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Native Plant Rescue and the Return of Fire Pink
A year ago, I was on a native plant rescue along a greenway trail. We were tasked with digging up desirable plants from an area where the trail was being rerouted farther away from the unstable stream banks. The site was thick with Christmas ferns, mosses, trout lilies, and sedges. The rescued plants could be replanted in our own gardens or donated to public and private native gardens accepting contributions, but the goal was to save plants that would otherwise…
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Tips for Growing Great Garlic in the Southeast
As we transition into fall, it’s the perfect time to start planting garlic. Garlic thrives in cooler temperatures, and while the leaves may die back from frost, the bulbs continue to grow underground.
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Growing for Good: Native Plant Gardening
Whether we grew up in farming households, helped in the suburban yard, or lived in a concrete jungle, many of us started gardening as adults with a simple approach. We grabbed a few landscape plants from a big box store. Later, we found ourselves immersed in native plant sales at our local arboretum or botanical garden. Our mindset shifted from merely sprucing up the yard to designing a space that maximizes support of local biodiversity and habitat. We shifted in…
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Summer Garden Recap
My food growing was a disaster this summer. At least that’s how it felt as I surveyed the mass of weedy overgrowth this evening. I put all my energy into the new pond and quail keeping, and I let the weeds run amok and didn’t feed the plants or top off compost as I should have. For my future self, I’m documenting the season and will start with the positives because no one likes a whiner. Wins One apple tree…
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The Big Dig – Building Our Backyard Pond
"I dig deep thoughts and appropriately sized holes", my current Instagram tagline, makes me giggle. I didn't anticipate digging such an insanely big hole this spring, but I'd been worrying about how large the koi were growing and pointing out spots in the yard to Joe where a pond would fit.
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Essential Garden Edibles
After nearly 15 years of growing food, I have settled into my garden and learned the local climate, built up my soil, and developed planting rhythms, growth expectations, and a list of essential garden edibles that work best for my garden and household. These 13 fruits, veggies, and herbs have become my essentials because of their flavor, versatility and/or preservability: tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, okra, cucumber, sugar snap peas, carrots, potatoes, garlic, onions, basil, dill, and cilantro. What should go on…
