Disability Pride: Gardening Edition

A women sitting on a deck in front of a group of potted plants. She is wearing a straw hat, tshirt that reads "ankylosing spondylitis is not a dinosaur," and holding a cane.
Hanging out with the cucumbers, potatoes, pineapples, lemons, and my trusty cane and soil knife.

July is Disability Pride Month, and so I thought I’d share a little bit about what it’s like gardening while under the influence of disabilities. I have fibromyalgia, and ankylosing spondylitis (which is basically a cousin of Rheumatoid Arthritis, except it’s harder to pronounce and no one has ever heard of it). These are both auto immune diseases, and, on an average day, they impact my mobility in some way, cause pain, and fatigue.

Some days are fairly normal. My body decides if my to do list for the day is laughable, and we go from there. Other days, it’s a challenge to get out of bed at all. It’s not really predictable which kind of day we’re going to have until I wake up.

Gardening can be quite a physical activity. There’s hoses to wrangle, soil to move around, sod to dig up, unruly invasive plants that need to be removed, and weeds to pull. Lately, managing any of these activities is bound to cause a creative string of expletives to hurl out of my mouth. Sorry, neighbors.

A corner garden, set in front of a fence. There are tall grasses and bushes, with colorful flowers along the ground.
Planted just this spring, the new pollinator garden is already thriving. There’s verbena, blanketflowers, chokecherry, phlox, goldenrod, coreopsis, arrowwood viburnum, nepeta, switchgrass, columbines, lavender, wild bergamot, coneflower, and black-eyed susans.

Despite this, I do still have a rather nice garden, if I do say so myself. I’ve learned a thing or two over the years. Here’s some of my tricks:

  1. The Art of Low Maintenance Gardening
    I simply cannot physically accomplish all that I dream about in the garden. So, I need plants that work with me, not against. Things that require daily watering, lots of fertilizer, trimming/dead-heading, and other assorted fussing are just not going to cut it. I’ve taken to planting a lot of native plants in the garden, not just because they are critical to helping the wildlife in the area, but also because they are designed to thrive in our climate. We have cold winters, hot summers, and lots of wild swings in temperature. Precipitation levels seem to vary between drought or flooding. And, our soil content is filled with lots of clay. If I planted a lot of things meant for a more mild climate, they would not thrive, and I’ve be wasting a lot of money, time, and energy tending to them, and ultimately, replacing them, once they died. If you’re interested in learning more about planting native plants to your region, check out the Native Plants Finder section on the Homegrown National Park site.
  2. Native Plants: Yes, I’m Still Talking About Those
    Another reason I plant natives, is that they are a vital part of a healthy ecosystem. Native plants lure in native insects. And once you have an established yard full of beneficial insects, you will likely not see out-of-control pest problems from invasive insects like Japanese beetles. Native plants support insects and birds that help control unwanted pests. We don’t use any pesticides in our yard, and still manage to grow heaps of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers to enjoy. Additionally, many natives don’t suffer from pest problems. There may be aphids around, and some holes munched into leaves here and there, but plants aren’t being eaten to the point where they are destroyed.
  3. Potted Plants: A Great Ally
    Many of the crops I do grow live in containers and raised beds, close to the house. If I am having difficulties walking, the likelihood of me traipsing around the yard with a hose and my cane is going to be low. I keep anything that requires more water in pots on the deck, right by the back door. The deck is shaded part of the day, I can move pots around fairly easily, and I can use a watering can from the kitchen instead of dealing with the hose. A lot of the herbs and vegetables I grow really thrive in container life. I’ve had a lot of success with grow bags and potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, basil, oregano, thyme, chives, pumpkins, melons, nasturtium, and fennel. Plus, I’m able to see everything from my perch on the living room couch. I may not always have the energy to go outside, but I’m still able to enjoy all the flowers on the deck.
  4. The Tools of the Trade
    A few tools have become necessary for any campaign into the garden. I garden with gloves and gardening sleeves, which help keep me cool, and protect me from hives (I’m allergic to most plants, because the universe has a weird sense of humor). Thankfully, I’ve reached the age where I don’t care as much about my appearance, and I’ve added a trusty straw hat to my gardening ensemble. Finally, I recommend some knee pads.

    Once I’m outfitted, my absolute MUST HAVE tool in the garden is my trusty soil knife. I’ve used this thing for two years now, and I still can’t believe how handy it is. My soil knife cuts through our tough clay soil like butter. It slices through deep roots. It digs holes for planting. It’s my favorite hand tool, and I absolutely recommend one to every gardener. Another much have tool is a nice set of hand pruners. Keep them sharpened, and they will treat you well even on the worst arthritis days.
  5. Just Be, and Watch the Bees
    There are days when I just am not able to physically accomplish what I’d like in the garden, but I try not to dwell on those disappointments. I’m not always successful, and I do rely on my partner to help out quite a bit. However, I try to spend as much time as I can simply outdoors, existing in the garden. I plop down a chair, or sit in the grass, and watch the garden grow. Dealing with depression and anxiety is a struggle, but I find so much hope and peace in the garden.

    There’s always something a little magical going on. The plants are moving in the wind, there’s pollinators out working the flowers, and birds gathering materials for nests. It’s easy to get caught up in all of my own crap, and being in the garden helps me refocus and think about the little joys of life instead. I find so much satisfaction in knowing that I built everything in the garden, and helped give such a great home to all the wildlife there now. And, watching the crops grow, and being able to harvest them to use in our dinners is such an exciting process. I’ve been gardening for years, but every year, being able to walk outside and pick a fresh vegetable off the vine of one of the plants is a delicious reward.

Eventually, all of us will be disabled, in one way or another. We may not be able to garden in the way we expected, but I think there’s options out there for everyone. Whether you have a lone pot on the windowsill, or acres of flowers, green spaces are healing and, I believe, necessary. To all of my fellow disabled gardeners out there, keep making the world a more beautiful space! Happy gardening!

Tall purple stalks of flowers in front of a green backdrop of leaves
July means the prairie blazingstar is in bloom! These beautiful natives have flowers like tiny fireworks, and the are always covered in hungry pollinators.

Up in Smoke

The native plants have been exploding with color and life this month. These swamp milkweed, coreopsis, oakleaf hydrangea, speedwell, blanketflowers, and penstemon have been a favorite of the bees.

It’s been a minute since I checked in, and what an auspicious time we’ve had in the garden this year. May was filled with some of the worst drought conditions we’ve ever seen in Central Ohio, followed by such toxic air pollution from wildfires this month, that everyone is being advised to stay indoors. Hoping the areas in desperate need of rain see some soon. We’re expecting storms over the next few days, and then, hopefully, I can get outside to play in the garden some more.

The late spring is usually filled with a flurry of activity in the garden, but I’ve been spending most of my time indoors. The cottonwood trees spent, what felt like an eternity enacting warfare against everyone’s allergies. Then, we had a pretty big heat wave, with the aforementioned drought. We installed a rain barrel this year, right before the skies dried up. Then, rain did hit, and we had a few days with 2+ inches of rain. The weather can’t decide what extreme feat it’s going to dish out, it seems.

I think we’ve all become armchair climate scientists lately. I know I’ve learned more about air quality than I ever expected to. The skies have smelled like burning plastic, and it’s been very hazy. Can’t wait to get out in the garden again when it’s safe!

Despite this, I did manage to get everything I wanted in the ground this spring. The raised beds are full of crops again this year. I harvested a bumper crop of garlic scapes, and then bulbs. The lettuce, spinach, asparagus, and strawberries also did well, before the heat really set in. Right now, there’s: potatoes, peas, loofahs, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, squash, tomatillos, leeks, two types of tomatoes, three types of peppers, onions, two types of beans, dill, two varieties of basil, parsley, oregano, fennel, three kinds of mint, nasturtiums, pineapples, lemon, bay laurel, rosemary, five kinds of thyme, chamomile, and beets growing (and a partridge in a pear tree). The beets bolted in the heat, but everything else is looking well. I should be harvesting the onions quite soon, and all the herbs have been enjoyable in various dinners.

I tried to focus on expanding the native plantings this year, and so far, all of those plants are looking quite happy as well. They truly are built to withstand everything we experience here, from our clay soil, to our scorching summers, and freezing winters. A few of the plants I put in several seasons ago have bloomed for the first time, and watching the pollinators out enjoying it all feels like a true accomplishment.

The strawberries were quite tasty this year, and we’ve enjoyed lots of daisies, elderberry flowers, coreopsis, and fresh basil.

Aside from all the moths, bees, and other pollen-lovers, it’s been very interesting watching the ecosystems in the garden at work. Our weather recently has been pretty wet and hot, and most gardeners I talk to have been spotting huge groups of aphids. But, with the aphids, come insects higher up the food chain who like to dine on them. In the morning, I’d walk around, and see tiny red aphids covering the fennel and goldenrod plants. But, by the afternoon, they would all be hoovered up from the resident ladybug and firefly populations. We don’t use any pesticides in our yard, and just don’t see many problems from unwanted insects. It’s hard to believe the answer is really so simple, but letting nature do its thing truly works.

A majority of the plants in the garden are native, and this is absolutely the bedrock of a healthy yard. I don’t mean to sound preachy, but I can’t say enough about the importance of planting things that are meant to live in your yard. That’s not saying there isn’t room room some of our beloved plants from other areas around the globe (so long as they aren’t invasive), but making space for plants that are designed to thrive and support local food webs keeps things much healthier. It’s exhausting and expensive trying to maintain plants that aren’t meant for your soil conditions, weather, precipitation levels, or geographic location. I’ll always have crops, and a handful of other non-native plants on hand. However, I’ve seen, first hand, the benefits of natives. I’ve fallen in love with their beauty, and have experienced so many amazing wildlife encounters because they are in our yard.

So, that’s what’s been going on around these parts so far this gardening season. Who knows what’s on the horizon for these next few summer months. Hope you are all staying safe and that your gardens are also bringing some needed joy this season. Happy gardening!

The Aphid Patrol are back on the job! There’s been quite of few aphids out and about in the garden, much to the delight of the resident lady bug population. Lady bugs are able to eat between 50 and 60 aphids per day. I’ll check plants in the morning, and by the evening, all the aphids are completely gone. Just another great reminder to let nature do it’s thing. If I sprayed pesticides, all the ladybugs would be wiped out. And the birds, insects, and frogs that depend on eating ladybugs would be gone, too.

Got Wildlife?

Springtime flowers in the woods, with white and purple flowers
Some of my favorite native spring flowers are in bloom this month: great white trillium, wild ginger, trout lily, jacob’s ladder, wild blue phlox, cut-leaved toothwort, spring beauty, virginia bluebells, and bloodroot

We’ve been having lovely weather lately: warm, sunny days in the 70s. Cool evenings. Low humidity. The garden is awake and thriving, and I’ve been spending lots of time outside working on projects and just trying to soak up all the joys of the season. The pollinators and other insects are emerging, and watching the carpenter bees happily buzz around while we’ve been out spreading leaf compost and planting has really given me a mental boost.

There’s a lot of activity in the garden: the creeping phlox are blooming, as are the candytuft, broad-leaved phlox, and our flowering dogwood tree. The maidenhair and ostrich ferns are also waking up.

April in Ohio is officially Native Plant Month, and watching all the native wildflowers come alive again is one of my favorite parts of the entire year. We’ve included quite a few native wildflowers in our own garden to enjoy: bloodroot, wild geranium, dutchman’s breeches, jack-in-the-pulpits, rue anemone, wild ginger, trout lilies, woodland phlox, spring beauty, great white trillium, and common blue violets. Spring ephemerals are perennial flowers, mostly found in woodlands. They like life in the shade, sprouting up in early spring before the leaves on the trees branch out, shading the ground where these flowers grow. Spring ephemerals bloom for a very short window of time, in some cases like bloodroot, just for a single day. They provide very important nectar and pollen sources for the pollinators which are emerging from their winter shelters. Many native plants aren’t yet in bloom, and without our spring ephemerals, these important members of our ecosystems wouldn’t have the food and resources they need to stay alive.

I’ve been checking out the wooded trails at the local park a few times a week, because new flowers emerge daily, and it’s such a treat to watch them all in this short window of time. Back in our own garden, I’ve been regaling the husband with the play-by-play as each of our own spring ephemerals sprout, and the neighbors probably wonder who the heck I am, outside in my pajamas, hovering over tiny flowers with my camera, cooing at the ground about 55 times a day.

I can’t seem to get enough of the garden lately. In the evenings, I’ve been painting a few of my favorite native plants, like these big bluestem, prairie dock, purple giant hyssop, echinacea, st. john’s wort, and creeping phlox.

Warm weather has brought with it a list of the usual springtime gardening chores. Unlike my pile of laundry, I don’t tend to avoid these. After a few months away while winter did its thing, I’ve been more than ready to get my hands back in the soil. We ordered a pallet of leaf compost and have mulching all the beds with it. As the mulch goes in, I’ve been slowly cleaning up the beds from last year. Once the temps are above 50 degrees for at least a week, the insects that overwinter in last years plant stems are awake, and it’s ok to cut them back. Our plant debris goes into a large pile under the deck to slowly compost and provide habitat to birds and other insects.

Our new fence was installed a few weeks ago, a long overdue process. On one side of the house, our neighbors also have a fence, so we didn’t put a fence back on that side. Now, there’s about 8″ of extra growing space. In that space, there were a few invasive species that somehow grew up between the fences. We spent a satisfying afternoon ripping out a callery pear tree (now illegal to sell or buy in Ohio, finally!), some multiflora rose, and a thicket of amur bush honeysuckle. We’ve moved a few plants around and I’ve already hit up my favorite native plant nursery in Central Ohio, Scioto Gardens, for some great native shrubs and plants to replace the riffraff that used to be there. An arrowwood viburnum, black and red chokeberries, and allegheny serviceberry will all be providing habitat and food to the local birds and insects. I also grabbed some purple prairie clover, wild ginger, lady ferns, hardy aster, spring beauty, and more dutchman’s breeches to pepper into other spots in the garden.

L’hôtel à Insectes bug hotel is officially open for business! The hottest residence in town, this hotel features all locally sourced materials, from silken strands of northern sea oats to freshly trimmed poke berry stalks. A private stone entrance leads to the check in desk, where you’ll choose your room. Whether you’re looking for locust twigs, oak blocks, egg cartons, or goldenrod stems, we offer something for everyone. Come stay with us today!

Food-wise, the produce sections of the garden are also steaming ahead. The basement greenhouse is packed with plants that I’ll very soon be hardening off and planting. (Just a reminder to check your last frost date before planting any tender annuals, like peppers, tomatoes, or flowers like dahlias, unless you plan to cover them on frosty evenings!). Outside, the coldframe is also hopping. We’ve been harvesting lettuce and spinach, and the nasturtiums, chives, and native plants I have growing from seed are also coming along well. Our asparagus patch started sprouting this week, and the garlic, onions, leeks, potatoes, and carrots I’ve planted are also looking well so far. I’ve also started making some sweet potato slips, that I probably should have started months ago, but just about everything else is on track for a nice harvest.

Another project I’ve been meaning to work on for ages now finally was tackled today. I made a bug hotel! We had an old box that some wine came in, which I used for the frame. I stuffed it full of recycled materials from the garden: twigs from last fall’s locust tree trim, dried grasses from the latest northern sea oats display, hollow stems and dried flowers from the pokeberry plant, and some other odds and ends I found while wandering around the garden. The husband also drilled a few holes in some oak boards we’ve had in the garage from a past project for the bees to enjoy. I am so pleased with the way everything turned out. As I was carrying it out to its spot in the garden, I found a stinkbug on the kitchen window, so I escorted him into the hotel to be the first customer. Hopefully he left a nice review.

It’s starting to rain, but before I go check on the hotel again (maybe someone new found it already!), I wanted to share a list of a few small things you can do in your own gardens to help encourage more beneficial wildlife this gardening season:

Wishing you all a lovely season, as our gardens wake up and start to grow. Happy gardening!

Jump-starting Springtime

Last months crocus display was another doozy.

It’s the last day of winter here in the northern hemisphere today, and the season is hanging on firmly. We’ve had flurries the past few days, temps in the 20s, and quite blustery winds. Of course, living in Ohio, if you don’t like the weather here, just wait a few hours. The high tomorrow is going to be in the 50s, which is what’s expected at this time of year.

Not that I’d have started my outdoor gardening last month on the 70+ degree days (our last frost date isn’t until early May). However, it it has been interesting to watch all of the early growth outdoors grind to a halt. Trees had started budding out, and perennials were shooting up almost a month early. And then, in the past couple weeks, Mother Nature seems to have hit the pause switch.

Since I’m incapable of exhibiting any sort of patience, I haven’t paid this weather setback too much attention. I set up a greenhouse in our basement, and this years seed-starting has taken off with a flurry of planting. I spent this weekend transplanting seedlings that have already outgrown their first tiny pots. Heading down to check on the greenhouse has become a highlight of the day, and I’ve been obsessively monitoring the temperature and humidity as I watch all the little seeds sprout and grow. It will be awhile before anything moves outdoors, but what kind of gardener would I be if I didn’t test the limits of the greenhouse (and the laws of physics) by cramming in as many plants as possible?

The greenhouse is currently housing a collection of pothos, pineapples, a lemon tree, a few succulents, some madder root, a banana tree, and a crop of seedlings: basil, comfrey, cumin, oregano, sesame, cantaloupe, watermelon, leeks, lettuce, loofahs, bell peppers, poblano peppers, cayenne peppers, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, paste tomatoes, petunias, blue false indigo, and swamp milkweed. Out on the deck, the cold frame is housing some spinach, and, creek sedge, yellow coneflowers, tall ironweed, blue false indigo, wild bergamot, and swamp milkweed are all basking away in recycled milk jugs until it’s warm enough for them to sprout.

The next few weeks should continue to be pretty busy. We’re having a new fence installed to replace the current one, which is beyond dilapidated. Once things warm up just a bit more, I’ll get the leeks transplanted outdoors, the carrots, onions, parsley, and snow peas planted, and the next round of seedlings will get planted in the greenhouse. Our asparagus crop should be springing up soon, a favorite of ours. And, I’m planning to mulch all of the beds around the garden with leaf compost.

Come April, I have a few shrubs to add to the yard. I’ll be nabbing a rain barrel and getting that set up. I’m also planning to rework one of our shade gardens by the wildlife pond. The compost bin that lives there may be moving around a bit, and I want to better design the space so things look a little more cohesive with the rest of the yard. It’s also entirely possible that I’ll be adding another raised bed so I have room for everything I’d like to grow this year (see aforementioned seed-starting mania).

So, that’s early springtime sorted around these parts. Hopefully your gardening plans are also coming together this year. If not, it’s only Mid-March. There’s plenty of time! Happy gardening!

One of the greenhouse shelves, packed full of lettuce and tomatoes.



Old Man Winter (ish)

Large, cream-colored flowers with five petals and deep-green spiky leaves
The hellebores started blooming last month, and are really in their prime now.

After a January that felt about seven years long, somehow, it’s already almost the end of February. The sun stays out just a little later in the evenings, and the garden is waking back up. The hellebores and crocuses have been blooming, and there’s a few other bulbs and perennials springing up out of the ground, like the peonies and tulips. Many of the trees around the house have buds already, and it would not surprise me to see daffodils blooming shortly.

Springtime doesn’t officially start for another month, and our last frost likely won’t be until early May, but our weather hasn’t really felt terribly wintery lately. We’ve had a fair amount of rain so far this year, and very little snowfall. The temperatures have been bouncing around a lot, from the 60s and 70s, to the 20s and 30s, and back again. We’ve had a few thunderstorms, and lots of very windy days, with the threat of severe weather looming. For Central Ohio, where my garden grows, these changing weather patterns are a little alarming.

A few weeks ago, I attended a conference, which included a presentation by Dr. Aaron Wilson, an atmospheric scientist and the Principal Investigator at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. Dr. Wilson spoke to our group of Master Gardeners about the weather, and the shifts we’re experiencing in our climate. Did you know that, if you were born after February of 1985, you have never experienced a cooler than average month on our planet? The climate is heating up, and it’s having a huge impact on our weather.

A woman hugging a large sycamore tree in the winter
Making new sycamore friends at a local park.

While these changes are different depending on ones location, in my area, our changing climate mean more extremes. Our temperatures in the winter and spring will continue to bounce around a lot. Just this week, we went from 73 degrees to a high of 32 the next day. (The average high temperature is 41 at this time of year). This January was the third warmest in Ohio since 1880, when such records began being kept in a standardized fashion.

Another way to look at things is our number of growing degree days. GDD are a way to measure the development of plants and insects during the growing season. Basically, plants and insects won’t grow unless it’s a certain temperature outside. Plenty of different conditions factor in, but until it’s 50 degrees out, for the most part, things aren’t growing. Scientists know how many GDD it takes for different plants and trees to start blooming, and for insects to appear. This info is available in what’s called a phenology calendar. Anyway, at this point last year, we’d had 17 GDD. The year before, we’d had 2. Makes sense. Winter is typically cold, and there’s not too many signs of life outdoors in February. However, this year, we’re up to 64 GDD. Forsythia, maples, and dogwoods are all starting to bloom, which usually doesn’t happen for another month.

Just a few last note: this February will be the first on record for my area without measurable snowfall. The ground has not frozen yet this year, and we’re having higher than average rainfall totals.

So, a lot is changing, and we know things are only going to continue to warm up. Summers in Central Ohio will soon feel like they do now in Arkansas, and winter will be more like it is now in North Carolina. It’s overwhelming to think about- after all, the climate impacts everything we do, and in the garden, everything we are able to grow. It impacts which insects and animals reside here, the success of our farmers, our health and safety… it’s a lot to reckon with.

I’m trying to focus on what I can actually impact, and in my garden, that’s my allocation of resources and focus on native planting. Native plants require a lot less resources, and help out the food web. They often have deeper roots than their non-native counterparts, which helps with soil conditions and water runoff. By not using any pesticides in my garden, I’m not harming any of the pollinators or birds. And, just by growing plants, I’m helping to sequester carbon (really, I have little to do with that process- the plants do all of the work there). But, once again, native plants outshine their non-native counterparts, capturing more carbon since they have a better chance at thriving in the conditions.

This year, I plant to add a rain barrel, so the majority of my watering will utilize the rainfall. And I hope to add some drip irrigation in the raised beds. This will have a huge impact on how much watering I typically do during the summertime. I want to use the resources I do have in smarter and more sustainable ways. I know not everyone has access to these options, but since I do, I had better consider them.

So, that’s what’s been on my brain lately. I’ve started growing a few seeds indoors, and will likely be setting up the cold frame again soon to start the next batch of salad fixings. Hopefully, the sun is out where you are, and you’ve been able to start planning for the growing season ahead. Happy gardening!

Recycled milk jugs lined up outside on a deck
Once again this year, I did some winter sowing. Many native plants require at least 30 days of freezing temps to grow, and these recycled bottles house seeds and soil quite well out on our deck. The bottles help keep the seeds moist and allow in needed sunlight.

2022 Wrap Up

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Well, autumn absolutely flew by. I had anticipated writing about all of my fall gardening adventures, but then, somehow, it was already December 30th. A yearly wrap up post seems more fitting at this point. So, here we go.

2022 was a bit of an adventure. The year started with Master Gardener classes and a whole lot of seed-starting. I had a successful time with some native seeds, winter sowing in recycled milk jugs on the deck. And indoors, I was able to start a variety of plants. I added a slew of green residents to my indoor plant collection. I also planned a few expansion projects for the backyard, hoping to increase our native plant numbers and lure in more wildlife.

Pink echinacea flowers in a garden bed
Summer in the garden saw lots of colorful flowers and happy insects!

Springtime saw lots of visits to community gardens and green spaces around the county, as I worked on my Master Gardener certification. The husband and I were able to rip out some invasive amur honeysuckle and multiflora rose from just behind our fence, and while rainy, our spring weather was fairly mild. I significantly expanded the garden around our wildlife pond. And, some of my favorite native springtime wildflowers flowered in our garden for the first time, like Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria).

By summer, temps were soaring. We had weeks with no rain, and days with a few inches of it at a time. The native plants in the garden didn’t bat an eye at the extremes, but the plants I grew out in the raised beds and deck pots weren’t quite as thrilled. I did not have much luck with my tomatoes, and the potatoes and peppers faired only slightly better. The cucumbers wilted. A few of the herbs I’d started from seed bit the dust by mid-summer, and I struggled to keep up with watering the crops.

The summer months also saw quite a few visitors to the garden, some more welcome than others. We had more birds this year than ever, and a huge group of pollinators, from bees and moths, to beetles and butterflies. While we didn’t have a lot of monarch butterflies, the garden was visited by quite a few black swallowtail butterflies, who really seemed to enjoy the parsley crop (it’s one of their host plants) and the collection of zinnias. Some of the natives I grew from seed in years past flowered for the first time this year as well, like the wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) and swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). These drew in even more pollinators, including a rare American Bumble Bee (Bombus pensylvanicus).

One of the less exciting visitors was a racoon (I think it was just one, though given the havoc they were able to wreck upon the garden, it could have been a whole party of the little striped bandits). They reorganized the rock border around the pond, removed the bubbler from the water, rearranged some pots on the deck, and enjoyed our crop of pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe, black swallowtail caterpillars, mums (which I think are poisonous?!?), and a few peppers. The peppers were quickly discarded after the critters had bitten off the bottoms. Too spicy, perhaps? Anyway, I was less than thrilled with their shenanigans, and am still feeling a little salty about those caterpillars.

A small pond, surrounded by rocks, with frozen water
The pond hosted lots of visitors this year, from frogs and dragonflies, to racoons and birds.

So, by the height of summer, I was a little wiped out. The weather was extremely hot and humid, and my natural inclination to laze about won out more evenings than not. The weeds had a free-for-all, and I wished for cooler days. Finally, fall arrived. We had a nice little harvest of a few squash, leeks, and onions, and the vibrant colors of the aster and goldenrod arrived. I tidied up a few things (like the hosta leaves, which just get slimy in the cold), and put the garden to bed for the year.

Then, one afternoon, I found some bulbs that I must have purchased a bit earlier in the year. And then I spotted some more pots on the deck that needed to come in for the year. A tree needed a nice haircut. Some truly mild, fall days led to a bit more planting and plotting for gardening days to come. Finally, one of the internet companies came and ripped up quite a large space in one of the backyard gardens, so after I got over my initial outrage, I started some plans for a new pollinator bed, with some larger native shrubs.

Fall turned into winter, which took off with a winter storm that saw our largest temperature drop in a 12-hour span in local history. It’s almost 70 degrees today, but at this time last week, it was -10, with a -30 wind chill. Weather in Ohio always bounces around a lot, and we know these extreme temperature swings and wild precipitation are becoming our “new normal.” Next years plans are going to continue to rely more on plants that don’t require extra watering or maintenance (I’m looking at you, native plants!), which will be better for the local wildlife, our water bills, and my attitude.

The seed catalogs are already arriving and I feel like a kid, circling my favorite items (though, it’s from Botanical Interests now, not Toys ‘R Us). I learned a lot this year in the garden, and fell in love with all of my plants all over again (well, everything except the Creeping Jenny- that stuff is an invasive menace!). I’m looking forward to a few months of planning and trips to the greenhouse on cold days.

Wishing you lots of joy and happiness in 2023, in the garden, and beyond!

A house, lit with green and red Christmas lights on a snowy evening
Happy Holidays!

High Temps and Low Productivity

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The monarch butterflies showed up a few weeks ago, and have been floating around the garden every afternoon.

August is almost over, and while we certainly have another month or two before the season ends, my gardening motivation is waning. The summer has been especially hot and wet, which has definitely caused some ups and downs for the production levels this year. That, combined with some visits from a particularly unruly masked bandit visitor has definitely impacted my oomph.

The season started out pretty well. We had a bountiful crop of asparagus, sugar snap peas, and then the garlic and onions were ready to be harvested. It was my first year growing peas and onions, and they each exceeded expectations. After that, we had a very nice crop of carrots and lettuce. The carrots thrived under the shade of some leeks and zinnias, which seemed to protect them from all the summer heat.

Slightly less happy were our potatoes, though we still managed a decent crop. And now, I’m harvesting green beans, peppers, and tomatoes. The tomatoes, especially, are having a tough year. They don’t love excessive rain showers, or temps in the 90s, both of which we’ve had in spades since May. They caught blight a few weeks ago, and are looking very scraggly and sad. Tomatoes tend to drive me a little crazy. Our weather isn’t really the best for growing them, but they are such a popular plant. Daydreaming Me would like a greenhouse someday, so I can truly control their water intake and keep them from catching blossom end rot, blight, or one of the billion other issues that impact them.

Another plant that didn’t grow as well as I’d hoped were our cucumbers. I did manage to harvest a few to enjoy in some G&T’s, but the plants caught bacterial wilt from an onslaught of cucumber beetles. It was my first time growing these, so next year, I’ll try some natural methods to contain the beetles before they do in the entire harvest.

We’ve had lots of insect visitors this year, like these carpenter bees, soldier beetles, american snout butterflies, hummingbird moths, ailanthus webworm moths, american bumblebees, and damselflies.

That wasn’t the end of the crop woes for the season. In addition to the cucumber beetles, we had a wily raccoon start throwing parties in the garden every evening. This little trash panda has really pushed all my buttons. He tips over pots on the deck, rearranges the rocks around the pond (???), broke into and ate all the black swallowtail caterpillars and chrysalises in the butterfly enclosure, and he ate all the watermelons and cantaloupes, in addition to biting the ends off a few peppers and munching on all the sugar pie pumpkin flowers. Everyone needs to eat, but he really took the wind out of my sails this summer. I’m still feeling salty about the butterflies (though I’ve spotted a bunch more caterpillars out in the parsley patch- which the raccoon has ignored, thus far), and I’m sad to not get to try any of our melons. I’ll have to step up my game next year, and try caging the plants they seem to enjoy.

So, crop-wise, it’s felt like a bit of a wash this year. As usual, though, our flowers are really crushing it. All the native plants have been thriving in the weather, and we’ve had a lovely display every day. Right now, the new england asters are starting to bloom, and their gorgeous purple flowers pop even more against the yellows of the goldenrod, which is also beginning to bloom. The pollinators are out in force all over those, as well as the joe pye weed, echinacea, black-eyed susan’s, blanket flowers, cappuccino rudbeckia, obedient plants, and sunflowers. And, while not native, the zinnias this year are also blowing me away. I grew a few rows of them in one of the raised beds, and they are covered in pollinators and birds every day. Every morning, a group of goldfinches swoops in and rips the petals off, revealing the seeds which they dine on. And, in the evenings, we see hummingbirds flocking to the zinnias, nasturtiums, and native coral honeysuckle vines.

There’s been plenty of other pleasant visitors to the yard this season. I’ve spotted hummingbird moths, lots of different bees, like the native (and endangered) american bumble bee, ladybugs, and other pollinators, like black swallowtail butterflies, monarch butterflies (now on the endangered species list), soldier beetles, american snout butterflies, and ailanthus webworm moths. The webworm moths don’t have the cutest name, but they are really pretty, with orange, white, and black markings. I’ve never seen them before, and it was exciting to spot them on the joe pye weed this year.

It always feels like such a win to spot new (to me) insects and pollinators enjoying the native plants I’ve set up in the garden. I know, every time I step outside and take a tour, that I’ll see something interesting and beautiful. Hopefully, your own gardens are having an interesting and beautiful season as well. Happy gardening!

There’s a lot in bloom and looking snazzy this week: zinnias, black-eyes susan’s, pokeberries, marigolds, joe pye weed, lantanas, cappuccino rudbeckias, autumn joe sedum, and northern sea oats.


Hot Garden Summer

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The black swallowtail butterflies are back!

It’s been a minute, so I thought I’d give an update on how the garden is progressing this summer. Since setting things up this spring, I haven’t done a ton of gardening these past few weeks. I don’t plant things that require much maintenance, and also, it’s summer, which means, it’s too hot to even think about doing outdoorsy things. Our June temperatures were higher than average, with less rainfall than normal, which continued into July. In mid-June, we experienced the highest dew point ever recorded in Central Ohio, and the heat index was over 110 degrees F. After a few weeks with little in the way of rainfall, this past week, we had several days with flooding rains, breaking records for the wettest day ever recorded.

Switching from drought conditions to flash floods, with above-average temperatures, would typically do quite a number on a garden, but things are actually doing pretty well here in the yard. Our backyard is situated on a slope, so we didn’t end up with a flooded basement, and the plants weren’t totally drowned. I have been watering almost daily up until this past week, and the crops all seem to have weathered the wild weather so far. We haven’t had a ton in the way of harvest yet, but things are coming along.

Potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, tomatillos, and a baby lemon

The snow peas did very well, and I finished harvesting them last month. Our next batch of lettuce took off in the past week, and I’ve been clipping leaves every day. The parsley, basil, oregano, dill, nasturtiums, and mint have also been ready to harvest. I usually go snip a few leaves every week.

We have a few peppers starting to grow, but the majority of the summer crops (tomatillos, tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupe, beans, and cucumbers) are just flowering at the moment. The potatoes and onions should be ready in the next week here, though. And, excitingly, we have our first lemon growing on the lemon tree! The tree was packed with flowers a few weeks ago, which smelled divine. Only one has made it to fruit stage, so far. I probably go look at it five times a day. I have a lot of emotional investment in this wee lemon. I want some home-grown citrus!

When I’m not stalking my lone lemon, I’ve been glued to the wild bergamot which started blooming the other week. The flowers are native to Ohio, with gorgeous pale-pink flowers that look like fireworks. This plant (also known as bee balm) is a must for a pollinator garden in the Midwest. The flowers are covered in bees and butterflies!

Also in bloom right now are the giant purple hyssop, black-eyed susans, echinacea, prairie blazing star, coreopsis, blanket flowers, and milkweed. All of these are pollinator magnets, hosting caterpillars, and providing food for bees, butterflies, beetles, hummingbirds, moths, and others. I love walking around the yard, watching the bees enjoying all the flowers. And all these native plants add so much color to the garden.

One of the borders, with lavender, coreopsis, echinacea, bee balm, and blanket flowers in bloom.

Hopefully your garden is also bursting with activity right now (more in the way of flowers and pollinators, not so much you, having to do things!). Happy gardening!

May June be Fruitful

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The snow peas have been enjoying all of our rain showers.

It feels like this gardening season just started, but somehow, we’re already a week into June. I’ve been harvesting strawberries each day (this years crop has been very delicious so far), and yesterday, I collected the garlic scapes. I’m excited to pull the bulbs in a couple weeks here, but the scapes have so much flavor. I don’t know where these awesome things were hiding my whole life, but since I started growing my own garlic, I’m hooked. I’ve also started harvesting the first of this years herb crop: some thyme, bay leaves, basil, chives, and chamomile. Hopefully the next few months bring just as much delicious food from the garden!

Out in the raised beds, the seedlings I started seem to (mostly) be doing well. The peas are flowering and I had to add on to the trellis I built for them, as they grew taller than expected. The peppers are looking good. We’re going to have a bumper crop of potatoes. The cut flower garden is coming in strong. However, the tomatoes are looking… really sad. We’ve had a lot more rain than they really enjoy, and it’s been very warm, very fast, since I planted them out. I’m hoping they bounce back here and we are able to harvest enough for my portion of the family salsa crop.

Up on the deck, the jungle is faring much better. Out lemon tree is flowering again. I have my fingers crossed that the local pollinator population works its magic and we end up with some fruit. Our cantaloupe are also flowering, and the burst of cucumber beetles I saw in the yard has already been taken care of by the birds, leaving the cantaloupe alone. I started the green beans and black-eyed peas in pots this past week, and in typical legume-fashion, they’ve already sprouted up.

This years strawberries have been very sweet!

Out in the rest of the yard, my beloved peonies and clematis are about finished flowering. The daisies, canadian anemones, blue flag irises, ohio spiderwort, coral honeysuckle, nepeta, lavender, roses, asiatic lilies, and day lilies are all flowering this week. Our milkweed should be starting here shortly, and I am really exited to see the swamp milkweed again! It’s name absolutely doesn’t do this amazing plant any favors, but it’s my favorite native plant. Not only does it support monarch caterpillars, but the plant blooms with gorgeous little pink and white flowers for a few weeks each year at the end of spring. The flowers are, hands down, my favorite smelling thing in the garden. They smell very sweet, without the perfume-scent of roses or lilacs. And in addition to supporting our endangered monarchs, bees and other pollinators flock to this beauty. I can’t recommend it enough for gardeners in the Midwest. In a container or out in a bed, swamp milkweed is a GEM.

Now that the bulk of the planting for the year is wrapped up, I still have to finish a few landscaping projects around the yard. The Great Pond Area Widening Project has been put on a slight hold, due to a lot of rainy days, followed by a string of days that have just been too blazing hot. I’m hoping to get the rest of the sod pulled out this week, so I can mulch the area and shift a bit of planting around to fill in the new space. I’ve been seeing a lot of bees on the spiderwort that lives there, as well as a few dragonflies and damselflies. It’s a pleasant way to spend some time, just pausing for a bit to watching all the pond residents buzz around the flowers.

Hope that you’ve had a chance to stop and enjoy all of the plants and flowers growing near you. Happy gardening!

The bees have really been enjoying the Ohio Spiderwort flowers this spring.

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere

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This gardening season is off to a hot start!

It has been an intense few weeks in the garden. Everything always seems to happen at once at this time of year, and I waver between feeling completely overwhelmed and excited at all the activity. We’ve had a lot of rain this month, and some unseasonably warm temperatures, so all the plants have been growing like wild.

About everything is finally in the ground. I started an absurd number of plants from seed this year (after swearing to myself I’d be reasonable- ha!), and nearly everything has made its way outside and into the dirt. I still have some beans to find room for, but my seed stash is pretty sparse again. I’m looking forward to harvest time! I started a lot of new (to me) things this year.

Many plants are living in containers on the deck this year, since we don’t have quite enough room for everything out in the beds. I find that some days, it’s far easier to manage pots, both for watering and harvesting. Wrangling the hose around the yard and willing myself up and down the deck stairs to gather up everything out in the beds gets to be a bit much when I’m having flare days from my autoimmune disease. So, having things close to the kitchen really ups the odds that I’ll pay the plants their due attention!

The deck probably passed its Container Capacity (the amount of pots the husband has to wade through to get to the grill) about 20 plants ago, but I’m excited for everything to grow up and start blooming. I have quite a few different vining plants (cantaloupe, pie pumpkins, watermelons, loofahs, madder, morning glories, and coral honeysuckle) on the deck this year, and oodles of herbs, fruits, veggies, and flowers for the pollinators. I don’t plant annuals out in the beds in the full sun since they typically require watering almost daily, but on the deck, where there’s some shade, I can stretch my watering to just a few days a week.

Living on the deck now, in addition to the vines, are: bay laurel, calla lilies, a chenille plant, begonias, petunias, parsley, two types of fennel, a lemon tree, basil, lettuce, spinach, cosmos, potatoes, mint, four types of thyme, chives, zinnias, oregano, aloe, four pineapples, cumin, indigo, nasturtiums, chamomile, a banana tree, swiss chard, ranunculus, tomatillos… I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Oh! The stairs! I made a “Stairway to Salsa,” on the deck steps, with more tomatillos, sweet peppers, and druzba tomatoes. So, clearly, a normal amount of plants.

Out in the raised beds, I’m impatiently waiting for the garlic scapes to show up. With our recent warm weather, I’m expecting to see them here by the end of the month. Once the garlic bulbs are able to be harvested, I’ll probably plant up some more lettuce. The rest of the beds are packed pretty full. Our first bed houses the permanent asparagus patch (which was delicious this year), and I added some potatoes. The next bed is hosting the paste tomatoes, marigolds, and more potatoes. (There are also four grow bags of potatoes on the deck- I think I could feed the entire Midwest with the number of potatoes I planted this year). Our third bed houses the aforementioned garlic, lettuce, cucumbers, parsley, basil, and a handful of poblano peppers. The final raised bed is mostly devoted to a cut flower garden this year, and in it lives a boatload of onions, carrots, leaks, bachelor buttons, love-in-a-mist, zinnias, calendulas, and a trellis of snow peas.

Out in the flower beds, I’ve added a lot more native plant seedlings. I grew several types of milkweed- common and swamp (my favorite- it’s so pretty and smells divine!), yellow coneflowers, ironweed, prairie dropseed, big bluestem, switchgrass, indiangrass, little bluestem, rudbeckia, broom sedge, violets, wild bergamot, and yarrow. Everything sprouted up nicely this spring and has since been moved out into the beds as I’ve been weeding, removing invasive creeping charlie and creeping jenny, and cleaning up the stalks left from last years perennials. I’ve also been tossing in sunflower seeds along the fenceline. They grow up quickly and bring me so much joy in the late summer while they bloom. Plus, the pollinators are always all over the flowers, and the birds eat the seeds in the autumn.

I’ve also been expanding the garden around the wildlife pond. It’s become one of my favorite spots in the whole yard. I love sitting next to the pond, listening to the water move, and watching the insects and frogs. I’m still not sure what species the frogs are, but they showed up a couple weeks ago and have been hanging out on the rocks and in the cover of the foliage around the pond. I’m so thrilled to see them back. I hope they have little froglettes and we end up with an army of mosquito eaters! But, back to expansion. I’ve been slowly removing more grass, and adding in extra native plants. I moved a bunch of the swamp milkweed seedlings (they loves the wet area there, and thrive in our obnoxious clay soil), as well as a few more smooth penstemon (another wet soil/clay lover), and an oak leaf hydrangea. I’ve wanted one of these hydrangeas for ages, and I’m so excited that I was able to plant this baby this year. They are native to our area, require almost zero maintenance (a must for plants in my garden), and they also grow just fine in our clay.

Thea area around the pond, mid-expansion

So, the pond garden is filling up! I added a water lily to the pond itself, and the canadian anemones and ohio spiderwort are in bloom now. Next, I hope to see the blue flag irises and our new buttonbush flowering.

Out in the front yard, the new pollinator garden we added by the street is growing in nicely! I added mostly native plants to this space as well, and every time I go get the mail, I see bees enjoying the flowers there. I’m hoping to add a few more plants this season since the terrible soil out there doesn’t seem to be slowing anything down. Closer to the house, around our locust tree, the bed we added two seasons ago is also filling in nicely. I stuck a few native prairie plants here, but there’s a lot more shade from the locust tree, so this bed houses mostly perennials that I’ve split from elsewhere in the garden. The final beds, around the house, are about to explode with day lilies, daisies, butterfly weed, and purple giant hyssop (a really lovely native alternative to salvias that are packed with butterflies, hummingbird moths, and bees all summer long). The purple bugleweed is also blooming now, which the bees seem to enjoy.

Indoor plants aside, that’s the garden for 2022! (I keep a few plants inside year-round, since they either require more shade than I can offer, or less water than we receive). Now that most of the clean up and the first round of weeding is done, I really won’t have too much more to do, maintenance-wise. I have a few more project ideas for the year… we’ll see how far I get. And, the pond bed expansion is ongoing. But, things seem to really be shaping up in the ole Happy Rabbit Garden. Despite my fretting, the plants seem happy. There’s oodles of birds around, enjoying the bug buffet. I’ve yet to be bitten by a mosquito (I will now that I’ve acknowledged that fact). I see bees out working hard and enjoying the spring flowers. It’s not always the space I have in mind, but the garden really is beautiful. Hope that you are enjoying a lovely spring with your plants as well. Happy gardening!