And Good For Pollinators Too Aside from the beautiful fall foliage colors there’s not much color elsewhere. Chrysanthemum seems to be abundant in autumn but I’m not a fan of it. I associate it with mourning. It’s commonly used in funerals and to arrange on a wreath. So, I don’t plant chrysanthemum in our garden. We still have plenty of choices for autumn blooming plants … Continue reading Late Season Flowers
Late Autumn Did we really have a summer? Briefly. Most of the leaves are gone now and the plants are ready to take a rest. But some plants in the garden are still pushing out their last show of the season. I envy some of them when I do garden chores in a sweatshirt in a bracing chilly wind and see them with their bare branches … Continue reading What’s Left
Let Herbs Flower Since I started keeping honey bees, the decision on what plants to add to our garden factors in the honey bees as one of the reasons. I used to think of fragrant, native, butterfly and bird friendly as reasons to choose a plant. Flowers that butterflies love is not necessarily good for bees. The butterfly has a very long proboscis, much longer … Continue reading Flowers For Bees
Sprouting Time After a long wait for fresh backyard salad, I can hardly stop myself from sowing seeds in the vegetable garden. As soon as the soil softens, judged by seeing weeds coming up, I put Arugula, Radish (Cherry Belle and French Breakfast), Pak choi, Mizuna, Kale, Swiss chard, Scallion, Lettuce, and Broccoli Raab in. The arugula is always the first to come up. I also … Continue reading Spring Vegetable Garden
For a Better Effect and Benefit It doesn’t matter how much space we have for our vegetable garden, it’s never enough. We just expanded our fenced in vegetable garden from 16′ x 16′ to 16′ x 22′ this year but I’m still looking for space to put many more seedlings that have sprouted up. I’ve already hand-crafted 3 trellises for the beans to climb on. … Continue reading Mix and Match
Petals and Wings 