Bingoandlove

I like to promote these as they're adaptable, easy to grow native perennials,  often with multiple good species to choose from within a particular genus.  (This is a list to accompany a presentation for a Pollination Celebration in Asheville GreenWorks Bee City program). Herbaceous perennials (average to dry sites): Asclepias tuberosa      Butterfly Weed Baptisia spp .  False Wild Indigo Coreopsis spp.  Coreopsis Echinacea spp.  Coneflowers Eupatorium perfoliatum   Common boneset Helianthus spp.  Sunflower Liatris spp.  Blazing Star Penstemon spp.  Beardtongue Pycnanthemum spp.  Mountain mints Rudbeckia fulgida     Black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia spp.  Black-eyed Susan Silphium spp.  Prairie dock; compass plant Solidago spp.  Goldenrod Symphyotrichum spp.  Asters Thermopsis villosa   Carolina false lupine Zizia aurea  Golden Alexanders Herbaceous perennials (moist sites): Eutrochi...

I planted tomatoes and peppers, along with squash and bean seeds, thinking they'd be a nice bonus for our veggie-gardening prone summer renters. Well, it looks like I'll be harvesting the tomatoes, beans, and squash myself.  I've already harvested LOTS of basil that I planted for the second set of renters, now looking for another place as we're still here. Beans, squash, and tomatoes are looking good I'm basically OK with this. It's a familiar summer warm-season gardening dance, even as the darn collards and kale persist (not to mention the beet greens). There's nothing to complain about -- when you have fresh young succulent basil growing.  I like to grow it in containers or flats as a cut and come again herb -- keeping the leaves and stems succulent and tasty. 

Well, my favorite sidebar gadgets have disappeared in my former layout, but I guess I can figure out how to link the presentations and plant lists (from Google Drive) to my website, I suppose. But hey, I'm doing this now as a volunteer. Really, I'm not happy to try to create new links to my website, etc. I'd just updated a link to a pollinator presentation that I'm doing on Saturday for our Pollination Celebration, part of National Pollinator Week, here in Asheville.   So many thanks to my garden blogging friend, Janet Davis, for permission to use her wonderful pollinator photo montage in my presentation: I also need to explore alternative themes and layouts in new Blogger themes;  undoubtedly there are nice ones out there. An old schoolhouse above our road As I come to terms with probably not being able to make it to our cottage this summer (maybe fall?), I'm remembering all the special places that are part of our experience there.  Our cottage is a renovated 1920 ...

Please, can't the collards bolt?  I am enjoying them, but.... I'm truly tired of greens.  We've been eating them since March, enjoying the parade from spinach to mustard to kale and collards. The kale and collards are still holding up.  (Thankfully, the purple mustard bolted -- harvested yesterday).  Uh, surely it will be soon that the collards and kale will bolt? I have lovely basil, parsley, thyme and chives growing vigorously, as are the climbing squash, pole and yard-long beans. The tomatoes and peppers are doing well, too. I still have a full bed of beets with greens in the lower bed, below the house, not to mention Swiss chard in my upper beds, but both of them are easier to use than kale or collards, easily cooked and tender, like spinach. So, please, in late June, isn't it time for the collards and kale to flower? today's view of my raised bed vegetables this evening's collard harvest (where are the cabbage white caterpillars?)  the butterflies are flyin...

I was touched to be included in this roundup:   58 of the very best Landscaping and Gardening Blogs, Influencers, and Instagrams A bumblebee hawkmoth on Vernonia in a past summer I don't normally pay attention to these sorts of things, but clicking through, the writer has done a really nice job of collecting various sites. I'm surprised that she found my Natural Gardening blog out there, as I'm hardly a media-seeking-followers kind of blogger. I'm doing a program tomorrow about "Creating a Naturalistic Landscape" for the NC Arboretum (via Zoom, of course). There are 22 folks signed up -- remarkable, it seems to me for paid education programming, but thinking about it, I'm paying similar amounts for writing classes and other programming, so why not, I suppose, for those of us fortunate enough to be able to do these things. We're privileged, indeed. It's been interesting to contemplate, as I've totally "rebuilt" this presentation, w...

One of our neighbors gave us a nice bag of sugar snap peas yesterday.  Yay, I thought.  A break from greens.   My pea seedlings had been foraged by squirrels (and birds), perhaps, so I don't have any of my own. We've eaten greens for months.  Kale, collards, mustards, and chard.  I'm thankful to have them, but I'm thinking this harvest will go into the chest freezer, to be eaten next fall, perhaps. my current raised beds, after harvesting greens Maybe my neighbor would like some collards and kale in return?  The cool season greens, in spite of our current heat keep growing.  And the cabbage white butterflies don't seem to laying enough eggs to do much damage yet. I harvested a big bag of collards and kale this afternoon, thinking I'll freeze them   We've been eating kale and collards for months now (the purple looks like it's going to bolt.  Well, please do, I think, as I harvest leaves.) A lot of greens! Chard and beet greens will be qu...

I managed to distract myself this afternoon by working on an update of a long-presented theme: Creating a Naturalistic Garden.   I've called this "Gardening for Nature" or "Creating a Natural Garden" -- etc. in the past. I've talked about this now for decades, promoting native plants in naturalistic landscapes. A recent physically-distanced walk with a gardening friend had us happen upon an unfamiliar native (to me). Working on my program this afternoon, looking at Larry Mellichamp's great book about Native Plants of the Southeast, I realized what it was: Pale Indian Plaintain ( Cacalia atriplicifolia) , now it's Arnoglossum atriplicifolium. A lovely plant -- I wish I had room for it in the pocket meadow. From Larry Weaner's wonderful book: Garden Revolution And here's a link to one of many places to acquire it: https://www.prairiemoon.com/cacalia-atriplicifolia-pale-indian-plantain-prairie-moon-nursery.html Finally, a link to piece about a r...