If there’s one thing I absolutely love about nature, it’s watching flowers bloom in early Spring. The earliest blooms are from Fall bulbs planted for Spring flowers. Winter always feels like the most stagnant season. Trees have long since shed their leaves. Grass takes a break from growing. Plants are often buried under blankets of snow. Animals use winter to take a respite. Even gardeners use … [Read more...]
How to Make a Gravel Path
Garden paths and walkways add a lot to the look of your yard. Whether you want to make a gravel path leading to your front door or a walk way through your backyard garden, paths are awesome additions to your yard. Here's how to make a gravel pathway. Here's the "before" picture of our yard. See that flower bed leading down to our barn? I created a perennial … [Read more...]
How to Grow Hops
Growing hops is pretty easy and the vine adds so much visual interest to your garden. A fast grower, the vine will set hops the first year. The hops themselves can be used to brew a batch of homemade beer. How to Grow Hops You can buy a vine in a container so you don't have to grow from seed. Hops like fertile soil, although I would not do very heavy … [Read more...]
How to Make a Flower Bed
Adding a flower bed makes such a beautiful difference to your yard. If you think your home is lacking some curb appeal, a flower bed is one of the easiest ways to change that. It doesn't take long to make one or to maintain one, especially if you use perennial plants. Here's how to make a flower bed. How to Create a Perennial Flower Bed First of course, you have to figure out where you … [Read more...]
How to Make Dandelion Jelly – Recipe
I've always wanted to try making some Dandelion Jelly - and this year, I did. It's quite easy to make and doesn't take a long time to put up a batch. Sweet and delicious - now I have 8 jars in my pantry for us to enjoy all year around. Here's how to make Dandelion Jelly for your family; great for gifts too! How to Make Dandelion Jelly Note: One batch will … [Read more...]
A Flower Bed for the Shade
Fall is a great time to build new flower beds - you can plant perennials and let them get settled in. Closer to winter they will die back, only to reappear in the spring. They will grow and bloom in the spring, summer or fall, depending on the kind of perennial you choose. You can build a flower bed for the sun or one for the shade. Here's how we created a beautiful flower bed for the shade! … [Read more...]
An Organic Line of Plant Food
Spring is such a wonderful time of year. We’re outside more and enjoying it, whether we’re sitting on the porch or tramping through the woods. The best part of spring to me is that I can get back in the gardens. Right now, it’s too early to get into the still wet vegetable garden. I can however get into my perennial flower beds and do a cleanup. This is great, because later in the season, I … [Read more...]
You Don’t Need to Use Pesticides to Have a Great Looking Lawn
Over the last five years or so, there has been a huge movement towards organics. In truth, the movement has been going on for decades, but lately the number of people who are recognizing the importance of more natural living has exploded. There has been renewed interest in organically grown food and this has gone hand in hand with the importance of labelling GMO foods. I think it’s largely … [Read more...]
Flowers & Laying Hens
Here are a few pictures of what's been blooming here in the Valley. It's so wonderful to sit on the porch and look out at the yard. When I have time, that is, to actually sit on the porch :) Everything looks so healthy right now. Here's the Irises and Poppy in full bloom. These perennials are in the Pathway garden, which leads to the barn. One of our apple trees. This year, … [Read more...]