I like to leave my flower beds alone until the ground starts warming up at some point in April – that way the bugs can enjoy the shelter of last year’s detritus while also letting this year’s early blooming weeds feed the pollinators in early spring. But I may have taken it a little too far.
We’ve been plotting this year’s garden expansion since last year. I say ‘we’ in the royal way of course. This year’s spring garden expansion is entirely my husband. From the newly built raised beds to the new strawberry barrel and the garden markers – he’s been a very busy fellow.
Continue readingWhen I last reported on the garden, we had just gotten a truckload of wood chips and it had been too cool to plant summer veggies.
There have been a few changes since then.
Continue readingWe weren’t really planning on expanding the garden this year, even though we’ve done so the last two, because we thought we’d be busy with end of the school year senior year activities, but as it turns out, all this time at home has led to some new projects.
For the first time ever, I got a proper spring garden planted. I’m not at all sure why I’ve never been able to accomplish this in all my years gardening. Despite the fact that I get paid to offer unsolicited gardening advice to complete strangers in a some pretty magazines, I really am sort of a half ass lazy gardener. I am death to houseplants. I stick to perennials in my yard because once they are established, I don’t need to do anything for them on a regular basis. It’s a tough love style of gardening, where plants just have to get themselves established by mid-July, because that’s when I kinda start forgetting to water. Pat will catch up the slack on the vegetable garden and thankfully, begonias and geraniums do well with my summer neglect, so for all outward appearances, I pull off looking like a competent gardener. But, to be completely honest, I’m really not at all the gardener I write about being. When people have me to their gardens and want to talk gardening with me, I have to admit the only flower names I know are the ones I like and/or grow well. And vegetables? I stick to greens I know I do well (arugula) and things anyone can grow, like peppers. Growing okra and field peas last year was a bit step outside of my garden comfort zone.
Continue readingI regularly hear from friends who only see my garden through my highly curated social media photos who think I have this wonderland yard.
Okay, so it’s kinda glorious, but there is a lot you don’t see.
As I attempt to break through the wall of writer’s bloc fortified with real life, here’s a few topics I’ve either threatened to write about, have actually put words down, only to be completely dissatisfied with them OR had it kindly suggested by friends that I should write about. In no particular order: Continue reading
It has been pointed out that I haven’t written a post here in too long – by none other than my own offspring, who apparently uses this blog for her own reference from time to time. Who knew? I certainly did not.
When people find out I’m a free lance writer, they tend to assume I write about food. So when they find out I mostly write about gardening, they then begin to assume that I’m some fabulous gardening guru and start asking me questions about their gardens or tell me they’d love to come see mine sometime, which leaves me in a bit of a stammer because my gardens are really not all that. For starters, I’m lazy. Secondly, my lot gets lots of shade, so there are any number of plants I would love to have that just simply, don’t do well in our yard, like roses. 
Continue reading
When people find out I do some free lance writing, they immediately ask what it is I usually write about, assuming most of the time that it’s food. Actually, it’s gardening. Which then leads to them saying something like, ‘oh you must have a wonderful garden’. Actually, no I don’t. Things get neglected and crowded and weeds take over and there is absolutely no plan to it whatsoever, in fact, sometimes I’m liable to just walk out and randomly dig holes in which to plant things because I just feel like digging. But this spring I decided that I going to start trying to take my own advice, I’m going to try to be the sort of gardener I wrote about. Continue reading
