Cool vs. warm season vegetables and herbs

In an herb-gardening class this morning, I had a lovely participant that had recently moved to South Carolina from upstate NY. It was a great reminder (for me) of what a wonderfully benign climate that we have in the Carolinas for growing herbs and vegetables!Our average last spring frost date...

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Mud

I'm grateful for the rain, truly.  It's refilled our upstate SC lakes, hydrated the soil in the mountains, but...The path past the main vegetable garden (from the kitchen door) is becoming a compacted, muddy mess with all of the rain.We fell into the habit of using the kitchen garden/mud room door while our sweet rescue Golden, Woody, was recovering from knee surgery last fall (the 'taking the...

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Tulips are emerging

Hmm, if I'd been energetic (which I'm not, still recovering from a bad cold), I'd have pictures of the tulips emerging in front of our house in the mountains.We didn't plant them, the previous owner (and designer of our small house) did.  He wasn't a gardener, at all, but his tulips have been lovely...

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Looking forward to spring vegetables!

I'm doing a program this weekend about "creating an attractive and sustainable vegetable garden" and it has me thinking hopefully about spring vegetables.I'm feeling behind on sowing seeds and getting started due to travel and a bad cold, so am ready for thinking positively about lettuce, spinach, beets,...

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February

The downie woodpeckers have been visiting the suet feeders (note to self, put suet cakes on the grocery list).Yes, I could make homemade suet for them, but I'm already making (homemade) bread, granola, and yogurt for us --hmm, and keeping Woody from helping himself from cooling bread on the counter!Hmmrph. ...

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Signs of spring

The first Carolina Jessamine flowers have opened, both outside my study window and along the front step railing.  Well-expanded flower buds of a single bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) plant near the front path are just waiting for a bright sunny day to open, too.I imagine that the small patch of Hepatica acutiloba at the Garden might be in flower, too.  What with the continuing rainy...

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Love Your Planet!

My table at the Love Your Planet Day at Flagler College in St. Augustine on Feb. 11th.While my book tour doesn't officially get underway until April, I took the opportunity to participate in the "Love Your Planet Day" at Flagler College in St. Augustine. I brought my books and a sample harvest from...

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Embracing plants

I've loved learning about plants for decades -- native plants, vegetables, plant combinations, garden design, etc.  Visiting far-flung places as well as places closer to home has brought a wonderful sense of place to my view.And it's all about the learning.One of my favorite quotes is Thomas Jefferson's:...

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Colorful winter vegetables

I'm adapting a program about creative and attractive vegetable gardening to focus on urban vegetable gardening (for a talk next week) and came across a photo I took of a mid-winter vegetable planting last December.  Impressive, partially because there hadn't a long hard period of freezing temperatures.Winter...

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