Thursday, 30 August 2012

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

Monday, 27 August 2012

More planting

I'm wondering how we'll eat all these greens, if the seeds I'm sowing are productive, unless the resident woodchuck in the back woodlot creeps out!  But I have barriers that I'm planning to use, too.I spent yesterday evening turning over the beds in the satellite garden in the Piedmont, and cleaning out the Oxalis that had colonized my containers, and sowed more lettuce, spinach, turnips, chard,...

Friday, 24 August 2012

Cleaning up

I spent quite a bit of time today cleaning up the raised beds in the mountains today. This meant editing some tomatoes that were not producing very much, along with some squash plants.I'll add some mushroom compost and organic fertilizer over the weekend, and sow more fall greens and lettuce!Uh, having two vegetable gardens is way too tempting.  How can I resist replanti...

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

A pileated woodpecker

Behind my office is a Southern red oak in decline.  Limbs have been trimmed and the top has already broken, although we're not inclined to take it down just yet.My colleague pointed out to me this morning that a pileated woodpecker was busily working a cavity high up on the trunk - what a great...

Monday, 20 August 2012

Pizza peppers...

I love thick-walled and productive pizza peppers.  One source is Territorial Seed, where they describe them as hot, but I haven't found them to be hot at all.  They're juicy and delicious. Totally Tomatoes may offer the same variety, hard to know.And they're certainly the most substantial...

Sunday, 19 August 2012

Looking forward to garden visiting

In just about a month, I'll be visiting gardens in Germany and the Netherlands for a couple of weeks on a self-guided garden study tour.I've been wanting to do this for several years, after I started learning more about the 'new wave' gardening trends practiced by Dutch, German, and English garden designers, creating naturalistic gardens, and often using many of our North American natives.It should...