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10 Weeks of Vegetable Gardening: Week 1
Each Friday I will be posting a weekly guide for prepping your home vegetable garden. In Raleigh, the average last killing frost date is April 11 (give or take a week), so my first weekend for planting outdoors will be April 9. Check out this frost map to determine yours. There are now ten weeks before our big outdoor planting weekend. If you buy all your vegetable plants for your home garden, this may not be very significant, but if…
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Seed Cataloging for the Home Garden
Every mid-winter I find myself in a Lowes or Logan’s perusing the seed displays. I cannot help myself. Today, the boys and I spent nearly an hour in Lowes playing on the mowers, looking at seeds, and talking to the staff. Actually, the staff was talking to my boys. They are cuties, what can I say. I left with a seed-starting kit, six packets of seeds and some starter refills. This evening, I spread my spoils on the floor and…
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The Slaughter of Silence and Sleep
After tears of confusion, much drama, pain, clinging, drooling, gnawing, and the slaughter of silence and sleep, Wookie has pushed two teeth through. There is no picture because there isn’t much to see yet, just two little white lines on his bottom gum line. I suppose I should be mourning the impending loss of his sweet gummy smile, but babies with just their two bottom teeth are quite adorable too. Last week, Wookie and I visited my family in Chattanooga…
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A Seat at the Table
This morning, our good friend Thom preached on being the adopted and sons and daughters of God. The part of his talk that really grabbed me was his discussion on how we write ourselves off as undeserving, unwanted or less than at His table. Several weeks back, I was dining at Magiano’s with a group of women to celebrate my friend’s birthday. There were sixteen of us laughing and talking as if we were the oldest of friends, and amazingly…
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Starting from Scratch
It’s a new year and I’m looking at an empty back yard. The latest issue of Organic Gardening came in the mail and even if I wanted to start planning the spring gardens, I’m completely overwhelmed by the clean slate. Do we go with raised beds or in-ground gardens? Fence? Square or organic boundaries? At the back of the lot or next to the house? Of my 4 raised boxes, only one remains intact. The fire ants shredded the others,…
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Starting from Scratch
It’s a new year and I’m looking at an empty back yard. The latest issue of Organic Gardening came in the mail and even if I wanted to start planning the spring gardens, I’m completely overwhelmed by the clean slate. Do we go with raised beds or in-ground gardens? Fence? Square or organic boundaries? At the back of the lot or next to the house? Of my 4 raised boxes, only one remains intact. The fire ants shredded the others,…