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Spring Fling Giveaway: Bee Happy!
I’m new here at Love Sown, and I sometimes get lengthy… but I think you’ll enjoy the read! So hang in there with me…. Years ago whenever I told people I’d never been stung by a bee, I said it was because I was a “bee charmer.” (Please say you’ve all seen Fried Green Tomatoes.) I’ve never had a fear of bees so when we moved into our house in the middle of a downtown area and my horticulturist husband asked if we could have honeybees I actually thought it was a fun idea. (Since then, I have said no to chickens and a goat!) Four summers later, we are…
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Bamboo Teepee Meets Fibonacci
At the end of last week, the gusty winds blew over our teepee. The Man decided that I needed the help of concrete (while he was installing fence posts), and we erected one lone bamboo pole to serve as a cornerstone of sorts for the boys’ future teepee. My best friend, Bear, was over, and in her great design wisdom suggested we do a Fibonacci teepee. A whuh? I hadn’t heard of that concept since high school math, or was it Latin class… It involved spirals. I remember there being a golden rectangle involved as well. The new construction is a quarter-teepee or a “teebonacci” with the poles attached around…
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Okra Seed Saving
Saving okra seeds is as simple as letting an okra pod grow until it has dried on the plant, breaking it open and pouring out the seeds. Seeds that are ready are greenish-black and hard. Seeds that are not ready are soft and white. However, if you are growing more than one kind or have neighbors that are growing a different breed, cross-pollination is very likely. Cross-pollination can lead to pods whose seeds won’t be the same as the parent plant. So if you have a fun variety like my red okra that you want keep true, you must keep the bugs out. I was reading that the minimum distance…
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Fall Gardening
Remember how last year I made a big hoopla about fall gardening? Well I missed the planting dates for most things other than broccoli and garlic, my spinach refused to sprout, and then bugs ate up all my broccoli. I am determined that this fall will be better, but first I must go ahead and clear some space! Here are some fall planting dates for North Carolina, taken straight from this leaflet provided by NC Cooperative Extension Services. I’ve highlighted those I am considering planting (garlic should be included on that list). I am giving broccoli another go, but I will be applying Sevin®. Surprisingly pumpkins and winter squash were…
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Strawberry Trouble Shooting
Last Spring I purchased about 9 Quinault everbearing strawberry crowns, planted them in the back gardens and then moved them beside the deck at the end of the summer so we could till up the back. As with just about everything I garden, I knew nothing about strawberries when I started growing them, so I’ve been learning as I go. Over the past week or two, I’ve been pretty excited that my strawberries are generating runners – meaning I will be getting new daughter plants. Each runner is forming two new crowns that can be pruned from the main plant and relocated once rooted. I’ve noticed two problems during this…
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Planting Corn
Growing up, corn was always at the dinner table in the summers. Mom and dad swore on the superiority of Silver Queen and I remember mom pulling back the husks to check the ears before buying them. There were several roadside stands on the way to our house, so getting corn was never a problem. We almost never had canned or frozen corn growing up, which is why for me, corn is a delicacy of the summer. Dad grew it for a couple summers and we really enjoyed picking what the crows didn’t beat us to. For whatever reason, I’ve grown out of practice in buttering and munching an ear…
