We can’t plant yet, but we backyard gardeners can always dream. That means seed catalogues and hopes for an early spring. Every year I buy way too many seeds. I have a fifty-acre garden appetite on a 12 x 40-foot budget. This year will be different. I will buy fewer seeds to accommodate my mini-garden and I’m off to a good start. Instead of buying 10 pounds of onion sets, I bought one bag, … [Read more...]

Our first jonquils are just beginning to pop up, but our Lenten Roses are in full bloom Snow, sleet, frost, cold - it doesn’t matter to these hardy plants. They are the Energize Bunnies of all our flowers. They are early bloomers, they are beautiful, they flourish in shady areas, and they have earned their rightful place as the most important flowers in our yard. Though the blooms resemble … [Read more...]

Some say that the benefits of putting eggshells in your garden beneath young plants is a myth – a waste of time. I, however, will continue to “waste time” and will absolutely put some crushed eggshells in the ground when I plant my tomatoes. I tried that last summer for the first time and I never picked a single tomato with that black end rot on the bottom. That was a first. I also had the … [Read more...]

That little bit of snow this week was a godsend for us backyard gardeners. The white stuff may be nasty to drive on, but it’s beautiful on a yard or garden bed. Here’s why. Snow is like aa natural mulch and helps to moderate temperature changes underground. It’s a natural blanket of insulation for your garden soil.  As with home insulation, the R value is determined by the depth of … [Read more...]

The days are gradually growing longer. With more daylight and sun, the ground begins to warm. In two more months, we can begin to plant early spring crops. The Garden Countdown has begun. I hated to see last year’s garden come to an end. I had a spectacular year with tomatoes and okra. I have already begun planning in my mind what to plant this year and where. My garden is small, and I try to … [Read more...]

  I have mowed by backyard leaves three times, and that’s enough. If more leaves fall, so be it. However, the leaves on the patio and in the garden beds were not mow-able. So, I sucked them up in my leaf grinder/shredder and spread them in my garden. I totally covered the garden soil with about 2-inches of the shredded leaves and - look out vegetables - it should be another great year … [Read more...]

It killed me last week to have to go out to my garden and pick unripe tomatoes from perfectly good vines. I did it because of a frost warning that night, and the weatherman was right. It was a helluva frost. The next morning, my vines were toast, but boy I had a great crop of tomatoes this year. To extend my fresh-eating of tomatoes, I put about 40 of the unripe tomatoes in a couple of brown … [Read more...]

  One perk of being a backyard gardener is that you never know what might pop up. Volunteer plants, for example. One year, I had a strange plant sprout and could not for the life of me figure out what it was. We let it grow to maturity, and finally pulled it up. It was a peanut vine compliments of my resident squirrels This summer, I have another unknown addition to my garden. I thought … [Read more...]