By: Jannie Vaught The weather is great for gardening now. Warm day’s with cool nights and possible rain! It can’t get any better. Outside the neighborhood was out digging and mowing and planting. Then the reminder came in that I gave myself last year at this time. Don’t plant to soon! Last year the excitement of spring and growing got me planting to early and … Continue reading Just A Reminder
By: Jannie Vaught Gardening is always 2 seasons ahead. We need to think 2 seasons ahead to be in a natural flow of plants and their seasons. Lets think about perennial wildflowers. These can thrive in a broad range of environments. Some of these will bloom the first year. all others will root and develop over a year with blooms the next year. Here are some … Continue reading Planting In Spring For Fall
By: Jannie Vaught The Blue Bonnets are crazy pretty this spring and all the wild flowers are showing. When the Indian Blanket’s start blooming then the diverse colors of nature really bring the full pallet of color, texture and intensity. A few ago weekend was full of digging, planting and mending. And my muscles were telling me all about it. ouch! But this is the … Continue reading Planting The Seeds Of Gratitude
By: Jannie Vaught Every spring the wait for the first Blue Bonnet to show is a day for happy celebration! Happy Celebration Everyone their here!! This is the show of natures beauty we have been waiting through all this dreary dark winter. We have a bunch on the corner of our car port and we check it daily. When that first cluster show’s we … Continue reading Natures Celebration of Spring
By Jannie Vaught El Nino is officially here. The ocean temperatures have risen. Does that mean rain and storms? And this morning is it raining a nice soft rain, all my rain barrels are full to overflow and the garden is growing. It was time to feed the onions and check the baby spinach to make sure it is growing as it should. The new … Continue reading The Hard Earned Gains of Three Years
By: Jannie Vaught The cold howled down on us again and the ice cycles were hanging heavily on the fence. We had to break the ice for water for the critters and everyone is hungry, needing heat calories to keep warm. We wrapper our flowering fruit trees with burlap and clothes pins last night. This cold snap looks to be short, but we never … Continue reading Spring Chores
By: Jannie Vaught With another cold spell in our area many of us are just wanting to get out side and get to the needed chores. We had a few warm days and many of the lawn mowers were working late into the evening. With my muscles sore from all this hurried work there is still time for staying on task with the garden … Continue reading Garden Chores
By: Jannie Vaught 2015 is the International Year of Soil If you eat and live on planet earth you know without soil, good soil we will cease to do either eat or live. The United Nations has declared it the year of soil, but do we really need the U.N. to tell us to take care of our soil? Anyone who farm’s, ranches, has groves of … Continue reading The Year of Soil
By: Jannie Vaught It is another rainy day here in the Hill Country. And this gardener is so thankful I could just shout! Thank You!! The wild flowers will be absolutely wonderful this spring and the Blue Bonnets will just take your breath away. With the rain comes all the overdue chores in my house and pantry. I went thru my canned goods, and … Continue reading Planning Your Garden Early
By Jannie Vaught Frost outside this morning and all the critter water is frozen. Time to bust some water. But the winter green’s look so good! The turnips are sweeter and the collard greens are thriving. And oh my the kale is huge! Time to make kale chips. If you haven’t tried this it is easy and tasty. Lets go back to the onion. … Continue reading Onions Delight
By Jannie Vaught Onions…… How to grow and where to go to get starts for your growing area. Last week in the article I spoke of how to find your growing area. With that in your mind you also need to know if your soil is alkaline or acidic. You can have a soil test done and find out the ph. Most plants like one … Continue reading Making A Good Home For Growing Onions
By Jannie Vaught After the gloom overcast days it is so wonderful to see sunshine! This morning the garden list said “Look at Vegetable Planting Guide”. First you need to know what is your growing zone. Go to the USDA Hardiness zone finder, put in your zip code and there you are your planting zone. We are 8B here in central Texas, but this can also … Continue reading Time To Check The Vegetable Planting Guide
By Jannie Vaught December and it is looking like winter. The leaves are all falling and the dark comes early, but on the solstice the light returns. Meaning every day it gets bright earlier and the light stays longer in the day. And me and the chickens are going to bed at 6 o’clock! Some of us are seriously effected by loss of sun light. … Continue reading Getting Ready For The Spring Garden
By Jannie Vaught The weather outside is cold! The garden hoops are up and the greens are vibrant! I took a hit on the carry over tomatoes from the summer. Today we are going to look at 2 words used for Tomatoes “determinant” and “indeterminate” what’s the difference? Determinant tomatoes, also called bush tomatoes, are bred to grow compact height, usually no more than … Continue reading The Dream of Home Grown Tomatoes
By Jannie Vaught The potted plants that wind up in the trash! Well how about keeping them year after year. Being that I repurpose and recycle, I look at all things with a different perspective. Often this is how it goes. “Now what can I use this for and how can I keep it thriving.” So it goes for Mum’s, one of the favorite … Continue reading Mums and Poinsettias
By Jannie Vaught The garden now is beautiful! The Ott’s Morning Glories are breath taking. All the Mustard, Collards and English Peas are growing rapidly and the garlic is going in next week with the temperatures finally going down. I already am planning what’s going in and what is not. Every season is a learning experience. Yes, tomatoes are always at the top of the … Continue reading The Fall Garden Is Better Than The Spring
By Jannie Vaugh Garlic fresh from the garden or bought from the store, life and health attune with this wonder globe. Types of garlic are soft neck and hard neck. Covered those last week, you can search on line there are many places to buy from and select what suits your fancy, for example: Inchelium red Rocamboles Purple stripe Marble stripe Porcelain Turban … Continue reading Garlic Is A Foodies Best Friend
By Jannie Vaught Garlic, Allium Sativum is a species in the onion genus Allium. Native to central Asia it is used both culinary and medical purposes, is a boulbous plant. Sometimes called the food of the gods. I call it deliscious and cook with it daily, only the cookies don’t have garlic! And I use it for treating colds, flu and sore throats. … Continue reading Garlic, The Food Of The Gods
By Jannie Vaught The Fabulous Fig!! Ficus carica, is prized for it’s sweet fruit and lovely large leaves. The fig is adapted to Texas soils and and many gardeners treasure growing this beauty. The fruit is sweet and rich in calcium, iron, minerals, vitamin A and C. This fruit is actually a flower. Fig flowers are produced inside the hollow pear shapes that become … Continue reading The Fabulous Fig!!
By Jannie Vaught Another morning in the garden and as I was tending and doing more summer clean out, I realized that some of my raised beds were compacted and hard to dig into!! Gasp!! It is always so light and fluffy; so I decided to hand dig 12 inches down and pull out all old root and plants, next I got out my seed … Continue reading Improving Sub Soil Structure with Nature’s Growing Helper
Dreamweaverarts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.