I have recently became obsessed with dahlias, so I ordered a lot to start my dahlia patch for the 2021 growing season. I planted them on the bottom right garden bed in the Tiered Garden, which is not the original location I had planned for them. They were to be in raised beds on the lower tier, but I did not want to invest in raised beds if we were to be moving within a year. So they went into the Tiered Garden for the summer 2021 growing season. This was not the most ideal location for the dahlias, especially the right side of the bed. A lot of the dahlias on that side did not do well this y ..read more

What a roller coaster ride these past two years have been here at house number two! While I look at the pictures I am about to share with you and realize so much progress has been made in just two years, there could have been so much more done had it not been up in the air for quite some time about whether we would be moving again soon. We hadn’t been here a year yet when rumors started about a Dollar General coming to the area – in our backyard. A company did soil tests in April 2020, and at that point, the boyfriend had decided we weren’t staying here and would move. Another reason we moved ..read more

I love collecting the seeds from my plants.  First and foremost, it saves me money so I am not having to buy those seeds the next year.  Second, I love experimenting!  If the plant is not an heirloom, chances are, the plant the seeds produce might be slightly different from the plant you collected the seeds from.  This can be a negative sometimes, but I don’t mind experimenting with free seeds. I have included a YouTube video at the bottom of this post that walks you through the seed-collecting process I do if you’d like to see it in action.  To collect coleus seeds, y ..read more

Here’s my latest YouTube video regarding my confederate rose cutting I rooted last year ..read more

My poor banana tree was looking rather sad in the 3-gallon container I had originally planted it in when I received it in the mail earlier this year, so I decided it was time to put it in a bigger pot.  I plan to overwinter it in my ‘craft room’ here at the new house since it will not survive freezing temperatures or an unheated greenhouse here in Alabama. For the soil mix, I use a mixture of coarse vermiculite, Black Kow composted manure, Jungle Growth potting mix, and regular Miracle Gro potting mix.  I don’t have a specific ratio; I just eyeball it.  The vermiculite helps ret ..read more

I can’t believe tomorrow marks 4 weeks since we’ve moved into our new home!  Times sure does fly by!  Last week we decided to get a tree company out to take down a lot of trees around where my new gardening area will be and in our backyard.  We used Kevin’s Tree Service in Gadsden, and if you’re in the area and need work done, I would highly recommend them! Our previous house had about 0.6 acres of land, and while the new place is 1.5 acres, it looked so much smaller because of the trees in the backyard. My gardening area had quite a few trees that blocked too much sun for most ..read more

This is my first time growing potatoes, so I’m excited to see how it goes!  I contemplated growing them in the ground, in a raised garden bed, in garden containers, and in grow bags.  I decided to do grow bags because they were fairly inexpensive, and there was no building necessary.  I got these 25-gallon grow bags on Amazon. I decided to go with German Butterball potato seeds, which I purchased online. I received 2 lbs of seed potatoes, which was roughly 20 potatoes.  I sat them in an egg carton for a couple weeks so they would sprout out.  Not everyone does this pr ..read more

Our mailbox was lackluster for the first 6 years we lived in this house.  First of all, previous owners thought terracotta orange was a good color for everything.  The house itself, the back deck railing, the hammock posts (when we had one), and the mailbox post. The post isn’t in the best shape, but since it is cemented into the ground, I wasn’t about to take on the task of digging it up.  With the ground here, I’m lucky to dig a big enough hole to plant a pint-sized potted flower.  The picture above was snapped in May 2015.  We’ve been at this house since August 200 ..read more

I wanted something colorful and pretty at our back door, so I decided to make my own tiered planter out of cheap plastic planters from Wal-Mart.  The largest one on the bottom (18″ basic resin planter) was around $11.97.  There are a few things I’d do different if I were to make another of these.  I did this one about 2 1/2 years ago in April 2016. I am pretty sure I used an 18″ planter for the bottom and inserted a 12″ planter ($2.50) upside down.  I did this for several reasons: 1) I didn’t want to fill the entire planter with soil when I was only planting in the front p ..read more

A ..read more