The ups and downs of the gardening world.
I declare this 2020, The Year of the Tomato! Forget COVID, frosts, and marauding ground hogs, I have harvested the most tomatoes that I can remember in my many years of gardening. Bad Start to a Tomato Year With an inauspicious start - an unusually late killing frost around Mother's day - I was left …
Continue reading "Year of the Tomato – Best Recipes To Use Your Tomato Bounty"
How would you like to have hand-selected healthy plants delivered personally to your front door in just a few days from ordering? And all the planning work done by pros for selecting the best seasonal plants to make your containers pop? I have the service for you! I tried BloomBox and loved the ease of …
Continue reading "BloomBox – All-New Way to Buy Plants"
It happens every Fall - honey extraction! After babying the bees, feeding, monitoring, re-queening, splitting, and just plain worrying about them, now is the moment of truth. How much honey did they deposit in the combs for me to rob from them? I won't leave you in suspense - I extracted 160-180 pounds from two …
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On a breezy, refreshingly warm, not hot day, I visited the Delaware Botanic Gardens to see see how things have developed in a year of many happenings, most importantly the impact of COVID. Like most other public gardens, DBG has been closed to the public all season and as a young, still expanding public garden, …
Continue reading "Delaware Botanic Garden in Bloom During COVID"
Botanic gardens are opening up to visitors and I wondered how my favorite, Longwood Gardens, would handle the different pressures that Covid is bringing to the visitor experience. Enjoying the gardens is partly an outdoor experience but also an indoor experience of visiting the huge Conservatories. Reservations for timed entry are required like in the …
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Yes, yes, I know tomatoes and jam is an oxymoron, but when I spotted a recipe for tomato jam that included chocolate, I was hooked. After all, I had tasted and enjoyed tomato sorbet which is another sweet treatment for my favorite garden edible, so I was willing to give jam a try. To clinch …
Continue reading "All Jammed Up! Creating Savory Tomato Jam From Heirlooms"
'Jeana' Phlox is one of the top pollinator attracting plants in my garden in the dog days of summer. Attracting dozens of butterflies and other assorted bees, my patch starts in the late morning with a few butterflies and by the end of the heat of the day, the plants look like they are fluttering …
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Stuck at home during the pandemic, what could be better than a fresh delivery of a hand picked and arranged bouquet of vibrant flowers? That is exactly what Floriculture Microfarm specializes in. I love to promote small local horticultural businesses, and this one really brings joy to the life of many people - weekly! I …
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If you have never grown blackberries, this is one of the easiest and most satisfying berry to grow. I started with one "cane" or stem of a thornless blackberry variety some years ago and it grew to be one ginormous mass of a plant. Taming the canes by growing them on a trellis of cattle fencing …
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Whats blooming in my garden? Elderberries!! The sweet umbels of creamy colored flowers that can reach 12" across are so fragrant and have a unique smell, kind of like floral, creamy, and summery all in one package! All cultivars look very similar with their shrub-like plant structure, compound leaves, and big, beautiful clusters of white …
Continue reading "Elderberry-Growing and Using a Versatile Herb"
