This poinsettia, in particular, looks as though it’s been painted already!
A natural fence of cat tails dividing fields… could be a good inspiration for a painting.
Basil is a prolific herb and also a very preservable one! How to dry it for later use…
What the heck are these weird looking things? Garlic whistles, of course! But what are they good for?
Why bother growing dandelions? Because these dandelions are tinted with pink!
Yellow is a pretty unusual color for an African Violet, and this one is showing off its flower power!
With African Violets, it’s super easy to make baby plants from momma leaves.
Zucchini, Patty Pan Squash, Cucumbers, Tomatillos, Ground Cherries, Okra, Basil and Tomatoes — the first significant haul of the harvest season is upon us! Amazing colors, inspiring art and amazing smells, inspiring cooking. 🙂
Also known as a cornflower, you will normally find these tall, lanky flowers growing wild along the roadside in striking cobalt blue. However, this fellow in our garden is lavender purple! We grow a variety of wildly colored bachelor buttons in among the garden vegetables most years, and this year this one wins a spot on my list of favorites.
This is a very paintable nasturtium that we found growing in Bandon, Oregon. Oregon coastal towns are shrouded in fog and clouds for most of the year, avoiding the worst of the blistering summer sun as well as the killing winter freezes. Tender, moisture-loving plants like these nasturtiums thrive and flourish, and can even overwinter and shine again the following
The Western White Trillium (also sometimes called Wakerobin or toad lily) is a white lily that springs up from the damp forest floors of the pacific northwest U.S. and Canada in early to mid spring. Each plant has three green leaves, and each flower has three bright white petals. As the blossoms age, they turn from their brilliant white to
Looking for plant markers that are renewable and biodegradable? How about inexpensive? If the answer is “yes” to either of these questions, then I’ve got the perfect solution for you… wooden popsicle or craft sticks. You can get them by the box of hundreds or thousands, and they last a year or two before getting all funky. After that, chuck
This monster of a volunteer sunflower was at least 12 feet tall and had many, many noggins! They were not the largest sunflower blossoms that I’ve ever grown, but they did make a very nice size cut flower to feature by itself in a good size vase. What I really loved about this sunflower is that it accommodated a lot
A couple of years back I got a set of claw gloves from one of my good friends, and I love them! These are an excellent gift for any gardener, but especially for gardeners (like myself) who have a hard time manipulating small garden tools (like hand trowels) while wearing gloves. These allow you to get in there and loosen
When one is a gardener, during the off season, there is always going to be a little pining away over the memories of the fairer months of the year. 🙂 Here is a flashback to, oh, probably a couple of summers back. It was a year or so after we’d grown both Mammoth sunflowers as well as Royal Burgundy sunflowers
I was introduced to kohlrabi at a very early age. My grandmother used to grow these and I would just eat them up like mad! As I grew older and my grandmother didn’t grow them as often, I began to notice that you couldn’t get these at the store. In fact, most produce clerks or home gardeners that I asked
It’s almost December right now as I write, but here is a throwback to July when the raspberries and blueberries were in full production! In July and August, a handful of raspberries and blueberries is not an uncommon snack for garden visitors. I have 18 blueberry bushes, some of them 10+ years old, many around 5 years old and a
If you love decorative corn, you should try growing the variety called “Glass Gem” — the kernels come out in all kinds of wild colors, mixed around on each ear seemingly randomly. They dry well and make a very interesting autumn decoration and conversation piece! Here are some things to know about growing corn: Corn is pollenated by the wind.