Each garden season, I like to save flower, herb, and vegetable seeds from my garden. I do this for two main reasons. First, I enjoy harvesting the seeds I’ve grown. It’s so rewarding to grow your own plants from seeds and save them again for next year. Second, when you save seeds, you know what you’re going to get when you grow that plant. You know the size of theRead More →
For many years, I thought it was too much effort to grow and save dahlia tubers. There are so many chores to complete as fall sets in. Digging up dahlias each year didn’t sound like a good use of my time. And figuring out how to dig and store dahlias was intimidating. But that was before I became addicted to dahlias. Little did I know how rewarding it would beRead More →
Do you have a favorite season? For gardeners, summer is king. It’s the height of what we love to do. Flowers are blooming everywhere you look. The produce, fresh from the garden, is delicious. Abundant herbs provide flavor for meals and a lovely fragrance in the garden. The days are longer, giving us more time to enjoy it all. Ahhh, summer it’s the gardeners’s favorite season. But for gardeners, whatRead More →
When it comes to flowers, more is better! Take a walk through your garden. Do you see areas that could use more blooms? Are there spots that look a little bare or sparse? You can easily fill these holes in your landscape if you increased the number of plants you’re growing. The biggest problem with increasing flowering plants is the cost. The price of nursery stock has jumped this year.Read More →
Every morning, I take a stroll around my newly planted garden areas. The seedlings are coming up and the dahlias have broken ground. It’s so exciting to see all the new growth. While my plants are growing slowly, all around them is a massive amount of very determined plants that have sprung up. Some of these plants are weeds and some are overachievers in the garden. What is an overachieverRead More →
Do you remember the story of Chicken Little? He ran around shouting, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” Of course, the sky wasn’t falling. We’ve heard so many scary stories lately… the economy is going to crash, we’re headed for WW III, and more pandemics are on the horizon. And maybe you’ve heard the rumors of a coming food shortage. We don’t have a crystal ball to tellRead More →
Some days it’s really hard to tell that we’ve moved into spring. The calendar says it’s spring, but the weather doesn’t always cooperate. The weather reminds me of a two-year-old. One day, the weather is beautiful with crystal blue skies and warming temperatures. And then the next day it turns cold and blustery. Although we want to jump in with both feet and start gardening, we have to be patient.Read More →
Most of us are creatures of habit. We often learn to do something one way and then never consider alternatives. That’s the same for gardeners. When you first began to garden, you learned a way to prepare your new beds for planting. And that method was probably a lot of work… digging, tilling, turning, adding amendments, watering, raking, and digging some more. When you prepare a garden bed for theRead More →
How do you go about planning your garden for the year? Do you run to the garden center when it feels like spring and grab a little of this and that? Or do you pick up a few packets of seeds to plant in your flower beds and hope for the best? Do you purchase vegetable starts only to find that you planted way more zucchini than you could everRead More →
Here’s a gardener’s nightmare… you purchase your beautiful flower seeds for the growing season. In the spring, you plant those seeds in the ground. And then you wait for the first little sprouts to pop up. You wait. And you wait. And you wait some more. Eventually, you realize nothing is going to grow. Why did your brand new seeds fail? Maybe the seeds needed a period of cold inRead More →