One of the things I particularly enjoy shopping for (other than plants or anything garden related) is lighting. It can also be exhausting because of the mind-boggling amount of options, but in general I find the search for lighting to be pretty fun. I was happy to have the chance to look for a new light for the garage. We …
The readers of this blog have saved my bacon (and at least part of my sanity) more than once, and I think you’ve all done it again. I am downright impetuous when it comes to some things, and paint colors are a big trigger for me. A couple years ago I painted my front door and less than a month …
The only time I’ve hired a painter was when I didn’t have the equipment to do the job. The ceilings in the living room required serious scaffolding and the kitchen cabinets had to be professionally sprayed. In the case of the garage, the only thing I was missing was time. I could have scraped that beast myself, but I really …
We didn’t plan it this way, but this year has become the year of the back yard. Between the renovation of the gardens there and fixing up the garage, I think we’re finally taking care of some of the things that have needed attention since we bought the house 12 years ago. This is the before, farther down …
It is predicted to rain here. All week. And hover in the 45-degree range. The optimist in me assumes this is because Mother Nature wants to make sure we get our fill of April showers so we get our May flowers.It does give me a chance to take a break from talking about gardening, to catch you up on at …
I forgot to show you something I did about a month ago. I painted the garage door Wythe Blue (Benjamin Moore color). I’ve been sort of lusting over that color, which is this really interesting grayish greenish blueish, sort of turquoise-but-not color for a long time and I really wanted to paint something that color. Since I didn’t want something …
Over the weekend I went to the lumber yard. I guess that’s what you’d call it anyway. It was a place that specialized in hardwood.You may be wondering why a person like myself, who has been known to paint every bit of wood she sees, would be at a lumber yard, much less one that was a full hour’s drive …
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Earlier this week I opened my garden to a group of master gardeners. Although this wasn’t an official garden tour, there was a still a bit of last-minute fussing, the kind where you look at your own garden with a more critical eye. That led to pulling out a “more natural” area next to the […]
Me in February: I’m going to grow an entire garden from seed this year! I will grow all the things I’ve grown in the past and add in at least 20 new varieties because I am a seed-starting machine! And I definitely need to grow a whole flat of everything because I need backups if […]
I do, on occasion check out a few gardening groups on Facebook. For the past couple of weeks they’ve been full of posts like this: “What is eating my plant and how do I kill it?” A variety of answers come in, but in every case there’s at least one answer like this: “Put Sevin […]
Once a year I go to Mackinac Island, an 8-mile-round island at the top of lakes Michigan and Huron. And for the last several years I’ve been giving a bit of a photo tour here. It’s become something of a tradition to bring you a few photos, although some years both the plantings and the […]
If you’ve been reading this blog for a number of years you know what’s been up. If you’re newer you may think I fell off the face of the Earth. So this post begins with an obligatory apology. Every summer I head out in mid-July for a week or a bit more. And every year […]
I admit I’m an espalier novice. When I first saw an espalier tree (I’m guessing on “Gardener’s World” or in a British gardening magazine), I thought I had stumbled upon some great European secret. Silly me. Espalier is happening everywhere, and it’s definitely growing in popularity in North America. And why would
I’ve been gardening seriously for a couple decades now and I was starting to think I knew what made me happy in the garden. I never expected that 165 gallons of water would become one of my favorite things. When I designed the vegetable garden I left a big space in the center for some […]
I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced a spring like this. Cool days and cooler nights have persisted far longer than whatever can be considered normal, even in these days of weather that seems to have lost all semblance of normalcy. The partner to the cold temperatures is rain. In May it fell in long, […]
I’ve said it here before, but it bears repeating: The very best thing you can do for your garden is get out of it and into someone else’s. I cannot think of a a single time I’ve gone into another garden and not taken something away from it that I either learned or wanted to […]
There are plants in my garden that are coddled within in inch of their life. I check on them often enough that I usually know when a new leaf has emerged. And then there are the other plants that just quietly do their thing for years until one day you blink and wonder where that […]
The effects of our extreme winter are still showing up in the garden. With the cool, wet spring we’ve had (as much a blessing for a busy gardener who is thankful that the weeds aren’t head-high as it is a curse), everything is slower than usual. In fact I estimate that most things are still […]
One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is what basic gardening book I recommend. And to be honest I’ve yet to have a great answer. But at least when it comes to growing food, I now have an answer. This post may contain affiliate links. See my complete disclosure here. I didn’t know what […]
At this time five years ago I would have been about 10 big contractor garbage bags in to my annual garlic mustard weed pull. The property, actually the neighborhood, was full of it. I would pull the stuff until my hand cramped up and no more garbage bags would fit in the car to be […]
It feels odd to “reveal” a space that’s been unfolding in front of your eyes on this blog for a year now, but the vegetable garden is finally at a place where almost everything but the gardening bit is finished. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be left only with the task […]
