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 DIY/decorating type posts are on ...
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 was kicking myself for not ...
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 interesting in superdwarf trees. Basically ...
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 once a week. To me ...
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 think it has been ...
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 like parsley. I think it ...
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 fashionable person and to be ...
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Welcome to my biggest of all gardening pet peeves: Leaky hose nozzles. I’m so irritated with having water dripping down my air every time I try to water. Every year I buy one or more new nozzles in hope of finding the holy grail of watering wands. I’m not asking for a lot. I just […]
Just heard back from Lucile. Here’s what she said: “Cut hard. Down into the green wood and pray.” Gulp.
I’ve been keeping an eye on this all spring, and hoping things would be fine, but it’s not looking good. Last spring I bought a gorgeous Kamagata Japanese maple from Lucile at Whitman Farms. I adore this tree and it was gorgeous last year. In winter I treated it just like my other Japanese maple: […]
I caught my mother rubbing her eggplant this weekend. Relax, it’s OK, really. She was just giving it a little leaf massage. Seems she read “somewhere” that massaging the leaves will make it produce better. I can’t tell you where “somewhere” is because neither of us knows. We read so many magazines, blogs and Web
It always amazes me how quickly the wooded area of our property is taken over by Ostrich ferns. May 8 May 14 May 31 (pay no attention to the path of inflourescence-looking stuff. I spread some DE the day before. Oh and yeah … all that stuff in the foreground is garlic mustard weed that […]
The scene of the crime. And this isn’t even all of them! Do they offer plantaholic 12-step programs? I’m seriously thinking I may need to find one. Noticing that my “holding area” (formerly the pit of despair, but somewhat spruced up) is getting a little tight, I took a count of the plants I need […]
Our Master Gardeners Heirloom Plant and Herb Sale was held May 23 and I was in charge of door prizes and gift bags, which means that I got to call up companies during one of the worst recessions in a long time and ask them for donations. Many have said “No, not this year.” And […]
Garden art or a tree stuck in the ground upside down? You make the call! I’m a big fan of garden art, but not such a big fan of paying for it. Fortunately, I’m also a fan of driftwood, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting pieces. A couple years ago I found a […]
Remember how I said my Disneyland rose didn’t make it through the winter? I was truly convinced it was a goner. All of the wood was dead. Fortunately my procrastination habit has finally paid off! I didn’t pull it out of the ground. I’m not sure if it’s because I was dreading dealing with the […]
I love the most recent post from Michael Tortorello’s New York Times blog. I’ve been following Michael’s misadventures of a new gardener with his first vegetable garden with interest (and frankly, a little bit of jealousy. Is the NYT paying him for this? How come I didn’t think to pitch that idea?) He’s talking about [
This is dicentra Gold Heart, and she has become a star in our garden. I picked it up at the hardware store two or three years ago and even though she’s not in a great spot for a bleeding heart (west exposure) she just keeps getting bigger and bigger (and is currently taking over a […]
All the dahlias, sorted and waiting (no, begging!) to be planted. Well I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. Memorial Day is sort of do-or-die time around here for gardening stuff so the extra day off was much needed. And what a day it was. But like most you, I never get to the […]
Well, I’ve not posted much this week because I’ve been über busy with our Master Gardeners’ sponsored Heirloom Plant and Herb Sale. Today was the big set-up day. It’s amazing, actually, 11,000 plants doesn’t look like that many in an enormous gymnasium. I love this sale. I shopped at it a long time before I […]
I never used to care much about the name of a plant. Cripes, who can care about names when you’re worried about whether it will grow or not? Then I started to read a lot about theme gardens. A lot of people make gardens in honor of someone. So they try to find cultivars of […]
