-
Garden Dreaming
The weather in Raleigh, NC has been incredibly wet and cold, which has forced my garden dreaming indoors. When I talk about garden dreaming around this time of year, it’s in reference to the spring and summer vegetable garden. We have a 30′ by 30′ fenced vegetable garden, which also contains rose bushes, flowering perennials and a 300 gallon pond. The pond hosts fish, bullfrogs and a few aquatic and wetland plant species. The space dedicated to the annual vegetables seems to decline every year. My son has claimed one corner for his lamb’s ear, beebalm, tulips, irises, daffodils and a hellebore. He once had a bamboo teepee for pole…
-
DIY Backyard Fish Pond Update – Bring on the Frogs!
We’ve had our 300 gallon fish pond for a full year now. It is now teeming with plants and critters, so much that I’ve had to prune back plants and shuffle fish. Our goldfish spawned at the beginning of summer, but unfortunately none of those fry grew into adult fish. I suspect the mosquito fish, goldfish and tadpoles made dinner of them. I brought in a large batch of tiny fry thinking they were goldfish, only to discover they were more mosquito fish once they grew out. We also lost our one coy. It jumped out of the pond onto bricks in the blazing heat. It is now fertilizing a…
-
Garden Imprints
Thanks to the heat and mosquitoes, working in the garage at the wheel in the summer can be pretty uncomfortable, so I’ve transitioned into the house, hand building at the breakfast table. I remembered that one of my favorite finished products over the years has been little footed dishes with imprints, so I picked a fern and a few flower heads from the dill plants and made a dozen of these little tripod dishes. Several summers ago I made a series of platters from garden imprints, and I can tell you right now what sells and what doesn’t. People love imprints of various herbs but have no interest in imprints…
-
Volunteers and Transplants
I love the term plant “volunteers”. It refers to plants that were not intentionally grown in place by a gardener but grew by chance, from seeds in bird droppings or carried by the wind. The word choice makes it sound as if brave young seedlings are saying, “pick me to go an colonize that space!” The reality is, given the right conditions, plants reproduce. Living in Raleigh, also known to locals as the City of Oaks, our yard is never lacking in germinating acorns. We also get magnolia, redbud, pine, mulberry, dogwood, and sweetgum seedlings sprouting up in our yard. A couple years ago I transplanted redbud volunteers from a…
-
Garden Pics
Here’s a quick walk-through of the garden, pictures of veggies and flowers growing strong. We still aren’t seeing many monarch butterflies around here. I’m hoping having several varieties of milkweed will attract them. There are usually a lot of swallowtails, but I haven’t seen those yet either. There are plenty of bees!
-
Conversations with Nature
This fire pit garden has absolutely blown up with green growth. I was listening to Urban Farm Podcast the other night, and an ex-reality TV personality turned geeked-out gardener (his words, not mine) kept referring to his garden as preppy. I took out fresh eyes to gaze on this space decided this mess is definitely not preppy. It nearly took my breath away, not because of its beauty or anything like that but simply the boldness of its existence. In the winter, there was hardly any evidence of all this life hidden under the ground. Its just a mess of wood chips and rocks and a few crunchy stalks. All fall…
