There is a school of thought, which I wholeheartedly subscribe to, that the activities we enjoy for a lifetime are those that are difficult to master and that constantly have us striving to know more, or perform better. There’s no doubt in my mind that gardening falls under this category. But if I were so blazen as to start thinking ...
It’s an unsettling time in the garden. Part of me looks around, thinks about all the tasks that must get done before it gets too cold out to want to do them and wants to just get on with it, and the other part of me realizes that the garden is still looking fantastic. And a walk around the ...
I used to dig in my garden, unearth a worm and be delighted. I took it as a pat on the back for my hard work in making good soil that earthworms would want to be in doing their good work. But for the past year or so that delight has been gone. It has been replaced with dread. Dread ...
Longtime readers will know that I’m not one to rush the seasons (other than winter, which I’m happy to mentally check out of sometime around January 5), but we need to talk about autumn. And maybe a little bit about spring. Because even though my garden is currently enjoying a very summerlike couple of weeks, the autumnal equinox is Friday, ...
Two things happened on the same day earlier this week that once again reinforced my “garden for yourself” school of thought. First, I read Garden Media Group’s analysis of the gardening trends they see for 2018. One of the things it seems to show is that the trend toward a less cultivated style of gardening is growing. I think we ...
You know how annuals at nurseries can look when things start getting picked over? Generally sad. It’s hard for nurseries to keep up on the watering, it’s getting hotter out making that even more difficult, and they might all be bunched up growing together. That’s how you get plants like this Supertunia Indigo Charm. It’s a favorite of mine ...
Like most gardeners, for me this time of year is as much about late season chores like dividing and moving as it is about making notes of what worked and what didn’t. It’s always amazing to me how different the garden looks in September compared to what it looked like in June. Back in June I wouldn’t have noticed this ...
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Gosh, gang, I’m really sorry there weren’t more posts this week. I’ve got 25 balls in the air and none of them have quite landed yet so I’m never quite ready to blog about any of them and they keep me too busy to blog about anything else. But I do love a good Friday […]
There are times when you wonder what someone was thinking when they decided to make something one way or the other. I now believe that this is exactly why spray paint was invented. I ordered this pretty light for the office / back room (heretofore just called the office even though there’s really not that […]
I’ve got most of my seeds ordered (and delivered), I just ordered some more willow twigs to start this year and I’ve got my eye on this dogwood and have come *this close* to ordering it about three times but I can’t think of where I’d put it. Cornus kousa ‘Rutpink’ This is the time […]
Last fall I discovered how to get a bird’s eye view of my yard via Google Earth and it was rather enlightening. I discovered that the bed on the north side of the house is all kinds of wrong. I already sort of knew that that area had issues. It never really felt right. It […]
I spoke at a local school’s career day yesterday. It was, um, odd. And then I looked around and found out that of the other people speaking at the career day, two were good friends a year older than me, and another two were two years old and two years younger than me. And I […]
Before there was a vegetable garden in my life there were tomatoes. I first grew tomatoes in 10-inch plastic pots in the first apartment I lived in after college. The pots weren’t big enough and the squirrels grabbed every fruit the moment it appeared. When I moved to my next apartment, I tried to grow […]
I’ve missed Friday Finds two weeks in a row and I didn’t want to let this one pass completely so I bring you a rare Sunday post. I’ll dispense with the usual preamble and get right into it. Here’s some of the best of what I was loving on the web last week. New House […]
I figured it was time for an update on our little office / back room project, but prepare yourself for the most unexciting update ever. Last I mentioned it, the drywall was up and the ceilings were painted and ready to be installed. That was ages ago. At least it seems like it. I think […]
I spent the weekend celebrating my birthday. It wasn’t a “special” birthday and the intention was for it to be very low-key, but things kept popping up, so I just kept eating and drinking and celebrating with friends and family. That was fantastic, but it pushed off me organizing my seed order for another weekend. […]
It’s already the third week in January and seed starting is right around the corner. I feel like I’m behind this year, having only ordered a few sweet pea varieties from Floret Flower Farm‘s new store. I need to start making lists and ordering soon because nothing is more disappointing that not being able to […]
I’m doing all the painting the back room / office, which has been taking up a considerable amount of the time I normally spend gazing at seed catalogs. Fortunately, I’ve powered through the majority of it and in the process developed a pretty good method for painting wood ceiling planks. Having painted the wood ceilings […]
Holy smokes, a whole week got away from me without a single post. Sorry about that! Busy week with a lot of late nights up painting. A quick update on the reno in the office before I get to the fun stuff. We had a little surprise early in the week when the drywall guy […]
It’s the first Friday Finds of the year, but first a quick update on what’s happening in the back room / office (I really need to just figure out a name for that room and call it that once and for all). Drywall is up, including on the ceiling, which was a surprise to me. […]
Surprise! I’ve been talking about all kinds of projects, namely a bit of DIY in the basement and redoing the downstairs bathroom, but here we are doing a project (and by we, I mean the people we hired to do it) that I don’t think I’ve even mentioned. This is how stuff goes around here. […]
