How To Create A Pollinator-Friendly Garden

If you have gutters on your house, then your flowerbeds, backyard garden, lawn, and potted plants would benefit from a rain barrel!

I once read that ants are estimated to outnumber humans by over one million to one, and it isn’t hard to believe! Almost everyone deals with ants in their house or apartment at one point or another, and they’re never short on numbers.

My daughter Britta has definitely emerged as the gardening guru in our family. Today she’s sharing with us her homemade organic fungicide that is just as effective and much cheaper than the commercial alternatives and won’t hurt the environment, our pets, or our families. Way to go Britta!

We spent a lot of time in the backyard this summer! With our new fire pit and all the bird feeders we added, the patio was a main attraction. Unfortunately, those cute little birds left their droppings all over the place, and the patio umbrella was looking pretty dingy! There was also lots of dirt, dust, and pollen on the umbrella that I didn’t even notice until I started moving it around.

My mother has always grown a vegetable garden. Even when we lived in Southern California and our backyard was all cement patio and pool deck, she would always have a community garden plot that I remember having to go water and weed every weekend. I didn’t appreciate the benefits of growing your own vegetable garden back then, but the gardening bug must run in the family because I LOVE it now! And my daughter Britta is following in the footsteps of her Mom, Grandmother, and Great Grandmother as she embarks on her second year of vegetable gardening.

Since those of us who live in the U.S. will be celebrating “Independence Day” this weekend, I thought it might be a good time to offer a refresher on how to PROPERLY and respectfully display our stars and stripes.

I’m always surprised when I speak with people about their vegetable gardens, and I find out they haven’t ever tried to grow potatoes! “I just haven’t gotten around to it,” they’ll say, or “Aren’t they difficult to grow?” And they answer is NO! In fact, they’re one of the easiest plants to grow, in my opinion. So there’s no reason not to plant yourself some potatoes this spring – not even if you don’t have space for a garden!

Gardening can be incredibly rewarding work, but it can also be really hard on your hands! Between cuts and scrapes, and dryness due to repeated hand-washings, gardeners’ hands are often in need of a bit of extra TLC. This DIY “Gardener’s Salve” is the answer! It is infused with herbs that help to quickly heal cuts and scrapes, and it will leave your hands feeling silky smooth. Plus, it smells lovely, like a fragrant herb garden. :-)

This post is sponsored by TIKI Brand. As always, all opinions and ideas are entirely my own.

Depending on where you live, you may have already begun digging in your garden this year! We are ALMOST there…but not quite. I can’t wait! I’m itching to get my fingers back in the dirt! Of course with the fun of digging in the dirt comes the related chores, but today we’re sharing a super easy project that will make at least one of those chores easier!

Yesterday was the first honest-to-goodness SPRING-LIKE day we’ve had thus far this year! I seriously wanted to find a meadow filled with wildflowers and run through it singing “Walking On Sunshine!” OK, not really….but you get the idea. :-) It. Was. A. Picture. Perfect. Day. The kind of day when our minds (and hearts) turn towards getting out in the garden again! So today’s post couldn’t have been more perfectly timed! Britta is going to share another garden idea (the girl is OBSESSED I tell ya!) that’s not only extremely PRACTICAL, but BEAUTIFUL too!

I love that my son Erik and daughter-in-law Kaitlyn live in the basement apartment of our house! Especially because I get to benefit from his obsessions/hobbies! Today Erik is sharing his latest with us. :-)  Erik writes……..   This year, I have taken great interest in feeding the wild birds in my neighborhood. I love animals, and was eager to put out some bird seed to see what kind of nature I could attract to my doorstep. It started with a standard, inexpensive, seed blend from the grocery store and slowly but surely the birds made their way to our backyard feeder. But it didn’t take an expert to see that some ingredients in the mix were MUCH more preferred than others.