Gardening

I bought this little UK product, The Matchstick Garden, while out shopping for project supplies at a bourgeoisie cooking store in my neighborhood the other day. Those fancy stores with their beautifully packaged products and their well-appointed displays get me every time. It was in one of those well-appointed displays that I saw them, pretty [...]

yougrowgirl posted a photo: Davin and I co-produced the cover photo. Yay!

I’m very proud to have co-produced the cover photograph for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s “Community Gardening” guide alongside my partner Davin Risk. Yep, that’s my soiled hand and a bouquet of sage held up at our own Parkdale Community Beer Garden. There are four varieties of sage in that photo which I continue to harvest [...]

Is there such a thing as too much sweet corn? On Sunday he asked me, “How was the corn you had yesterday for lunch, when I wasn’t here?” I said it was getting a little mature. He... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Here is my entry in Idaho Gardener’s Garden Olympics. I have to say, there didn’t seem much time to mull things over and pick my three entries. Here’s what I came up with under... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Mary Ann Newcomer, at Idaho Gardener, is sponsoring what she calls Olympic garden events. Her rules are quirky but eminently attainable: Three rules: 1. You must link back to IdahoGardener.com. 2.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

A lot of the plants from last month are still blooming, though most of them look a bit weather-beaten and are past their peak. Goldenrod, asters, and Joe Pye weed are starting in the fields. A... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Tomatoes the Old-Fashioned Way I’ve been reading the The Little House on the Prairie series to my six-year-old at bedtime. We just happen to be on The Long Winter and were reading “Fall... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

TODAY WE HONOR YAM KAAX, THE MAYAN GOD OF CORN, AND HIS AZTEC COUNTERPART, CINTEOTL. We celebrate the high-summer harvest of one of our favorite, and most important, crops. Welcome to Food Fest 5, a collaboration with my dear friend Deb and the Dinner Tonight blog. Come dig in and learn some kernels about corn, [...]

SOMETIMES I WONDER WHERE I GOT ALL THESE CRAZY PLANTS. This one, for instance, which just started blooming in the front yard. What the heck is it? The plant in question, an East Asian native, is Codonopsis lanceloata (and don’t ask me how I even remember such trivia, when more days than not I can’t remember [...]

WELCOME TO TOMATO WEEK, A CELEBRATION OF (GREEN?) TOMATOES. Deb at the Dinner Tonight blog and I are glad to have you with us for Week 4 of our ongoing food festivals, but not as glad as I would be (dare I say?) to see a red tomato show up. Yes, I’m  still waiting for [...]

IT’S A SIMPLE QUESTION: DO YOU LIKE TO MOW? Unless, of course, like me you have a love-hate thing going with mowing. I am always irritated that there’s mowing to be done. But I am also always relieved, since “mowing to be done” means legitimate escape from things like writing, which sometimes has me circling [...]

AT LAST COUNT THE SEDUM VARIETIES HERE NUMBERED 12ish. Who’s the fairest of them all? Might just be the lady ‘Matrona,’ a blur of whose gorgeous blue-green leaves you see above behind its pinkening flowers. Her names derives from the German for “lady of well-rounded form,” but I grow her a little on the lean and [...]

Thats Plum tomatoes and Red Burgundy Okra - last weeks harvest from the vegetable garden along with other miscellaneous greens and herbs. The okra I planted from seed is really quite a beautiful plant- the lobed, red ribbed leaves that seem to mottle a little with age and the red stems and fruit are gorgeous. The packet says delicious and attractive, I've yet to test the delicious part- they may be a little past their best. The plum tomatoes on the other hand are taste tested and despite the fact that they are better used for cooking I couldn't resist having a couple just cut and salted-…

Sometimes I do more than just look. Sometimes I'm inspired - I process, analyse, osmose the visual information and use it for something else. An allover autumnal textile print perhaps or maybe a graphic artwork- look at those bold orange heart shapes combined with those teardrop sedum leaf shapes. Or, I just subliminally store the palette- greens, blue greens, teals, purples, oranges, reds and a little yellow. And not just the actual colors- the proportions matter too and so do their placement and juxtapositions with each other. See the purple edges on the blue green leaves and the green…

I was wrong about the Judge's Hostas last year. It's not on his wife's birthday that they bloom but on their anniversary. Today. August 15. The photos were taken a couple of days ago when the blooms seemed to be timing their display to the minute. It was early evening when Heidi and I walked over to take a look at them, the perfect time as the flowers open in the evening and their scent is given an extra boost by the phlox that is also blooming nearby. I did a little research and it looks like these are Hosta Plantaginea also known as August Lily.

I joined the New York City chapter of the Indoor Gardening Society back in May. I went on a lark just to see what it was all about and found myself intrigued. It was a blur of latin names and descriptions of how many feet things were grown from a north east or south facing window. I've been tight lipped about it because, that evening the theme was propagation- I walked out with a plastic bag with six assorted leaves and stems, and a headful of instructions. I didn't want to say anything just in case I killed them all. I can report now that I didn't.Well, not all of them. I did step on and…

I went back to visit Noah's Garden the last time I was up in Mamaroneck and got a chance to meet Noah himself. He was hard at work (look at those gardening hands) but took the time to show me around and give me some background to the garden and what he's been up to this summer, not to mention a tip or two on how to keep critters away. Gardening has become a way of life for him, he's been doing it since he was four after all. He's an old gardening soul, wise beyond his years about soil and compost and crop rotation but still enjoys growing sunflowers because he wonders how tall they can get…

Garden design thinking continues unabated here on the island. I’m still sketching away as the roof goes on the garage and we start getting ready to finish off the concrete floors before moving tools into place. This concept is a little more “formal” in that the lines are straight and the beds are clearly defined - probably with raised beds and timbers. This came about because I’m looking at what I really enjoy doing (growing interesting plants) and experimenting a lot (new seedlings, my own plant breeding) and doing this in the context of a jumbled cottage garden seems…

I interviewed Margaret Roach of A Way To Garden.com the other day and was clearly enchanted by this talented writer. We had a great talk and I thought ahead to record it as well. It took a bit of editing but I think I have it clearly enough so you can hear Margaret’s advice yourself in her own words. Be prepared to turn your volume up to it’s highest setting. For those who don’t know her, Margaret and her blog have taken the gardening blogosphere by storm. A former editor and publishing director with Martha Stewart (in fact the first editor of the gardening side of things at…

I have to confess that these coneflowers are one of my favorite plants, I particularly like the way they collect morning light. If you want to see other plants in bloom right now in the blogosphere, Carol at MayDreamsGarden has a full listing on her blog right here. But I note the only problem with having a plant looking great in the morning light is that you actually have to get up to see it. Copyright Doug Green 2008. Gardening Bloom Day

Regular readers may recall that we named our garden and home “Someday” because this was someday for us. We’ve landed, we’re enjoying life, and this is what we’ve worked for. No sense putting off till tomorrow what you can enjoy today. This picture shows the overall layout - between the garage concrete floor - the location of the garden shed (unpainted as of yet - family volunteers are not coming out of the woodwork) and the guest cottage (also unpainted in the new colors - hint - hint to family) This is the next sketch in my book. You can see the garden shed has…

As regular readers know, the Princess and I bought a place together last year and have decided to make a garden. (As if that’s going to come as a surprise to any of my friends or readers.) The garden is going to be a lot bigger than most sane people will have but I thought I’d share the design process with you over a few posts and show you pictures of the garden development as it is built. What I’m going to be showing you is a work in progress - it’s not the finished work. You’ll see the initial sketches, the thinking and the rough layouts as I go. The first…

Plant labels don't have to be expensive to work. A simple wooden marker--even a popsicle stick--will do the trick.I was giving a garden tour during a party recently when one of the guests commented that I had labeled all my tomato plants."I alw...

The garden cart, such as this one from Lee Valleyis just the beginning. The real usefulness is inhow you pimp it out for your own needs. For the longest time I wore a path between the area where I do my most intensive gardening and the corner of the...

  While the Democrats and Republicans are debating weighty issues over cocktails and bratwurst, I wonder how many will consider where the food they're woofing down is from? I don't mean which fancy restaurant. I mean how far away that food was t...

GardenScribe lets you document your plants, their carerequirements, history, pests and diseasesNow, when was I supposed to prune that osmanthus? And darn it, how frequently do I usually divide those hostas? Don't worry. I've got it all written down.O...

A Gardener's Journal's key feature is a page for each day of the year with room for 10 years of notes. I will admit to being an organization fanatic. Don't get me wrong. That doesn't mean that I am actually organized in every way. But it does mean t...

Invasive, Aggressive, Enthusiastic? We hear the terms used interchangeably these days, but they mean different things. The major difference between invasive and aggressive seems to be the plant’s...

There are a couple of good reasons we don't usually start perennial flowers from seed. First, it can take a year or two before you actually see any flowers....

Trying to list the top 10 best things about summer would be impossible, but fresh basil would certainly make the list. There is no substitute for the aroma and...

It’s about this time in the summer that many gardeners start to feel they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. If you still have plants in the pots...

Love it or hate it, peat is a fact of gardening life. Pretty much every soilless potting mix contains peat. And as often as we hear to use...

Gardening On Magdalena’s Plains Is An Uphill FightSmallTownPapers News Service, WA - 5 minutes agoBy Margaret Wiltshire SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- Gardening on Magdalena’s high plains is like joining a mountain climbing club in the southern Alps.

Gardening: Overcome poor soil with a raised bedSalt Lake Tribune, United States - 1 hour agoOne big challenge for Utah gardeners is soil fertility. Utah's soil is naturally low in organic matter and high in pH, two conditions that limit vegetable

GARDENING: Preserve summer's bounty one jar at a timeLancaster Newspapers, PA - 1 hour agoCome wintertime, the markets close, and the garden is bare, so everyone experiences seasonal limitations. Learning to preserve fresh, organically grown

American ChronicleThe Three Proven Ways that Fulvic Acid Improves Your Hydroponics American Chronicle, CA - 2 hours agoIf you´ve tried to get fulvic acid´s benefits by using fulvic acid formulas made with lower quality materials, you´d have less hydroponics gardening success

Christian Science MonitorGrowing green in DetroitChristian Science Monitor, MA - 3 hours agoAs the trio cleared a bed for planting seedlings, Saba said, “I love gardening, It’s cool. It’s nice. And you can get your hands dirty without getting

NEW MARKET, Va. - If you've ever strayed into a spat between flower growers, chances are it was about roses.

It's hardly a casual acquaintance Amy Goldman, of Rhinebeck, N.Y., has with tomatoes.

Turning up the heat on the red tomato during processing has the potential to give the popular garden staple added disease-fighting power, Ohio State University research suggests.

India Gazette Wednesday 20th August, 2008 The National Botanical Research Institute here has set up India's first moss garden, scientists said Wednesday.

A Texas man decided grow his own to beat high prices. But it wasn't lettuce or tomatoes in his garden.

Gardening and photography, flowers and bootsie the neighbors cat. A city girl waiting to be transplanted to the country

A blog about life as seen through the lens of the garden...by the lifestyle editor of the Houston Chronicle and author of the book Pink Ladies & Crimson Gents: Portraits & Legends of 50 Roses.

A public school garden blog with videos and photos to interest young children in gardening and blogging.

My Gardens in Cape Elizabeth

Life on a 21st century family farm. One families journey towards a back to basics, self reliant life in the middle of the city.

When I started this blog there came with it the question of what would I let myself be called to the world of the internet web. I tried to think of something that would be fitting for the title of this site, Brambleberries in the Rain. Everything I came up with was too cutesy for my taste. I ended up deciding my best bet was to just stick with my actual name. After all, it gave the blog a more personal touch. Little did I know just how many blogging Cindys there are out there on the net. Garden blogging Cindys to be precise.  I found it rather amusing to see so many other ladies out there…

While out in the garden the other morning I was admiring a certain corn stalk that is doing particularly well in the sunflower house. I was admiring its leaves when something caught my eye making me do a double take. In my excitement I took some horrible pictures that show absolutely nothing but I did get this pretty good video clip. (That is it looks good on my computer; YouTube sort of blurred it all out but I wanted to post about it anyway!) Please ignore the earwigs hiding out in the stalk. I was not trying to film those little pests but they wanted to be on video nonetheless. I do not…

This past week our home was turned into The Blackberry House. The blackberries have arrived like they never have before. We are bringing in so many these past few days. I have been busy transforming all of these delicious little gems into creations that my family is devouring faster than we can pick them. My fingers have been stained purple in fact! I started out by making jam. Of course I had to make jam; sweet, delicious, and black as night blackberry jam.  I love to give jars of homemade jam away as gifts during the holidays so the more jam I can get made the better. Next I used up 4 cups…

I have several pictures from my garden that really do not fit into any category for writing about so I thought I would go ahead and post them here randomly with descriptions as to what they are. I let some spearmint go to flower this year and here is a picture of it. The honey bees seem to love it above all else this year. In fact I had not seen any until just recently. I just love this picture! Doesn't this ballon flower (Platycodon grandiflorus) look like a sea star? Johnny Jump Ups (Viola tricolor) are one of my all time favorite flowers. I have been deadheading them like crazy to keep…

Last week I had posted about two of the weeds in my garden that are persistent and uninvited guests that seem to multiply by the thousands over night. I had also mentioned a third weed that I have not a clue as to what it is. I finally remembered to take this weed’s picture before brutally (and victoriously) yanking it out. Whatever this weed is it is popping up all over my garden. It is especially making its appearance known in the new vegetable garden and along the edges of our compost piles. I think the two below pictures are fairly decent enough for identifying it. If anyone…

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008 So I bought this tomato because I thought, “Gee, how cool, a Japanese tomato.” Stupid me. Despite all evidence to the contrary (mainly the NAME), this tomato is actually a Russian tomato. No one is quite sure why they named this a Japanese tomato, though some suspect that it was an [...] This is just a part of this article. Visit my site to read the rest of this article and much more.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008 “Dr. Jones, hand over ze Green Moldovan… or ve kill ze girl.” Really, the name sounds like some kind of rare green jeweled idol that could lead to the end of humanity if it falls into the wrong hands. But no, this is a tomato. A true Green tomato meaning that [...] This is just a part of this article. Visit my site to read the rest of this article and much more.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008 I grew up in hillbilly country. Cow tipping was not just a nightly pastime, it was a certified sport. I have often wondered if there was a difference between a redneck and a hillbilly. In my mind, hillbilly just sounds like a nicer person. Like Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies. [...] This is just a part of this article. Visit my site to read the rest of this article and much more.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008 I bought these seeds in an effort to find a good early ripening tomato. Being in Cleveland, the growing season can fluctuate dramatically from one year to the next. This means that for the most part, you have to lay your bets on Mother Nature’s temper. Odds are pretty long that [...] This is just a part of this article. Visit my site to read the rest of this article and much more.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2008 This was a freebie tomato seed packet that came with the tomato seeds I actually wanted. As you may have guessed, Wayahead is a clever play on the fact that these tomatoes are an early developer and they are ready “way ahead” of all the others in the garden. Unfortunately, we [...] This is just a part of this article. Visit my site to read the rest of this article and much more.

Apparently, I am providing answers of “biblical proportions” on my blog. A post I wrote in October 2006, titled “The Truth About Burning Bush”, continues to be the most viewed of all my posts on this blog. Since June 2007, it has been viewed over 5,700 times. My first thought was that people are really interested in Euonymous alatus, the burning bush! But after some discussion with a co-worker

Would you like to see a few of my favorite places in the garden? I like to sit out on the front porch on my bench where I can watch people walking and cycling by but they don’t usually see me. I’m hidden behind the crabapple tree and this year, the giant Boston ferns attract more attention than I do. At my feet and all around me are containers of plants, including rain lilies, Zephyranthes sp.

One minute I’m thinking that this will be the year that none of the tomatoes will ripen and I’ll be “outed’ as a less-than-adequate vegetable gardener, and then I have more ripe tomatoes than I can eat, and I’m looking for people to take a few off my hands. I love gardening! I love the up’s and down’s of it, how I love my garden one minute, and then after I see someone else’s garden or a

If I didn't have a calendar, I'd still know that fall is coming because of the constant singing of the cicadas up in the trees. And with fall approaching, I'm starting to make some choices about which plants I'll bring inside to save them from the killing frost. Yes, I said killing frost and it is still August. The killing frost (oops, wrote it again) is still hopefully about two months from

Let the Olympic gardening games begin. The one and only Idahogardener is hosting a blogging event to commemorate the Olympics in true gardening fashion. There are just three rules: 1. You must link back to her website. 2. You must show her the best of the best of your garden. You decide what that is: single plant, single fabulous piece of produce, collection of tomatoes, collection of hoes, a

Here are just a few of the things blooming in my garden, bringing smiles and attracting beautiful bees. Enjoy!Those silly duckies! They found my garden and were hanging out, nipping cherry tomatoes off of the vines. I fed them a few rotten tomatoes and they even nibbled my toes!

It's back to school time everywhere you look! We homeschool here so we don't purchase many of the supplies that are usually needed for public school (backpacks, lunchboxes) but check these out! While browsing Treehugging Family I found these. I would have sported one of these in school for sure. They are actually really cool but a little pricey. You can get this Tootsie Roll, Mr.Owl lunchbox at Target for $24.99. Candy included. Etsy is amazing. If you haven't checked it out, do it now. I found a really wonderful seller over there. A Kattywampus Tale is a store where skirts tell stories about…

Getting Khaki Campbell ducks for my birthday was one of the best gifts.Raising ducks has not been easy and quite a challenge sometimes. If your considering ducks, I would start with chickens first. Seriously.My chickens have been so easy to care for and when they were little babies, they stayed inside the house for months. I had the ducklings in the house for maybe two weeks! They are very stinky.They went outside in an enclosure when they were about 2 weeks old. They loved it and since it is summer time, they didn't really need the heat lamp.From everything I have read, apparently Khaki…

I know some people (you know who you are *wink*) saw the title of this blog and either pooped your pants or were filled with joy! Gotcha.I've begun getting funny political videos, pictures and jokes via email. I suppose the closer it gets to the election the more people panic and I gotta tell ya, some of the videos are quite funny. Enjoy the spoof.

The garden surrounding my front porch (or stoop, more like) is starting to look a little worse for wear now that August is almost over and autumn is fast encroaching.  I like fall, I really do.  Even for all my moaning and groaning, it's actually my second favorite season.  There's nothing so refreshing as the feel and smell of that first crisp breeze, conjuring up memories of October and pumpkins and fleece sweaters and being bundled up inside, reading next to a cozy fire as the winter rains begin again. But.  Still.  With all those good things come the bad, and the…

Flowers and vegetables are the obvious backbone of any garden, but to me some of the most essential things in my garden are the cats. I've got, uh, a few cats who spend all day roaming the flower beds and pouncing on leaves and invisible bugs in the grass (and also, occasionally, moles).  They've worn adorable little tracks into the mulch that weave between plants and veer off into flattened little nesting areas beneath the butterfly bushes and hydrangeas.  When we get back from work in the evening, invariably we see little cat eyes blinking out at us from under the hedge and among…

I'm probably not unlike a lot of gardeners, in that what I really want is more land. I don't want a bigger home - I'm quite happy in my cozy little cottage.  I don't want more cars or furniture or gadgets or clothes.  I'd like more books, and more wood for my fireplace come winter, but I think in the scheme of things I don't really want much.  Just a nice-sized plot of earth to call my own.  What I have now just doesn't cut it, since it's less than a mere measly quarter-acre.  OK, it's actually a little less than HALF a quarter-acre, and I feel quite hemmed in,…

I devoured him. He was delicious.

I can’t catch a break with my bean plants. Earlier in the year it was slugs, which I handily dispatched with a cold beer. This time however, I have bean leaf beetles, and the solution is not so simple. I know I have bean leaf beetles because instead of having large holes, I have many many smaller ones. I also know I have bean leaf beetles because in some areas there are brown spots instead of holes, as bean leaf beetles sometimes do not eat all the way through a leaf. Finally I know I have bean leaf beetles because they eat in the day and are easy to spot. They come in many different…

I got this plant courtesy of my grandfather, it is one of his favorites and always grew at his house in a large mass planting. This is one interesting plant with many phases for you to enjoy. It is a biennial, which means it lives for two years and then dies. The first year it grows around 6 inches or so high, it takes the snow without losing it’s green, and then the second year it rapidly shoots up to spring to as high as 3 or 4 feet high and has bright purple flowers. It flowers in early Spring when there is not very much else of height flowering like it does, more or less between…

I’ve blogged about raspberries many times before, which you’ll see in the “related posts” links at the bottom of this post. But I don’t know if I ever really went into depth as to how I grow them. In anycase, now is the time. First, a little bragging. This picture was taken like the second week in July. I picked my first raspberry on July 5th and within a week I was harvesting a quarter pound a day or more from this 8′x4′ patch. What I want to show off though is the height. Look at those canes. That one big one in the middle has to be 8 feet tall…

So, I tossed two of my zucchini plants in my compost tumbler yesterday, when pulling them up I didn’t need to uproot them, the squash borers had basically destroyed the main stem to the point that the top of the plant was hardly connected to the roots at all. I knew it was squash borer damage, I had seen the tell tale signs of the orangish sawdusty wounds around the base of the vines, but I also knew it was too late by the time I noticed. But, this morning, I went out and did surgery on my remaining squash vines, and look what I found. You can cut the vine lengthwise, opening it up, and…

So a week ago Wayside Gardens announced a 15% off sale, this week it’s their sister company Park Seed. Lasts the whole month of August apparently.

The Bourbon rose 'Louise Odier' and the Austin rose 'Gertrude Jekyll' are some of the most fragrant roses in the world. They produce an abundance of very beautiful flowers. Their beauty combined with their heady fragrance place them on top of the wish list of many gardeners.These 2 roses are interesting because they can be grown in colder zones due to their hardiness (USDA zone 5 for Loise Odier and Zones 4/5 for Gertrude Jekyll) and still become quite big roses. In warmer zones they also perform well (Even though GJ might benefit from getting some afternoon shade not to fry the delicate…

I love lilies, but they seem to hate me or my soil. Of the 12 Stargazer lily bulbs I planted this spring only 1 has bloomed. I think this is a very poor result! I could of course just stick to roses, that I grow so well, but I like to have something blooming during the dog days of August. I love the scent of fragrant flowers. Fragrance is so important to me and what is more fragrant than oriental lilies? The bulbs I planted were very large. I amended the soil so it drained well were I planted them and gave a good layer of compost on top. I sprayed them with natural pyrethrum tea to deter red…

This year my old garden roses were gorgeous! Because of the dry warm weather we had when they flowered. I had to water my roses much more than I have ever done in the spring, since we had the worst drought in 57 years. Many of my old garden roses were covered in blooms and their scents were intoxicating for 4-5 glorious weeks. Here are pictures of some of my favorite pink old garden roses:Rosa Portlandica; 'Comte De Chambord' s. 'Mme Boll':Rosa Centifolia; 'Village Maid':Rosa Centifolia Muscosa; 'Mme Louis Lévêque':Rosa Bourbonica: 'Louise Odier':Rosa Centifolia; 'Reine De…

I have heard that associations of the "First Lady of Australia" often turns some gardeners off growing this wonderful flower, which just shows that they do not have a sense of humor.Over the years I have come to really like these summer flowering bulbs (or corms) with their swordlike spiky foliage and upright flowers that flowers through the dog days of August, where the roses seem to take a break before the fall flush. My favorite Gladioli are those with purple or hot Pink flowers like 'Violetta' or 'Plumtart'. They are like other summer flowering bulbs very easy to grow. Just plant the…

During a wonderful summer vacation at the French Riviera in 1993, I visited some Danish friends who own a wonderful summer residence in Antibes. In their garden I saw a big arching shrub rose covered in beautiful red and purple roses. I will never forget the first time I smelled one of these roses. The olfactory pleasure made my soul sing and for a moment time stood still. Every day I went to smell these roses and my friends told me that it was a Hybrid Perpetual called Souvenir d'Alphonse Lavallée they had gotten from Guillot Roses.Some years later I had not forgotten that rose and wanted…

Wow. I haven’t even set foot in the garden in 3-4 days because of the heat then rain and I was thrilled by what I found. Our first red roma tomatoes, crooknecks and zucchini, lots of corn and more. Check it all out And the crookneck squash siamese twin that wants to be a porn star:

So much for planning on weeding today. A big storm came in last night and will last all week. With the amount of rain we’re going to get, I think the weeds might just take over I did manage to get the zucchini shredded and frozen, and got a bunch of peaches and have started freezing them. I got some from the store and some from a local orchard and am doing half of each in fruit juice and the other half in very light sugar syrup. I thought about canning some, but just can’t get the ambition up. Freezing is incredibly easy!

Just a general update on how things are going in the Garden of Eatin’ today. The weeds are taking over. I need to get out there and attack with the weed whacker, it’s that bad. It’s not stopping things from growing, so that much is good! But it won’t happen in the next few days…yesterday we had 100F+ temps, today we’re due for 105F and tomorrow is supposed to be 100F, and Sunday 90F…temps should be back in the mid 70s on Monday, so I’ll plan on going lots of work in the garden then, with before after after pics. The tomato stake experiement has…

My brothers would cringe at this, they’re scared of boobs  (yeah, you, J, I know you read this sometimes ) but it’s just so neat I gotta share. That squirrel from the other day is a mama I wonder where her babies are

I usually make quiche with spinach, but the kids hate it and since the husband isn’t here anymore, I wasn’t going to bother. I used grated zucchini instead and not only did it taste better, the kids gobbled it up You’ll have to excuse my measurements, this is one of those homemade things that I eyeball for part of it. For each pie: Oven at 350F Use a refrigerator pie crust (or homemade, I’m lazy) and lay it out in your pie plate. Whisk together 2 eggs and 1 cup heavy whipping cream or half & half. Mix 1 baked chicken breast, cubed small, with some cheddar and…

Today I came across a great site for garden and outdoor shopping! Lawn And Garden Equipment At WillyGoat.ComWillygoat has composters, garden sheds, greenhouses, planters, lawn accessories, raised bed gardens, outdoor lighting, play houses for the little ones, and more! A fun place to check out for those of us who love our backyard and gardening!

This year was my first attempt to grow potatoes! I've been so anxious to do a little digging and see if indeed I did have some potatoes growing, how they looked, and how big they were! I had read that when the plant begins to die off you can carefully dig for some potatoes. As you can see from the photo above, my plant has been dying off a bit for a couple weeks. Well, today I couldn't wait any longer and it turns out I didn't need to. The photo below shows the 7 potatoes I dug up. My girls and I were so excited. They actually look like potatoes too. :) There were a couple other tiny potatoes…

Okra "Hibiscus esculentus" The Clemson Spineless variety (in photograph) is a compact plant with dark green okra. Being spineless it is much easier to harvest than other varieties. The pods can grow up to 9" but are best if picked at 3 inches. It grows best in full sun & well drained soil. I does not tolerate cold well and the seeds should be planted about four weeks after the averarage last frost date.It is known for being used in gumbo or often eaten fried.Benefits: High in vitamin C, tasty, the hibiscus like flowers have ornamental value.Below are some recipes for preparing Okra."Popcorn…

Whether I beautified or butchered these two bushes is likely to be a matter of opinion! I must say I had fun though. The inner artist in me loves to take something and make it different!

Today I picked another large bowl of greenbeans! They have done wonderfully. As far as the pole beans there really isn't much of a trick to for me. I pretty much just make a teepee, so to speak, with 5 bamboo poles (one in the middle and 4 surrounding) and garden string. I just weave and tie the string through the bamboo poles various places making sure they are all secured together. Position it deep enough in the ground to make it good and sturdy and then you're ready to plant. I plant a couple seeds around each of the outer poles. Something I have learned is that although these poles can…

NYBG Color Report — August 2008 from The New York Botanical Garden on Vimeo. Jon Peter, Plant Records Manager at the New York Botanical Garden, talks about some of the plants currently in flower at the Garden. This month, in honor of the Olympic Games, Jon takes a look at some of the plants around The Garden that are native to China. For a monthly schedule of what’s in color at NYBG, visit nybg.org/whats_in_flower/ For weekly updates of what’s in bloom, call 718.362.9561 and enter 403#.

Kate Murphy, a junior at Fordham University, and Genna Federico, a senior at St. John’s University, interned in the Communications Department this summer. The weekly Farmers Market not only features vendors with regionally grown produce and home-baked treats but also offers demonstrations on the first and last Wednesday of every month. We decided it would be fun to check out the demonstration on composting led by staff from our Bronx Green-Up program. The New York City Composting Guide The NYC Composting Guide describes composting as “the process of creating the ideal conditions for the…

Nick Leshi is Associate Director of Public Relations and Electronic Media. In the September 2008 issue of Outside, a health, fitness, and travel magazine, Eric Hansen wrote a two-and-a-half page feature chronicling his quest to find the Bronx’s elusive José the Beaver. Named as a tribute to Congressman José Serrano, the beaver has garnered an urban legend mystique with sightings along the Bronx River. The writer visited The New York Botanical Garden while researching his story and dubbed our institution “a biologically diverse oasis.” Reading this article made me think of…

Pondering Powdery Mildew Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education at The New York Botanical Garden. Gardening is about observation. I have noticed over the past several years that my phlox and peonies that are out in full sun never suffer from powdery mildew while those that are in partial shade suffer miserably. What then are the lessons for the gardener? Powdery mildew tends to create a problem for gardeners in middle to late summer. Unlike many fungal problems that need good moisture to take hold, powdery mildew thrives with warmth (temperatures around 70s-80s) and high humidity.

Written by Genna Federico, a senior at St. John’s University, with additional reporting by Kate Murphy, a junior at Fordham University; both are interns working in the Communications Department this summer. A few years ago, NYBG made Frank Russo “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” The Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden asked him to start an Italian Garden as part of its Global Gardens program. Russo had been volunteering in the Family Garden for about four years, so it was a natural fit. The Global Gardens are planted and maintained by volunteers who take pride in the culture of the…

It's always a delight to get a second set of flowers from a perennial after deadheading -- it sort of feels like getting something for free or winning the lottery.The bellflowers, after their recent deadheading have started to send out a few new bloom. (A disclaimer: I really do not make a point of seeking out earwigs and other creepy-crawlies to take photos of -- at least not usually. Today, the first bellflower I happened to focus on just happened to have an earwig in residence.)The foxglove, sent up a second stalk, albeit a wimpy one incapable of supporting its own weight.Its funny, there…

Well -- it seemed like a clear-cut invitation. My few-weeks-short-of-18 daughter and her already 18 best friend (of 14 years) decided, at 10pm, to have a fancy restaurant-quality dinner in the back yard, candle light, tablecloth, elegant place-settings, multiple salads and all, in lieu of "going out". My husband and I were wallowing in sentiment, recalling with fondness how the two girls used to play together when they were 4 years old, thoroughly enjoying their emerging "adultness", while at the same time attempting to give them their space, when we heard shrieks from the yard: "Mom!?!?!? A…

The rain this summer has just not let up. It seems that the daily deluge has become drearily predictable. Planning a BBQ dinner and actually cooking the food outside don't necessarily go follow any more. The cloudiness, combined with the density of the tree canopy over the garden, has made it commonplace to have to use either flash photography or super long exposure times in order to take the most mundane of photos.Today, after an extremely heavy downpour (complete with pea-sized hail), a few shafts of sunlight broke through both clouds and canopy. The lighting made it a perfect time to…

We went to the cottage in the Laurentians two weeks ago thinking that we'd stay for only 6 or 7 days. Our plans ended up changing and with the teenagers' agreement, we stayed for an extra week. An extra week of daily rain, mosquitoes, and chilly (20C, 65-70F) temperatures. Of course, we blame this totally on my husband. He had the unmitigated nerve to bring his telescopes (solar & regular) to the cottage with the expectation of actually making use of them!The garden changed a lot over the time we were away. Whereas before, it still had the feel of a garden blooming and growing, we…

...earwig!? Apparently so. I wandered out first thing this morning to take a photo of the rudbeckia before it fully opened and found that not only had it already changed a lot from yesterday evening, but that one of its petals had been converted into a hammock for an earwig.Joy. I wonder how long it will take until the flower becomes a meal as well as a comfortable place to hang out?Getting back to the original reason for going into the garden: there were three plants that I wanted to photograph before their flowers fully opened today. Clearly, I was too late for the rudbeckia. The echinacea,…

F. 'Dancing Flame'On Tuesday, I went to visit the fabulous gardens at RHS Wisley again, spurred on by the fact that this week they are holding their August Flower Show, which this year celebrates the 70th birthday of the British Fuchsia Society.As part of the show, there were many Gold Medal exhibitors stands to drool over. The British Fuchsia Society staged a show in the Marquee, and it was fascinating to try and figure out why one entry had been awarded a higher place than another.F. 'Orient Express' One lady exhibitor was even offering samples of her home-made Fuchsia Berry Jelly. I tried…

This beautiful pink rose is part of a bouquet one of my sisters sent me on hearing my newsHope HappensHope is what happens when you first see a lightJust a distant, small star in the darkest of night.Hope is what happens with the first buds of springWhen dawn touches the sky or a bird spreads it's wings.Hope is what happens when a wound starts to heal.Whether skin deep or soul deep, you begin to feel real.Hope is what happens when you're poor but not brokenThere's a goldmine of dreams-just not yet awoken.Hope is what happens when someone is kindA feeling not lost-just misplaced in your…

Crocosmia 'Lucifer'I was wondering around the Internet looking for inspiration and decided to pop over to the blog of the talented VP of Veg Plotting. To my delight I discovered she has produced the most amazing virtual 'Open Garden', that allows us to visit without leaving the comfort of our own chair or braving inclement weather. I have been reading VP's blog for quite a while now, and always enjoy my visits. I know she is a dedicated and talented chantress, and she has been using these skills to great affect raising money for the charity Water Aid, as part of a choir . They perform next…

Let my words, like vegetables, be tender and sweet, for tomorrow I may have to eat them.~Author Unknown~

Benecol's Prism Corner, supporting The Rainbow Trust by Kari Beardsell; a small show garden, Hampton Court Flower Show 2008

A few years ago, I belonged to a great organic food co-op.  Every Thursday evening I would drop by the owner's home and pick up my bag of delicious and sometimes mysterious organic fruits and vegetables.  Recipes were always included (especially helpful for experimenting with unfamiliar veg)This cool article from the SF Chronicle made me think about how much fun gardening is and haw many people can be fed off a small plot of land.Gardening Options for Busy PeopleThe cost of the MyFarm program might seem high, but just having had a garden installed and now going on its 5th month of…

Lemon sorbet

Dear Friends,What can I say? It seems I've hit the writer's block wall, I just didn't have any desire to sit here and blog.Blogging has been a wonderful way for me to share the passion and joy in my garden. Maybe, that's why my lack of blogging reflected my lack of gardening. Getting ready for my trip to Germany I began to ignore the garden and once I returned, it only got worse.My husband Don did a monumental job of keeping the garden beds watered while I was gone. It figures that the hottest, driest spell of the summer was during those two weeks. Since I've been home I've rarely had to turn…

Our second week in Germany was spent visiting several family members in different cities. My brother Michael had to return to California but Mom and I were lucky to be able to see quite a bit more. Our experiences with the German rail were wonderful, not as timely as we were led to believe but they were clean, safe, comfortable and fast.Leaving Hamburg we headed south to Hanover to my cousin Gudrun's house. Gudrun and I had met only once as young children and then last December we met in Florida, almost 40 years later. I think if we lived in the same town we would be the best of friends, we…

Wow, what a tough time it's been the last few days. First blogger locked me out of this site with a notice telling me that my blog was considered a possible spam site. I almost had a heart attack when I read the notice that they had the right to erase my entire blogging history. Thankfully though somebody did a review and they released the blog back to me.Friday night we lost power to half of our house, how strange is that? The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that the kitchen still had power so we could make coffee :-)Today's post is a total mix-up of faces and facades. For my…

To begin my third post on German gardens, I chose this wonderful shot taken while standing in my cousin Ingrid's garden. Ingrid is a popular name in my family and I have an aunt and two cousins with this name. This photo was taking in Ingrid and Egberts garden in Krukow, just down the road from my Tante Inge & Onkel Heinz's charming farmhouse.Imagine having a view like this every day, pure heaven.Ingrid and Egbert have a wonderful collection of plant material. A huge assortment of beneficial herbs, a top notch collection of tropical plants that they overwinter in a lovely garden room…

The third day of our trip to Germany, mom and I spent the day traveling with the ICE Bahn (Germany's fast trains) north to Hamburg. As soon as we arrived at the main station in Hamburg we immediately bought ourselves a bratwurst (one of my all time favorite foods). We continued east on local trains, splitting up so that my mom stayed with her sister Eli in Rhinebeck and I stayed with my cousin Edith in Geestacht.This opening photo was taken on the balcony at Edith's brand new penthouse home. Edith had just returned from seven weeks in Australia and her newly planted boxwoods show the stress…

This is truly being the summer of my gardening discontent. The weather is enough to drive a person to drink. While others around the province have been enduring dry yet cloudy and humid conditions, we've been getting wet , cloudy and humid conditions. Fog doesn't bother me, normally--it's here, it's gone. Not this year. So much southwest wind and therefore fog. When everything is soggy wet, it's

I've whined before about my ongoing problem with hollyhocks. The Reader's Digest condensed version of the story is that I have hollyhock challenges, particularly when it comes to one particular colour. Yellow. I've been trying for years to get yellow hollyhocks. They refuse to bloom that colour for me. It's become a point of some horticultural hilarity in my world. People have kindly sent

Once again life got in the way this week, but mostly in a good way. Except for the weather, that is. More fog, more heat, but now today it's actually raining. Rain is good. Despite the fog, things are dry, and we need a day of long, contemplative, soaking rain. Although since I'm putting in my request, let it clear off for the performances of my friend Ami McKay's play "Jerome-The Historical

Just about the time I was beginning to think we were trapped in Brigadoon, we emerged from the fog today into hot sunlight and to a wild yard and garden. I was afraid my longsuffering spouse would have to mow and bale the lawn for hay for the horse and donkeyfrommars, but he managed to get through it all--it had been three weeks since he'd been able to mow, and all that moisture...well, let's

Wandering around the garden today despite the stinkin' hot weather--we didn't get Cristobal's rainy fury here, just more tropical temps and humidity--I was struck yet again that for someone who claims to not care for pink, I have a lot of it in the garden. Beginning with the profusion of poppies that are scattered all around the yard--my freerange flowers, I call them, popping up everywhere. They

Guess what’s for dessert? Oh my goodness, my friend Justine brought me the most delicious treat recently. It’s called panna cotta, which is of course Italian, and it comes originally from the Piedmonte area in northern Italy, which makes sense as they have dairies, in addition to vineyards. I don’t know how it’s escaped my radar all this time. And it was sooooo delicious I immediately asked for the recipe and learned how to make it, and lucky you if you didn’t know either. You are about to find out. I know I have myriad readers who will tell me they have…

Our town is aflame with crape myrtle at the moment. It’s everywhere you turn, lighting up merchant streets, neighbors’ yards and sidewalk strips with vibrant colors. The lovely crape myrtle tree has a special place in my heart, as it takes me back immediately and always to those days when Grandma was in her nursing home in Sonoma. Many of the ladies in the home used to gather each afternoon in the large sunny lobby, looking out through floor to ceiling windows and large glass doors. They poignantly had placed themselves in the best position to see who came and went. It was the hub…

When I decided Sunday to return to the Cleveland Community Garden about which I’d written last spring in conjunction with a book review, what transpired was not what I’d been expecting. In my mind I was arriving bearing gifts–a large plastic bag full of sheaves of arugula branches, each bearing multiple dried pods of delicate seeds. I wasn’t sure what reception I would get to the idea of arugula among a primarily Hispanic group of gardeners, but I was willing to offer them in the spirit of one gardener to another, knowing I was introducing the possibility of a winter…

I found it charming that Philip at Philip’s Garden Blog came by for a second visit (and comment) for my Digging Dog visit and post. I fully understood, though. It had been a big challenge to narrow down my focus of the many fantastic images I was able to capture while there. After some thought I’d opted for the perennial beds. But, oh my goodness! So much more to share. And here, with Digging Dog assistant Lynn’s help in IDing these individual plants (by phone!) I am going to indulge in a doubledip to be able to offer you a bit more, fancifully accompanied by an appropriate…

Arriving at Digging Dog is not a particularly easy feat, but it is spectacularly beautiful. One must first wend ones way through the Anderson Valley, home to many old wonderful wineries, followed by a slow snaking through an ancient sacred redwood forest, eventually coming along an old ever-widening river that leads one to a breathtaking emerging at ocean’s end. And now one must retrace back through a pygmy forest, arriving at a dirt road, back into the forest that is home to Digging Dog Nursery, one of America’s famed Destination Nurseries. My first visit was over a dozen years…

As my garden is currently a garden only in theory, I decided to post this abstract photo montage of my oxblood lilies created by Dreamlines.

Jeff and Ray's garden is below street level made of terraces built into steep hillside.

di•lem•ma a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, esp. equally undesirable ones

August 4th was day 42 this summer of 100+ weather. Now in a tie for third place with summer 2000 for summer of most 100 degree days.

Recognize this large and delicate yellow-colored flower that can stand even triple-digit heat?

It hasn’t rained like this since May. Yep, May. After months of drought, my little patch of Austin is finally experiencing what the southwest Austin bloggers have been happily reporting since the weekend—rain! A thunderstorm this morning dropped 2 inches of rain. (Is there any happier feeling in the summer than seeing 2 inches of [...]

If you’re visiting because of my article on the gardening page of the Austin American-Statesman, welcome! Regular readers of Digging know that I’m a huge fan of using stock tanks in the garden, and I can never resist the chance to show a few more pics of the shiny troughs in my own little eden. [...]

I’m dating myself here, but does anyone else remember the Valley speak of the 1980s? So many of my flowers this Garden Bloggers Bloom Day are tubular—perfect for hummingbirds and, as it turns out, perfect for surviving a hot, dry Austin summer. Aside from the heat-loving ‘Incense’ passionflower above, you won’t see any big, luscious, [...]

So many garden bloggers have been posting pictures of their naked ladies that I thought I should follow suit. These statues grace Woodward Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The city’s terrible ice storm last winter left lasting damage to the park’s stately trees, and many of the trails and beds seemed sadly neglected since we last visited. [...]

Soon after crossing the Red River from Texas into Oklahoma, you notice a preponderance of Native American imagery on signs, license plates, and billboards. Turnpikes are named for tribes, and official signs along the highways announce when you’ve entered an Indian nation—for instance, the Creek Nation or the Choctaw Nation. I have no idea what [...]

As energy companies seek to throw fists full of dollars attempting to find renewable sources, most homeowners are doing the same - but their paths could be going in different directions. While the energy companies invest in hydro-electrics, wind farms and even tidal solutions the home wind turbine has been taking leaps and bounds in it's level of possibility. One has only to type a few keywords into YouTube to discover the many backyard inventors trying to save money on their energy costs. Yet the average person, who doesn't hold a degree in electrical physics, struggles to see how the…

One plant that fails to get much 'air-time' these days is the dependable hibiscus. Maybe as gardeners we've moved on from these characteristically oversized flowers condemning them to the novices and non-gardeners because they're too easy to grow? Or, perhaps we just found other plants that stole our attention and they've been relegated to the yesteryear plants (aka "Grandma plants"). Whatever the reason, hibiscus and their deliciously tropical flowers have disappeared from mainstream garden discussions. Yet if you reside in an area where these grow it's quite obvious that their proliferation…

Late again but hoping the party is still going and there's enough food and drink for the latecomers... Spent tulip flowers look amazing as they show off their delicate pistils before dropping the remaining petals Eriostemon philotheca 'Profusion' is just starting to flower now and will look intensely coloured over the next few months as its delicate flowers cover its non-descript limbs I can't believe I'm taking a photo of a weed! Arum lillies have become a bona fide pest since being introduced to our region nearly 200 years ago - but they do look pretty, don't they? Since Annie ID'd this…

Rainbird®, one of the world's leading water irrigation manufacturers, has been running a competition to reward those peoples who having been taking steps to manage water more efficiently. The five finalists, with their short bios, can be found here - but be warned that it reads like a press release (probably because it is a press release). While all five finalists seem worthy recipients of th