I’M CELEBRATING A YEAR of being “on my own” this week, a year since I left my city career behind and moved to my rural garden to find my way, and life, among the frogboys. With this post, I’m also marking another milestone: It’s Post No. 200. Almost nine months into blogging, it’s a good start.
A lot has happened this first year out: A Way to Garden grew, with its 200 posts and nearly 4500 comments (thank you very much), and also now with Andre. I started The Sister Project, which in its first two weeks of new life has had about 10,000 clicks and 300 comments. Three weeks ago, I sold a book idea…and this week I am kicking off writing it with a few days of retreat (a funny thing for a woman who spends so much time alone already to say).
I have filled in each quandrant of the mandala my friend Ken Smith created for me when I began this new life…we may have to subdivide!
I just wanted to take this moment to say thank you to all of you visitors, old and new, who have encouraged me. You cannot imagine what it has meant to have you here by my side. I wish you all peace (and love and monkey business)—the usual offerings from the usual suspect here, who’s well dug into her own Rebel Side of Heaven after a year of exquisite freedom.
Like everyone right now, I am a little scared, but also a lot excited: Good things lie ahead if we keep believing in ourselves (and keeping our sense of humor doesn’t hurt, either). Rather than panic, I think I’ll just do what Curtis Mayfield taught me and Keep on Pushing, hoping you’ll decide to push on along beside me a little farther on down the road.
The website greengrove.cc is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Is there anything more motivating to do your job better than some positive feedback? When we garden for you, our priority is to not only to provide the best solution, but also make you as happy as possible. So when you, dear customers, praise us in one way or another, we know that we’ll do our best over and over again.
Rumour that Bees are in terminal decline is not borne out in my garden this year. The Bees seem very happy on the blue flowers and I am happy as it gives me an excuse to show some more blue photographs (of flowers!).
This is Gardeners Tips 2,000 extant post since April 2008. I have lost count how many photographs and images have been included but here are just a few repeats.
The low growing ivy leaved cyclamen has marbled foliage and Spring or Autumn flowering. It grows from corms that are planted in shade under trees or in rockeries with some cover.
Cool, dampish conditions ensure happy cyclamen plants from now until Christmas. Do not let them dry out in your centrally heated house. Nor should you put them in draft
We need a rebellion against the extinction of the greengrocer but in the meantime it is a good time to use your garden productively. Late autumn in a great time to plant some fruit trees and canes. You can also use the cold months to plan and prepare your own vegetable crop production for the next year.
Everyone loves a relaxing day at the beach, but if there’s one thing beach-goers can collectively agree on, it’s that no one loves the post-beach day laundry. Post-beach washing has a bad reputation thanks to the buildup of sand and saltwater in clothes, towels, and even skin.
A WAY TO GARDEN turns 5 months old this week, and as if to celebrate it reached a milestone: our first 100-comment post (about equal to the number of frogs who share the place with me). No-no surprise for me that it was the post about Garden No-No’s (aka The Complaint Dept.) that took the prize.
ANDRE THE DOODLER IS ALLOWED TO PUT DOWN HIS PEN every now and again, and this is one of those weeks. If you can’t live without your weekly Andre fix, try browsing through the image-driven archive of every last doodle he’s created here in the last two years.
THE OFFICIAL STATISTICS-DRIVEN all-time best-of list—the 50 stories you clicked on most since I launched A Way to Garden in March 2008—is all well and good, and actually a great place to get acquainted with this site. But I have my own list of stories I loved the most so far.
Birthdays require flowers. Make mine peonies, one of the best perks of a June birthday. I am currently overrun by them, and the house actually smells too sweet; I had to put several vases outside. I even had the first-ever tree peony blossoms of my garden career (above) to cheer me this time around. That’s ‘Yellow Crown,’ which produced its first two flowers this year. Tada! Looks like a cupcake with lots of frosting, doesn’t it?Birthdays require gifts, and Jack the Demon Cat took care of this one already. Yes, another weasel tail on the front doormat (above); making four in the last week. Wish he’d stick to chipmunk
BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE BLEW IN SATURDAY, with its relentless 50-plus mile-per-hour winds, there was a brief moment of sanity. The snow was finally melting, revealing the first bulbs, and the very best part: I got my knees wet in the process of going to have a closer look.