Y'all! It was MINUS EIGHTEEN DEGREES Sunday! Yuck! So rather than focus on that, let's get to planning out the Veg Garden for the coming season. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, am I right? It has already felt like a rushed and frantic process- mostly due to the increased demand for seeds (meaning… Continue reading Veg Plans: 2021 Edition
Yoinks, y'all. I'm not going to link to the chain of articles that got me here, but suffice it to say one of the new authors over at Garden Rant's claim to fame is a scathing critique of the British NGS charity open garden system, which of course, I read. The gist of which is… Continue reading Virtue Signaling In The Garden
Back when we first installed what we call the Cee garden (so named because the aerial view of the bed looks like the letter C) my vision was to use the red and fuchsia Monarda we inherited at the house along with the fuchsia peonies we were gifted by my parents (they came with the… Continue reading A Rethink for 2021: The Cee Garden
I feel like I just wrote the September post and now its almost October. I'm flummoxed and mystified as to how this happens every fall. Its here and then its gone and I've managed to complete less than half the projects I swore I'd do. Like clockwork. I'm sure some of this is in part… Continue reading A Preamble to October.
As we roll into the early stages of autumn, I find myself realizing that I've not posted here since late July!?! Awful! I'm going to try going with a regular monthly post and adding in extra posts as needed to make things both more consistent and easier on myself (you should see the number of… Continue reading September
AKA: How to notice problem areas and figure out ways to fix them in a hurry. We offered up our garden this year to our Garden Club. As in we finally said it was a green light for them to come visit (socially distanced and with masks, of course) during our summer garden tours. The… Continue reading Planning for a Showing.
Oh Mother Nature, you sneaky fiend! I'm not sure how to interpret this latest bit of tomfoolery- it feels rather spiteful what with everything else going on in the world. Then again, maybe it is just a distraction to give our minds something else to fret over for a day or two. Who knows, but… Continue reading Not so fast!
Oh man you guys. I've written a half dozen blog posts that couldn't bear to publish. Some are anxious, some annoyed, some blithely defiant. None of them felt right and all of them went in the bin. Turns out I don't know what to say or how to say what I'm thinking about all this… Continue reading Forward.
About 3 years ago, when we first started the main garden space and had the limestone slabs put in, we planted a Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn in the center of it. It was the perfect combination of size and features and I was sure, after much research, that it would be perfect for this space. I… Continue reading Rusty Hawthorn.
Much to my delight the seed catalogs have started coming in hot and heavy. Fedco Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, Baker Creek and High Mowing Organics have already arrived and I'm like a kid in a candy store. The bonus to these catalogs coming before the holidays is that my memory of both this past year's… Continue reading Seeds Ahoy!
We've been away and have just returned- hence the blog silence. We were privileged to be invited to attend the United States Naval Academy graduation for one of Rich's former cadets. It was a beautiful week in Gettysburg, PA and Annapolis, MD. Lovely warm sunshine, everything was so green and flowering! Gettysburg was surprisingly wild… Continue reading Return!
Oh readers, I've done a thing. I planted out all the bulbs I ordered, finishing with about 100 daffodils. It felt so good! For like, 15 minutes. Then, I found myself standing out in the yard, bulb planter in one hand, the other hand on my hip, and an empty tray at my feet. I… Continue reading A few more for good measure.
The main weather station up in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St. Paul, Minnesota) has told me that, as of last night, we've received just shy of 5 inches of rain this month. The garden is, for the first time since spring, so very lush and deliciously green. I can't get over how different it… Continue reading Lush.
Sigh. Gravel paths, I cannot quit you even though you are (apparently) a better seed-starting medium than anything that can be bought in a store. I opted for gravel paths at the outset of this garden simply because I knew the paths couldn't be grass (what with all the quack grass running through it, our… Continue reading On Gravel Paths.
Well, its been hovering around 80F for the past week and next week (my much anticipated week off to work in the garden) should be more of the same, with some days reaching 90F. To say that is above average temps is a slight understatement. So we skipped right past Spring and launched headlong into… Continue reading Spring, Skipped.
It is super obvious that I need to better figure out how to blog and garden at the same time. I will work on that! With the sudden onset of summer (I think?) and 70-80 F weather, my mind and sunburns keeps telling me how far behind we are in our projects. My eyes… Continue reading Projects, Blooms, and Slowing Down
Happily, we are on the thawing side of the coin for the time being. (What with poor Great Britain and Europe on the holy snowstorm side.) I call this time of year Two Steps Forward, One Step Back. We will get a span of warmish weather (40 degrees F) where everything starts melting (into slushy,… Continue reading Two Steps Forward…
This garden is honking and huge and it clocks in right around 4600 square feet. This is more than twice the size of my first house. I wish I could blog with emojis because I feel like an emoji would serve us all better right now. The right half in the picture above is the… Continue reading The Main Garden.
The Veg garden is one space made up of 9 separate beds. There are four 4'x4' beds that are home to our rhubarb, asparagus, blueberries, and garlic. There are four 6'x12' beds that hold the bulk of the veg we grow and three of the four rotate yearly (because I try hard to follow rotational… Continue reading The Veg Garden
Box & Bay 