I love herbal tea! I am sensitive to caffeine. Drinking anything with caffeine could lead to a headache. I save my potential headaches for a bottle of cola, not tea. Although tea is cheap...compared to almost anything else in the grocery store since the pandemic began, I still wanted to grow my own tea. For years, we have grown mint. Mint is a lovely choice for tea. This year, we added German chamomile. This plant is an annual, but it has been producing well. To harvest, I cut the stems. I never cut more than half of the plant. I rinse them in cold water and place them on a splatter screen to ..read more

Last year, my garden update didn't come until August! This year, I'm back to my regular schedule. Why is that? I graduated! It is now Dr. Shawnta Shicole Stockton Barnes...but y'all can still call me Gardener Shicole. I graduated last month with an education doctorate in Literacy, Culture, and Language Education and a minor in learning sciences from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. I finally have more time. I have taken classes during the summer for the last several years. It is so nice to not have to write a paper and miss time in my garden. Now, I can get back to creating my gard ..read more

Many of you are used to my garden update being published before now. This summer, I was finishing up all of my classes for my doctoral program before tackling my dissertation. This meant I took three classes in six weeks. That does not mean fewer assignments. That means an entire semester is squeezed into six weeks. I had multiple assignments due for each class every single week. This meant I had to let some areas of my life hit pause. Writing on Gardener Shicole and having my 2021 Garden page up are two areas where I hit pause. I did try to post on the Gardener Shicole Twitter, Facebook, Ins ..read more

Kale is a biennial plant. This means it will return for a second year. The second year is the end of its life cycle. To start the life cycle again, it will bolt with the aim of producing more kale. Bolting has been mentioned many times on this website, and it is when plants flower and go to seed. The good news is that all hope is not lost. Gardeners have many options. 1) Gardeners can keep the kale in a cool place and shade it in hopes of delaying the bolting process and getting more kale leaves to eat. 2) Gardeners can let the kale go to seed and then plant the seeds to grow more kale. 3) Ga ..read more

I lived in my first house for over a decade. I have only lived in my current house for a little over two years, so I am still adding to my garden. So far this year, I wanted to add two growing containers that had trellis on the back of it. Although ,Gardeners.com is my go-to online gardening shop, I wanted to see what else was being sold on other sites. There were many cute options. Gardening can be both healthy and fashionable. However, the ,Savannah Plastic Elevated Planter with Trellis I saw on Wayfair is not recommended for growing food. On Wayfair, people can post questions and a Wayfair ..read more

It is December 31st, and I have kale, lettuce, and Swiss chard still growing. Since it is growing, I keep harvesting it. Gardening is hard work, but I love it. On the last day of 2021, I want to take a moment to look back at our five most viewed videos of 2021. #5 https://youtu.be/kDg5aKWQZEY #4 https://youtu.be/y5tbZ7r7V8w #3 https://youtu.be/BPl4yKC3gqg #2 https://youtu.be/nxCklTwE4gk #1 https://youtu.be/kMORKnkQNEw Thanks for following us! See you all in 2022! Remember, anyone can be a gardener. You just need to get ready, get set, and grow! To keep up with our 2021 garden, make sure you ..read more

Right when summer was coming to a close, my tomatoes plant said it was time to shine. We had so many full-sized tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. We froze them, had them in salad, ate them on their own. My sons reminded me about how I said I would make ketchup again. That was years ago. Apparently, they remember, and apparently, they were no longer accepting later as an answer. I got out my new food mill. My last one needed to be replaced. I bought it two years ago before we moved into our current home. I hadn’t opened it yet. On a school night, when I was supposed to be on a Zoom call for a meet ..read more

I have been growing peppers for years, but even I like to mix it up. This year I decided to grow purple bell peppers. I was so excited about it that I even sent my boys into the garden to find them once they started changing color from green to purple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOEkDGC2ZsM Unfortunately, at the end of the video. I saw a problem with a few peppers. It was blossom-end rot (BER). Although this is a common problem in gardens, I do not recall dealing with this before. This issue is caused due to the plant not having enough calcium. Gardeners.com states, "Blossom-end rot is m ..read more

Check out this brief video about signs that should alert you that your garden needs water. I haven't really talked about this much before, but this week provided a perfect opportunity to highlight this subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUmpq4FHmQU Remember, anyone can be a gardener. You just need to get ready, get set, and grow! To keep up with our 2021 garden, make sure you are connected to us on social media: Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @gardenershicole Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/gardenershicole/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel Join us on the Wix App ..read more

My entire life I have had sensitive skin. I was prone to get a rash out of no where. Then, I got the nickname Sweet Meat because I constantly found myself with bug bites … even when I had on bug spray. Knowing this, I try to be careful in my garden. Sunday, I failed at this goal. In my defense, I was a bit shaken up. I was in bed with my husband when a furious knock came from my son on our bedroom door. He said, “The toaster is smoking!” Luckily, my husband got to the toaster before it caught fire. Unfortunately, we were too late to stop our alarm from being triggered and a fire truck being s ..read more