Tag Archives: garden tips

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!

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!

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!

Small Fish in a Big Pond

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Hardening off the freshly-sprouted seedlings!

After waking up to thunderstorms in the wee small hours of the morning, I didn’t have tremendously high hopes for the day. But, in the afternoon, the sun came out, and it turned into a lovely time for gardening.

Today is the first of May, my favorite month in the garden. All the perennials are coming back up, there’s lots of trees and flowers in bloom, and it’s not yet so hot and humid that being outside for any length of time is miserable. We’re not quite past our last frost date here in Central Ohio, so I haven’t moved everything outside quite yet. But, I was able to start hardening off the tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe, and flowers that I’ve been growing from seed indoors. The process takes about ten days/two weeks, so by the time they are ready to plant in the ground, it will be warm enough to plant them in the ground.

The deck is already packed full of pots. I started a bunch of native grasses from seed to add to the borders along our fence: Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis), Big Bluestem (Andropogon geradii), Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), Indian Grass (Sorghastrum nutans), and Broom Sedge (Andropogon virginicus). There’s also pots full of strawberries, potatoes, thyme, chives, mint, and a bunch of native perennials, like Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). The cold frame filled up very quickly this year, but we’re about past the time where I need it. Looks like I skated by starting too many seeds for yet another year!

Out in the raised beds, things are also filling up. Our asparagus is in its fourth year, so it’s really coming in nicely. We’ve already been able to enjoy a few harvests on the grill. The garlic I planted last fall is also looking quite nice. It should be time to harvest those bulbs here in a few weeks. Also out in the beds are some carrots, leeks, onions, snow peas, and potatoes. We’re going to have potatoes coming out of our ears this year. I have four grow bags full of them on the deck, and two more rows of potatoes out in the raised beds. I’m just trying to represent my Irish heritage well!

As usual, the deck is filling up with potted plants.

Just off of the raised beds is the wildlife pond that went in last year. I’ve had a few people ask how the pond had its start in life, so I thought I’d share the tale again, and give an update.

I’d had a small water feature in mind for a few years, but I wasn’t sure about what to put in. Fountains are EXPENSIVE and I thought a pond would be too much upkeep. Two years ago, I added a few small, shallow pots to the landscape, filled with water for the birds and pollinators to enjoy. I highly recommend this. It’s a simple way to help lure more wildlife into the yard, and things are easy to clean and maintain. But, with every viewing of the BBC’s Gardeners World, I wanted more.

Our lot is just over 6,000 square feet, which is below average for the US (you people with acreage are really throwing off the curve). It’s more than big enough for two fairly lazy people who hate lawn maintenance, and as I searched online for examples of wildlife ponds, I knew the yard was large enough to fit what I had in mind as well. I wanted something about 3′ by 3′, in a circle-ish shape, and shallow enough that I wouldn’t have to do much digging to put the thing in. So, one day, I told the husband that we were putting a pond in, and we started to dig. Well, actually, back that up. First, I called 8-1-1 and had the utility companies come out to mark our electric and cable lines so we wouldn’t hit anything. If you’re ever doing any digging in your yard, for a tree, a pond, or any kind of larger hole, Call Before You Dig!

So, yard spray-painted with lines marking the important things, we mapped out the spot for the pond with an old hose. I’ve seen this done before, and it’s a great way to “see” what your new project is going to look like before you start digging around. Just use the hose like a border, and make the shape you want. Once we had things outlined, we started digging.

The pond is about 2′ deep in the center, with tapered edges, and a little beach on one end. I specifically wanted a wildlife-style pond in the yard, and for animals to be able to get in and use the thing, I knew a gradual entryway was required. Once the digging was complete, we added a lining, using plastic sheeting. The sheet is fairly thick, and I folded it in half to add even more oomph to the lining.

The perennials are coming back in nicely this year, framing in the pond and helping to provide food and shelter to any critters who may be in the area. Now that the rocks have settled in, I have a few more to add, but I’m happy with the progress so far!

Next, we added some river rock and pebbles to the bottom, and along the edges. Then, larger flat stones went in around the border of the pond and along the sides, to hide the plastic sheet. Once that was finished, we filled the pond with water, and I used some old branches and sticks to line one end of the pond and make it look more natural and wild. This makes a great space for wildlife to hide and nest. After a simple bubbler went in to circulate the water around, that was that for the pond.

The area where we put the pond is mostly in the shade. It was a damp area to begin with, that grew a lot of moss and henbit. So, I added in plants that liked the shade and wet conditions, and used mostly species native to our area to lure in even more o the things we wanted, like dragonflies and caterpillars. There’s a lot around the pond, all perennials: an eastern redbud tree, a buttonbush, maidenhair ferns, wild geraniums, creek sedge, blue flag irises, sweet flag irises, jack-in-the-pulpits, rue anemones, sea oats, spiderwort, a pitcher plant, and a little grouping of hostas and heucheras. The native plants and trees (all but the last two) support over 100 species of caterpillars!

Today, I added the bubbler back into the pond for the season. I started with a little, floating solar fountain. But, after a couple of months, it bit the dust. So, I added in a little aquarium pump, that plugs into an outlet on the deck. It helps keep water circulating and the sound attracts more birds to the pond for bath time.

Other than that, I don’t do a thing to the pond, except weed around it. (And, today, I pulled a few leaves out of the water so they wouldn’t clog up the bubbler). I don’t use any chemicals to clean the water- the bubbler takes care of that. And we’ve had the neatest wildlife show up in the short time the pond has been around: all kinds of birds, dragonflies (just one can eat up to 100 mosquitoes in a day, in case you’re worried about the water in the yard attracting too many of the bloodsuckers), beetles, spiders, other insects, and most excitingly, frogs! Two arrive last summer and I hope we see more this year.

Some of the shade-loving plants and trees in bloom right now: great white trillium, dutchman’s breeches, rue anemone, and flowering dogwood

So, that’s the wildlife pond. It’s doing exactly what I’d wanted: luring in wildlife. And, it’s been fuss-free. Is the water always 100% clear? Nope. Does it look like a well-manicured water feature? Absolutely not. But, those things weren’t my goal. I wanted the space to look natural and I think we succeeded. This spring has already been filled with joyful moments and I wander around the pond, looking at the different wildlife which lives there- the insects, the native wildflowers, and the occasional bird, stopping by to wade around the beach.

Hopefully, this helps get you started if you’re interested in adding your own pond to the yard. There’s lots of books and resources out there to inspire, including this one that I used from the Conservation Foundation. Happy gardening!

The One Where We Save the Birds

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The Virginia Bluebells are in their prime right now, and looking absolutely gorgeous!

We had some very nice, warm weather this weekend. I think I could actually feel the stampede of people heading outdoors to try soaking up the sunshine before things cool off again. We’ve had a string of lousy weekends, with sleet, snow, rain, and general cold, so it felt pretty great to be outdoors, working in the dirt again.

I cleaned out a few of the beds, trimming back last seasons perennials, mulching, and weeding. I don’t care what grows in the grass (the bees have been enjoying our crop of dandelions already!), but I try to keep the beds free of all the creeping charlie, thistle, dandelions, and bittercress.

There’s been a lot happening in the raised beds lately. Our garlic is growing up quite well, and has been joined by the leeks that I started indoors the other month, along with some snow peas, yellow onions, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, and spinach. The crop of native plants that I grew from seed this winter have been thinned and moved to larger pots. And our asparagus crop is coming in. We harvested the first batch for dinner. Yum!

This weekend saw a trip to one of my favorite plant centers, Scioto Gardens, for some more native plants to add to the wildlife pond. I picked up some more Blue Flag Irises (Iris virginica), Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), an Oak Sedge (Carex pensylvanica), a Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), and an Oak Leaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) to add to the native plants that already live around the pond. All told, so far, the plants we have living there play host to over 100 species of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies)!

Our new Jack-in-the-Pulpits, flowering around the wildlife pond

Other than just simply enjoying caterpillars, moths, and butterflies in the yard, I’m making an effort to add plants that host these critters for a reason. Just in North America, in the past 50 years, we’ve lost 1 in 4 birds. This isn’t just happening in exotic, tropical rain forest locations. It’s happening in our backyards. The birds we typically see here in Ohio are all experiencing a mass decline. And a huge reason for this is because they simply don’t have enough to eat.

Lots of my gardening friends put up bird feeders during the winter months, myself included. But the largest part of most birds diets are from bugs, especially caterpillars. Robins, woodpeckers, blue jays, wrens, warblers, sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, and many more rely on caterpillars for their survival. And they need to eat a LOT of caterpillars! According to Douglas Tallamy, (Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware) a single pair of breeding chickadees must find 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise just one clutch of young.

We don’t make this easy on them. Think about the yards in your neighborhood, or around your area. What do they look like? Are there a lot of native trees and plants around, or is much of the area covered in turf grass? While it’s hard to imagine having a yard without at least some nice grass to enjoy, it doesn’t support the insects that our birds need to eat to survive. Add in all the chemicals we dump onto our lawns to kill of weeds and “bad bugs,” and it’s no wonder that birds are experiencing such a tragic decline.

As gardeners, there is so much we can do to help out the animals around us, and honestly, we need these birds and insects to thrive for our own well-being, too. Without insects pollinating our crops and flowers, we wouldn’t make it. We all need a healthy ecosystem to enjoy, and this spring is a great time to consider ways to make a difference in your own yards and areas.

I know I’ve talked about native plant species already, but it’s so important to add these to your landscape! There’s a great tool out there, The Native Plant Finder, where you simply type in your zip code, and the site will show oodles of native plants for you to try adding to your garden, along with a list of how many and which species of moths and butterflies they play host to. Search for native plant nurseries in your area and try out a few this year. You will be amazed at what shows up, seemingly overnight.

Another great way to help out our pollinators and birds is to replace all of our outdoor security lights with yellow LED bulbs. Bright, white traditional incandescent bulbs, and LEDs, attract insects and birds in far greater numbers than warm, LED bulbs. You’ll help these critters out by diminishing the light pollution in your area, since many of our birds migrate at night.

Finally, a really important way to help out our local birds and insects is to stop spraying our yards and gardens with chemicals. We all like a healthy lawn, and no one wants to grow a bumper crop of mosquitoes, but the chemicals that we use in our yards, like pyrethrin, do not simply target mosquitoes. They are also killing off our bees, butterflies, moths, and birds. According to the National Wildlife Federation, “There is no way for companies to spray these broad-spectrum insecticides in your yard without also killing other insects they come in contact with, including bees, butterflies, caterpillars, ladybugs, dragonflies and other beneficial insects, along with the mosquitoes.”

So what’s the alternative? In my own yard, I let the birds, dragonflies, and other mosquito-eaters to it, but if you’re really concerned, there are some safer methods to mosquito-removal. Bti (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis), is a bacteria that will kill off mosquitos, leaving our pollinators to safely fly another day. Fill a bucket with some water, and drop in a Bti tablet. The mosquito larvae will eat the toxin, and die off, while other insects fly away free. When you are able to, however, it really is best to leave well enough alone. Our bird populations and other insects that rely on mosquitos will thank you. And your yard will be much healthier for it.

That was a lot of information, but hopefully it wasn’t too preachy. I am very passionate about using our yards to help out our local eco systems, but I realize that it’s a different way of gardening than many of us grew up with. It’s all about balance. Planting a favorite rose or having a nice bit of lawn for the kids to run around in is not a problem. It’s when we don’t provide anything else that our winged-neighbors start to suffer.

Hopefully this spring, you’re able to add in a new plant or tree to your landscape that once grew there naturally. Maybe you just have a small porch and no yard at all- you can still add a pot of milkweed to that doorstep! It’s a sad truth that no one is going to fix this situation for us. If we want our planet to survive, it’s up to us to do the work. But we can make a very big difference, one plant at a time! Happy gardening!

The Jacob’s Ladder are looking stunning this spring!

April, Come She Will

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Nothing says “Spring in the Midwest” like pansies on the front porch!

Springtime continues, as does our wild weather. In the past week, we’ve seen temps in the teens, and the 70s. It’s snowed, sleeted, thunderstormed, and we’ve had high wind warnings and red flag advisories. Things are supposed to be a little calmer this week, with temps in the 50s and 60s, which is the average for this time of year.

I’ve been focusing my gardening efforts indoors lately (mostly so I don’t blow away). This past week, I started up the next round of annuals: calendula, cornflowers, cosmos, love-in-a-mist, nasturtiums, marigolds, and zinnias for the pollinators and a cut flower garden. I also planted some creeping thyme, basil, and cumin. By the time these start growing up, I’ll be able to move them outdoors, into the cold frame. I don’t have enough grow lights to keep too many seedlings growing indoors, so having the cold frame is a lifesaver.

A few weeks ago, I planted up leeks, tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe, indigo, rudbeckia, and yarrow, and all of these have sprouted under the grow lights. It’s such a joy when your seeds sprout. The whole process feels a bit like magic to me and I’m so relived that everything is coming up.

Our hellebores are blooming up a storm lately.

Outside, in the milk jugs on the porch, the common blue violets, spring beauties, common milkweed, swamp milkweed, ironweed, purple prairie clover, wild bergamot, and prairie blazing star have sprouted. As excited as I was to see the cantaloupes sprout this past week, I was really over the moon to spy these native seedlings sprouting. Most importantly, they will help the pollinators in the garden this year, but they will also help the garden borders to fill in and look better. One of my goals for this gardening season is to move like plants things into groups, rather than just one of a species planted randomly around the borders.

This week, I’m hoping to get outdoors for a bit of cleanup. I won’t cut any of the perennials back quite yet- that will have to wait just a few more weeks until temps are warm enough that any nesting bees and bugs inside the stalks of these plants have woken up and flown away. But there’s work I can do in the raised beds. They need some more compost and dirt this year before I can start my cool season crops. I want to haul the cold frame up from the basement as well. I have a few long, narrow pots that I’ll plant up with spinach and lettuce here shortly.

I’m excited for these weeks of April. The spring ephemerals that I love will be blooming soon as the weather warms up, and the perennials are starting to pop up for the season. It seems like every day, new green shoots appear. On Sunday, the husband and I headed to our local metro park to check out which wildflowers were flowering.

I absolutely love wildflower walks. Every week, the whole landscape looks different, and spotting tiny little flowers poking up through the fallen leaves in the woods feels like searching for treasure. Sunday, the spring beauties (Claytonia virginica), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), and harbinger-of-spring (Erigenia bulbosa) were flowering. The toadshade (Trillium sessile) and virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) were budding, and should be flowering here soon. I’ve started growing a lot of these in the garden for myself and the pollinators to enjoy, and I cannot wait to see them all pop up in the flower beds!

Hope the weather is warming up wherever you are, and that your garden is also waking from a long winter. Happy gardening!

Bloodroot, spotted at Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park

Garden Dreaming in Winter

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Our winter temperatures have finally arrived. We had a dusting of snow the other day, and temps dropped down into the teens and single digits a few nights. Brr! The birds devoured everything in our feeders before the temps dropped off late last week, and I’ve been enjoying checking out all their tracks in the snow. The deck railings seem to be a high traffic area for the birds, and the neighborhood cat appears to gone ice skating on the frozen pond.

When I haven’t been watching the birds hop around through the snow, I’ve been working on planting the first of this seasons seeds. January may seem an odd time for planting in Ohio, but there’s quite a few seeds that need the winter cold to properly grow. These seeds need a period of colder weather to germinate, with temperature changes and precipitation helping to break down the seeds tough outer shells.

Day-dreaming about spring planting in the raised beds…

In the past, I’d put seeds in the fridge to reproduce winters conditions, but I never had much success growing anything this way. Last year, I learned about the Winter Sowing Method and I had much better luck. I described the process in a post last winter, but the basic idea is that you start your seeds that require stratification outdoors. I was able to grow a bounty of native plants from seed this way, and I decided to try it again this year. I grow these seeds in recycled milk and juice containers, with a little seed starting soil mix. The deck is already packed with containers full of prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya), little blue stem (Schizachyrium scoparium), swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), and purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea). I have a bunch of native grasses to start with the rest of my recyclable collection, as well as some coneflowers.

Most of my seeds, however, won’t see soil until March. I’m going to start quite a few herbs and veggies indoors, under grow lights. And then, I have a few things that will be directly sown in the ground, like carrots and lettuce in the springtime. I’ve been scouring seed catalogues, adding entirely too many seeds to my collection. I have a few left over from last year to use up this season, in addition to quite a few that I harvested from plants. So, it’s going to be a busy spring, is what I’m getting at!

What seed-obsession?

Along with planting too many seeds, I just started my Master Gardener Volunteer classes this past Friday! Thankfully, in addition to my gardening addiction, I’m also quite a fan of notebooks, pens, and highlighters, because we’ve been given a ton of materials to study. The first class gave an overview of the Master Gardener program, from its history to all the great work Master Gardeners are doing in our community. Next, we learned about soil, what makes it such an important resource, how and why it’s important to test it, and how and what to add to it to help plants grow. I remained overwhelmed with gratitude that I managed to skip Organic Chemistry in college when “Soil Cation Exchange Capacity” was brought up… if you ever want to make your head spin, give that little ditty a Google…

Looks like the neighborhood cat stepped out onto the ice of the pond and did a little skating.

After learning about the ins and outs of soil, we covered the Scientific Classification System, scientific names for plants, and had a plant biology overview. There’s so much to learn, and I’m excited to be a part of the program. I imagine by the time classes wrap up in mid-March, I will be a fount of planty know-how!

I think that wraps things up for this first few days of January. I hope to spend time this week doing a bit more winter sowing, and I ought to get all my seeds organized so I can figure out the order of operations for this years planting. Hope you’re staying warm and healthy. Happy gardening!

I left up our pokeberries for the birds to snack on this winter. I love the way the berries look in the cold.