Echoes of the past (Lycoris radiata)

I've been totally diverted away from chronicling my gardening and nature observations over the last couple of weeks, with my attention pulled towards managing details around an upcoming event, classes, and programs.But the practice of observing doesn't stop, and I was delighted to see, in a scruffy...

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Cole crops

Don't plant too many cabbages at one time.While they are easy enough to grow, do you and your family need 20 of these beauties all at once?Do you know cabbage? Cole crops are all the cabbage crops derived from a single species of Brassica oleracea. (Kohl is the German word for cabbage.)The cultivars...

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Beans, tomatoes, and greens

This is a shoulder season in my vegetable gardens, maybe a bit earlier than normal, as mild weather has slowed tomato and pepper ripening, and fostered early sowings of fall greens and root crops.I've pulled up most of the tomatoes, which were fading, aside from the cherries, which just keep going,...

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Monarch migration

Check out my garden blogger friend Kylee's post about monarchs in her midwestern garden.W...

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Common milkweed

I'm by no means an expert on milkweed chemistry or anything close to it, but I am interested in supporting monarchs, especially now that the migration is threatened.I've been heartened by the improvement in the central flyway reports by Journey North compared to last year.  We'll see.I've been...

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Overgrown, challenging landscapes and other condundrums

I've struggled dealing with our overgrown acre and a half landscape, around our 1929 stone house, absent my gardening companion's efforts.So I was really amazed, visiting a wonderful historic house and landscape today, with a gardener who'd never owned a house or garden before 5 years ago (she and her husband lived in high-rises before).  She took on not only a historic house, but a HUGE landscape.She's...

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A beautiful morning glory

We've been growing morning glories for awhile, training them to creep up telephone poles, guy wires, and trellises.They add a wonderful diversion to otherwise uninteresting landscape items, although when the vines reach the transformers, or important boxes, that's the end of that season!a vivid morning...

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Late summer heat

I can't really complain.  It's been a quite decent summer.But the current spell of ~ 94° highs in the humidity of the Piedmont of SC is a bit trying. In a normal summer, we would have been subjected to weeks and weeks of this, so really I'm not complaining.Oddly, the temperature spread for the highs from the mountains of western NC to the Piedmont has widened to 10° for the next few days, several...

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The Garden is beginning to wind down for me this year. Cucumbers are done, tomatoes are finishing, squash is going strong, beans are also winding down. But one would think that we are done for the year. Well kids, you would be wrong. Start your fall planting! In the midwest there are two major growing...

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