’m sorry to say that it isn’t so! I would love to be able to tell you about how wonderfully tasty those ripe red Roma tomatoes are, how full and rich flavored the Brandywines…
Hydrangea Propagation (Natural Layering)
Hydrangeas are fantastic garden plants! The flowers are beautiful but even when not in bloom hydrangeas can be a well formed shrub in the garden. Yesterday while walking through the garden I found a hydrangea that had rooted itself on the ground. This is called layering. Layering is a method of plant propagation where you can encourage roots roots to…
The Greenhouse Project: Inspiration
Very little progress has been made on my greenhouse shed project yet. The persistent rain combined with a much needed family vacation postponed construction, excavation and pretty much everything except for planning. But the planning is probably the most important part in any big project. This is easily the biggest project I’ve attempted so far and I’m making sure to spend…
A Few Changes
Please bear with me while I make a few cosmetic changes! I’ve been wanting to find a new look for the blog that is more functional and I think I have found a template that works. There will be some minor tweaks and repairs over the next few days. All the content and comments should be intact. Think of this…
A Mix of Natives for Wildflower Wednesday
Over at Clay and Limestone Gail celebrates the diversity of native plants with Wildflower Wednesday so I thought I would join in this week to share a few of the native plants I’ve run across over the past week. Let’s start with a shrub! This is what I believe to be a gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa). It has white clusters…
A Weekend Working on the Vegetable Garden
What a weekend! You don’t get weather like we had very often. The thermometer hit the 70’s for the first time in a long while and we took advantage of it. We spent very little time indoors, how could we? After being cooped up in the house since fall any outside opportunity had to be taken. So what did we…
