Container gardens are not just for apartment dwellers! Even though I live on several acres and have a nice sized garden, I have a container garden. We have a short growing season, coupled with a 30 degree temperature swing every day. This means that spring and fall are pretty inhospitable to plants that like warm [...]
Butterfly Bush
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Butterfly Bushes definitely live up to their name. I have a dozen of these bushes scattered through out the backyard and my children and I love watching the butterflies flit from bush to bush. I think I would enjoy these hardy plants even if they didn’t attract so many butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. They require [...]
It’s Always Winter, but Never Christmas…
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We had more snow last night. More snow is expected tonight and tomorrow. My poor children are complaining of living in Narnia and hoping for Aslan’s return. My garden is barely hanging on. I couldn’t bring myself to post last week because there just didn’t seem to be anything, well at least anything positive, going [...]
Square Foot Garden Update
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I wish I had more to report. However, the tomatoes, peppers, and squash are still living in my temporary green house. I moved them from the garage to the greenhouse, so that I could roll up the door and hopefully the bees would discover their flowers. I am hoping to plant them next weekend after [...]
Summer Comes Earlier to my Front Yard
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I live in zone 4, but the microclimate in my front yard is almost zone 5. Which means that I can plant the same varieties in my front yard and back yard and they will flower earlier in the front yard. It also means that autumn comes later to my front yard. Why do I [...]
Progress is Slow in the Vegetable Garden
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We have not had any more losses, but we haven’t had much growth in the vegetable garden either. Since we have had two different snow storms blow through in the last week, I am content with survival! The spinach is roughly the same size it was last week, but it is being nibbled on. Time [...]
The Garden is Open, Kind of…
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Last year, I opened my garden in March, even though our last freeze is usually in June. I was able to carefully plan ahead and cover the plants before a snow or freezing temperatures hit our area. The plants thrived and I was picking tomatoes in May before most of my neighbors had even planted [...]
We are Swimming in Tomatoes
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We had our first freeze last weekend; we even had a bit of snow! It melted quickly here on the valley floor, but enough stuck in the mountains that some ski runs will open this weekend. Before the temperatures dropped, I was determined to harvest every thing I could from my garden. I picked every [...]
Extending Your Tomato Growing Season and Broiled Cherry Tomato Recipe
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I have left a tip for extending the growing season of tomato plants in the comment section on a couple of blogs that I follow. I realized that unless you follow the same blogs (which I highly recommend) and read all of the comments (even those left by incoherent, sleep deprived mamas at 2:00 a.m.), [...]
Garden Update
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Last week I told you how I protect my baby sunflowers from the rabbits, and this week I am thrilled to be able to show you the first sunflower to bloom. It takes a while for the seeds to develop and give the center the black appearance that we associate with sunflowers. The seeds are [...]
