Recently I made my way to our local Home Depot for some item that I can’t actually remember if I bought or not. On my way into the store this Troy Built shredder chipper was sitting outside with a price tag that was about 67% off of it’s regular list price. I was intrigued but … Continue reading Adventures in Machine Maintenance →

Sometimes I feel as though I am gardening with an audience. The audience being from little to big, butterflies, voles, chipmunks, mice, red squirrels, gray squirrels, rabbits, woodchucks and deer. And why would they be watching you ask? Well, to see what will next on their menu of course. Let’s start with the butterflies. We … Continue reading Critters →

There are days when all of my good intentions are for naught. Early this morning Patty and I set out to have a walk with our little dog Dinah before the rain started. One quarter of a mile into the walk, of course, it started to rain. Not just a sprinkle but rain with a … Continue reading One Step Forward, Two Steps Back →

As we near the end of July our gardens are flourishing with the intense sunlight of the season. As always there are success and failures. I always try to learn from the failures and do better the next time around. I don’t believe I will ever approach the magazine cover gardens we drool over in … Continue reading Garden Update 7/25/20 →

There are so many different types of hydrangeas available for the home garden and for good reason. In most cases, they are relatively easy to grow and offer a wide range of sizes, flower types and colors. In our gardens we have a few but maybe in the future we will add to them. This … Continue reading Hydrangeas + →

Being the frugal Yankee gardener that I am, I am often looking for perennial plants that I like that I can propagate by means of a short piece of stem, that is, a cutting. Some plants root as cuttings very readily while others present more of a challenge. The sedums, otherwise known as stonecrops, are … Continue reading Sedum or Stonecrop →

The weatherman said that here in southern NH we are currently in a moderate drought. There is ample evidence of that here in our yard. Those areas that have not been watered on a regular basis ar just drying up to dust. These two parts on the north side of the house are right next … Continue reading Drought and Mulch →

Many years ago now, when I taught Environmental Science at Hollis Brookline High School, I introduced the students to the concept of limiting factors in the natural environment. These could be temperature, moisture, wind, solar radiation, chemicals or other factors of the environment that were critical to the survival of the organisms living there. For … Continue reading Limiting Factors →

Most people will think of those little tennis ball sized tomatoes found in the supermarket in the winter when the term greenhouse tomatoes is mentioned. In my case however the term takes on a different meaning. I grow my tomatoes in the summer when there is ample light and heat. The varieties I grow in … Continue reading Greenhouse Tomatoes →

There are some people’s gardens where space is of no concern. With lots of acres to grow vegetables and flowers, there is no need to conserve space by having the plants growing up, rather than out. That is not the case in our gardens. Although we do have several gardens, we also have many plants … Continue reading Growing Up →