Earlier today I showed you how we spruced up our laundry room. I love the new laundry organizers and I can honestly say it makes an unpleasant task a little better. I’m not a great laundress (you won’t catch me measuring my wool sweaters so I can properly block them after handwashing a la Martha Stewart) but there are two things ...
I want a laundry room that looks like this: Contemporary Laundry Room design by San Francisco Interior Designer Artistic Designs for Living, Tineke Triggs Or this: Traditional Laundry Room design by Orange County Design-build Spinnaker Development Or this: Contemporary Laundry Room design by Grand Rapids Architect Visbeen Associates, Inc. But that is not the laundry room I have, and as ...
Raise your hand if you’ve ever put something on a list that you’ve already done just to have the satisfaction of crossing it off. I see you all out there with your guilty hands in the air. Let’s face it, it feels damn good to cross things off a list and I’m happy to say that I’ve done a pretty ...
It’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and I’ll be back later with a few photos to actually participate (for the first time in months) but first I need a little help on a project. Please note, that’s a picture from the store, not one showing my growing silk clematis collection. This is one that has been a long time coming. I ...
It’s crunch time. It might not seems like it, but the clock is ticking. The holidays are over and the daily arrival of another seed catalog reminds me that it’s only four or five months until all waking, non-working, non-eating hours will be spent in the garden. And that means that any indoor projects that need doing better get done ...
Sofas are sort of funny, aren’t they? I mean, it’s just a piece of furniture but they are a big deal. People agonize over sofa decisions, but rarely do they feel that same kind of angst when it comes to choosing a chair or side table. I suppose that’s because usually they are the most expensive piece of furniture in ...
As I’ve mentioned, a lot of stuff was left behind by the previous owner when we bought our house. One item was the Calder-esque mobile that hangs in the living room. Even though it’s in a bit of a weird spot, I’ve always liked it there and we never moved it. I’d like to know more about it though. It ...
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If you build it, they will come. Apparently this holds just as true for vegetable gardens as it does for magical baseball diamonds, because they’re coming. “They” would be the neighbors, who have taken a real interest in this massive project we’ve had going for a couple months now. It would be hard for them […]
Here’s my philosophy on vegetable gardening: I’m more interested in growing interesting and delicious food than I am in getting very high yields or never having to deal with a bug. In other words, organic is important to me. As you know, I’m all about encouraging people to do what they want in their own […]
Awhile ago I read that plants abhor copper and that it actually inhibits vines from growing up it. I wish I could remember where, but it probably doesn’t matter because I now think this is unfounded at best and bullpucky at worst. I can’t find any scientific sources to suggest that’s actually the case. But […]
Well, the raised bed gardens are built. And I’ll tell you right now, that took a lot longer than I planned. But they are built and we’re still married. At this point both seem like remarkable achievements. Before I get into it, if you haven’t read part 1 in this series, I’d recommend you check it […]
A quick note before I get into this epic post on an epic project: Troy-Bilt sponsored this post and the Flip the Yard challenge and provided products for my use. It’s funny how projects that start as one thing end up being something else. If you followed me on Instagram last weekend (you can catch […]
I got behind on my weekly reports of what I’ve been planting, but I think that’s how it works this time of year. It’s a gardening flurry and I’m in that part of the spring marathon where it’s plodding along and longing for gardening days when you putter in the garden rather than do an […]
Note: “Five Seasons” is streaming free at this link April 24-26, 2020. At one point during “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf,” a new documentary on perhaps the world’s most famous living garden designer, the tall Dutchman is driving a Texas-sized Cadillac Escalade down a back road in Texas and he’
I think it’s safe to say I may have underestimated how time intensive the process of building the new raised bed vegetable garden would be. I can say this with some authority since we are now into June and nary a vegetable has been planted at my house. Still, I’m not interested in rushing this process […]
Astute observers will notice that there is distinct focal point in my vegetable garden plan. But the fact is, I don’t know what that focal point is going to be. It might be a small café set, so I can sip a coffee surrounded by my growing vegetables. But I’ve also entertained the idea of […]
I’m ready to go on record. I think this may have been the most deadly winter my garden has ever seen. I’ve been patient and following all my steps for what you should do when you think a plant has died, but most things are growing by now and those that aren’t are probably doomed. […]
With all the plants still perched in temporary storage locations around the yard, you would think I’d gotten nothing planted over the long weekend. But I actually did get a fair amount of things planted this weekend in between working on the vegetable garden. I was very excited to plant Double Take Peach quince (Chaenomeles […]
Sometimes what we picture in our heads for our garden is not how reality works out. That’s the case with a little project I’ve been working on but I have faith it will improve. This spot in the main garden off the patio is the closest thing I have to controversial area. Some of you […]
It’s the time of year when big changes happen quickly in the garden and it’s easy for me to forget about them. So I thought I’d do a weekend wrap-up post to just show you what I got up to. Most of these are tiny bits of bigger projects but if I wait until the […]
I take no pride in admitting that this Plant to Know, which is one I now hope to never be without, is also one that for a time I wrote off as just another garden plant. But that’s a problem with a plant that isn’t particularly flashy and that you rarely need to visit. And […]
