My First Gooseberry

“There’s no way of eating a gooseberry that isn’t a divine experience.”~Monty Don I love Big Dreams, Small Spaces. I’ve seen it a billion times, but it’s still usually on my TV to keep me company when I’m home alone. (It’s on Netflix, so if you haven’t seen it, you should go watch it!) Everyone is just so cheerfully enthusiastic about gardening, especially the host (and “Britain’s favorite gardener”), Monty Don. There’s a moment in the first episode of the second season where Monty in trying to convince his garden mentee to buy a gooseberry as he gets really excited Read More

What I’m Growing From Seed in 2019 (Vegetables)

A lot.  I’m growing a lot from seed this year. Last year, I tried so so so hard to limit the varieties of vegetable and flowers I grew from seed because I didn’t want to overwhelm myself and end up with nothing but failure.  I would say I was pretty successful in this endeavor.  Because I placed restrictions on myself, I got the chance to experiment with different ways of growing plants and figuring out in what conditions they thrived. I kept it simple which allowed me to become more confident as a gardener.  And finally, managing a smaller amount Read More

Update: Earth Day Sapling

Yeah, so remember the Earth Day sapling I brought home?  You know, the one that I got for free from the grocery store.  The one with the lovely care instructions on the bag that I chose to ignore.  Oh yeah, that one?  What happened to that tree? Complete and utter failure happened. Look at all that brown!  But this outcome was predictable, right?  I completely disregarded the instructions and went for glory right away.  There, of course, is a lesson to be learned here.  Several, in fact. Lesson 1: Be patient. It’s easy as newb gardeners to want to put Read More

Earth Day Sapling

Yeah, yeah.  Earth Day was back in April, I know!  But this is something that is still making me smile. I just so happened to stop by our local Rosauers for groceries that day.  When I walked in, they had a big display table set up for Earth Day offering free ponderosa pine saplings.  I have a hard time passing up free stuff anyway (I thought about grabbing two…), but I immediately thought of all my garden beds that need filling.  So I adopted a sapling! Seriously, so cute! So the instructions on the bag (which I composted, thank you Read More

Raised Bed: The Buildening

Yeah, that photo above showcases some stellar winter weather we were hit with while I was tackling the building part of this project… Anyhoo!  Welcome to the buildening of the raised bed which would not have been possible without a little bit of plannening as described in part one. Assembly Ok, I went into this with every intention of building this bed by myself with no help from Nick.  Why?  I don’t know…ego?  I don’t have much in the way of carpentry experience, but I guess I thought I might be a prodigy.  So I had Nick show me how Read More

Raised Bed: The Plannening

Another long overdue post coming at ya!  But better late than never, right?  I spent a lot of the winter planning and dreaming about all the growing projects I was going to tackle this summer.  If you’re at all interested in what the heck I was thinking when putting together my raised bed vegetable garden, read on! Design Location: I’m pretty limited as far as location of my raised bed.  And I knew this last year as I was thinking about vegetable gardening while I was laying sod.  There’s really only two spots in my backyard that receive full sun.  Read More

The Starting Point-2018 Growing Season

Spring time in Montana can be a bit maddening.  We don’t have four distinct seasons.  Rather they tend to blur into each other.  And before you fully realize that you’re in summer, it’s already started to fade into fall.  It means I’m going to have to develop a much keener sense of the seasons when thinking about outdoor planting for new growing seasons. As winter fades into spring, we’ve been hit with what I believe is an unprecedented amount of winter storms over the past couple months.  But there was a decent enough break in between them that I was Read More

How I Defeated the Fungus Gnats

If you read my December diary, you may remember that I was dealing with a pretty intense fungus gnat infestation.  It’s a super common , incredibly frustrating problem for those of us who keep plants indoors.  I wanted to expand my indoor vegetable garden, but before I could, I needed to get the gnats under control or I’d end up living in a very buggy house.   I’m happy to report that I am victorious in my fight against these fungus gnats.  But before I talk about how I did it, let’s get to know the enemy… (Not So) Fun Read More

Newb Diary: Adventures in Indoor Growing

I think it’s safe to say we’ve entered winter where I live.  In Montana, the snow can stick around until May, and it can start getting frosty in September.  And while it’s not a shock to me that our summers are short (I’ve lived here a while), it takes on a whole new level of shortness when looking at it through garden-tinted glasses.  There really isn’t much time to do everything I would hope to accomplish in a given season, namely vegetable gardening.  At least, not without a little planning.  This year has been especially frustrating for me because just Read More

Let’s Start At The Very Beginning

A very good place to start indeed!  It’s seems fitting that the inaugural post on my new blog be about one of the first questions I (and probably every other newb gardener) had about gardening. How do I even get started? This question was much harder to answer than I ever anticipated.  While having the desire to garden in the first place is wonderful, it’s also problematic because without any sense of direction, you’ll want to dive into everything!!!  You’ll envision an end result for yourself straight out of Martha Stewart Living (#notsponsored).  But without some basic knowledge and tools, Read More