When our whole family is working in the yard together I am overwhelmed with a sense of peace and gratitude. However, to maintain that peace, everybody over 5 feet tall takes a rotation on toddler patrol. Below are a few other tips for gardening with children. Give them good quality tools to work with:Just rememberRead More

I have spent most of the spring and summer lamenting the condition and rate of production of my raised bed gardens, so it only seems fair that I should share the positive developments. I am beginning to harvest raspberries: It won’t be long before I am harvesting blackberries:I am regularly picking tomatoes, which are addedRead More

In my last post I said that spring had just arrived. Well, it didn’t like what it saw and headed for the hills. In less than 2 weeks we went from night time frosts to 100 degrees. This is hard not just on me and my handful of readers who politely listen to my whining,Read More

Spring just arrived a week ago and we are not sure if summer is ever going to show up.  Our weather has had a very negative impact on my warm weather vegetables. Many of the plants are maturing slowly, but I am hopeful that there is enough time for them to produce before our firstRead More

…Is that You Can Surprise Yourself! This weekend I was doing some weeding and noticed some weeds that looked vaguely familiar. I have been surprised in the past by some “rogue flowers” and decided not to pull them until I had identified them. A couple hours later it dawned on me that they were hollyhockRead More

This picture was taken by my son. He often steals my camera to capture our beautiful skyscapes. I am always surprised with these little treasures when I download my SD card. This post has been linked to Outdoor Wednesday.

We are mostly between flowers right now. The spring bulbs have died back and the summer flowers are coming in late because of a long, cold winter. So our hanging baskets are filling in the void.The rabbits eat our petunias and pansies. I couldn’t imagine going a summer with out them, so I plant themRead More

Delphiniums are currently my favorite flower. While I must nurse many of our plants through our extreme seasons, delphiniums seem to thrive on our long cold winters. And they don’t mind our hot summers, as long as I give them a little water each day. I have really become fond of these hardy, low maintenanceRead More

I thought I had experienced every weather phenomenon known to North America, but I was wrong.We were showered with snow pellets on Saturday afternoon. Since it was a new experience I decided to walk out into the snow pellet storm to record it. Lucky for me snow pellets are less dense that hail, so theyRead More

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, goingRead More

Today, I received the latest edition of my free Home Depot Garden Club Newsletter.  I was very excited to discover that this edition includes a buy one get one free coupon for roses.  I lost several rose bushes in our unusually cold winter. In fact, right now only 3 of 8 bushes are showing signsRead More

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 afterRead More

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 IRead More

My husband and I have different answers to this question. My husband does not like flowers in his lawn, though I believe a great lawn should contain a few dandelions and a small patch of clover. Well, it should if children ever play on it. My husband wants our lawn to look like my Dad’s:Read More

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. TimeRead More

I love living in a valley most of the time. We have beautiful views of the mountains year round. However, when the wind whips through our little valley, I dream of living in a less aerodynamic terrain.  It is not uncommon to have wind gusts in excess of 70 miles an hour and the dustRead More