Progress continues on the renovation of the oval circle garden but I won’t lie, I’m getting nervous about how slowly it’s going. I spent a good part of last weekend working on it and have gotten it to the point where I’m waiting for materials before I can move on. My goal is to have all of the hardscaping finished ...
I remember the first time I took notice of an allium. It was on Mackinac Island where a side garden at the Hotel Iroquois was planted with what must have been hundreds of Globemaster alliums, with 8-inch (or better) flowers standing proud. It was stunning. When I think of punctuation in a garden my first thought is always to alliums. ...
I didn’t have much time to work in the yard last weekend, which is sad indeed. It has been raining here for days and days and there were other projects that took precedence (which you’re about to hear about). The few hours that I did have for garden time were dedicated to working on the oval circle garden update. Mr. ...
I went outside in the rain the other morning and snapped a shot of my favorite plant at this time of year. Then I checked the blog because I thought surely I’d written a special post about toad lilies before and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t. Truth be told, I had no idea what a toad lily even was until ...
On Tuesday I walked into a funeral service in full on late-summer weather and emerged a couple hours later into weather more suitable for late October. A brisk breeze came off the lake, leaves were falling on our heads and the sun refused to provide the warmth I swear it had earlier in the morning. In case I wasn’t fully ...
It’s Friday, so I bet you’re expecting Friday Finds. Never fear, they are coming later, but I didn’t want to let another day pass without giving up an update on the oval circle garden (I feel like that’s now the best way to refer to it). When we last checked in on this garden that is the first thing people ...
There’s no getting around it: At this time of year, the garden is starting to look tired. Foliage is tattered and sun faded, flowers are flopping, everything looks a bit haggard. But one plant is just now coming into its own, the ever tropical-looking Castor bean. This plant will surely catch your key from across the garden. Before I go ...
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A couple weeks ago I wrote about preserving the parsley harvest, but what do you think about nasturtium pesto? If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a year, you know that at some point when temperatures start dropping, my thoughts start veering toward inside projects, so don’t be surprised that lots of inside […]
Although the forecast for Halloween is for a full-on gale we continue to enjoy a pretty great autumn here so I still haven’t done much in the way of garden cleanup. One fall gardening chore I have accomplished, however, is planting bulbs. It’s been several years since I’ve planted any bulbs, but last spring I […]
This year’s harvest might have been unremarkable in many ways, but there was one very exciting crop: the first apples from my superdwarf Gala apple tree. I won the tree at a winter gardening seminar a few years ago. It was donated by a local gardener who loves grafting fruit trees and is particularly […]
I really want to check out this book (hint, hint, somebody send me a review copy). And this one too. Do you follow the One Room Challenge? Calling it Home organizes the One Room Challenge and selects bloggers to participate. The challenge is to completely redo a room in six weeks and post about it […]
Gosh, it’s been such a busy week but I still can’t figure out why. I’ll put up my Friday Finds in a bit but I’ve had this post ready to go most of the week and failed to hit “publish” on it until today. We are officially past the peak of autumn color here, but […]
I grew parsley from seed for the first time this year, and as I was harvesting armloads of it over the weekend, it was a bit of a head-slap moment. It was so easy I can’t understand why I haven’t been growing it from seed all along. The big end-of-season parsley haul. I really […]
How to make beautiful, delicious (and chemical free) colored sugars with edible flowers. Deborah Silver photo Deborah Silver (who I like to call the Queen of Containers) never fails to disappoint. Look what she did for autumn. Rusted steel in the garden is such a great look. I like fashion but I am not a […]
I was traveling last week for work and by the time I got home on the weekend, I didn’t feel like doing much. It’s funny, the garden is actually looking pretty good these days. Although I know there will be a ton of work to be done getting it ready for winter, I’m not ready […]
Kylee’s video of a monarch butterfly eclosing (hatching, sort of) is so cool. Deborah Silver is recommending that gardeners in cold climates apply an antidessicant to their boxwood this fall. The change of seasons always makes me want a clean an uber-organized house. This roundup of fabulous pantries is making me very jealous. North Coast [&h
There is plenty of work to be done in the garden at this time of year. Every thing I can do before the garden is put to bed for the winter is one less thing to do come spring. And of course there are other tasks that simply must be done in fall, like planting […]
Remember the potato tower experiment? This was a method of growing potatoes I tried in part to get a crop of potatoes without using precious garden space. I also thought they would be easier to harvest. Last weekend I attacked those towers to get a feel for how successful this experiment was. I’m not going […]
I find it interesting to follow the progress of container plantings throughout the summer. I only plant each container once because our odd seasons here don’t really allow me to get much time out of a spring- or fall-only planting. This year’s containers have been looking a little tired for a couple weeks now. And […]
Some of my favorite blogs do something different than their usual content on Fridays. One of my favorite takes on this is what some bloggers call a “Love List.” In other words, they just link to a lot of things they are interested in that week and think their readers might be interested in as […]
Well it didn’t take long to solve the mystery of what happened to the community garden plots (see the story here). At least one plot-holder complained to the local police (I’m not sure if she filed an official report but she at least made them aware of what had happened) and several irate gardeners complained […]
