Cold Climate Gardening

Mother’s Day is fast approaching, and many retailers who normally don’t feature gardening products have potted flowering plants and other quasi-gardening gifts prominently displayed. I thought I’d take the opposite tack and share with you my favorite non-gardening garden “thingies.” Most of them don’t qualify as tools. Some of them, quite frankly, would look like […]

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It all started with that forsythia bush. Collin had barely gotten started pruning out the thickest branches for me, when the blade of the lopper snapped off. I had purchased these loppers from Lee Valley a while ago, but I thought it was worth contacting them to see if the loppers had a lifetime warranty. […]

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Have you ever walked 250 feet uphill to the asparagus patch with a bucket full of hand tools, only to realize after you get there that the weeds have gotten a lot worse than you imagined? So you trudge back down the hill and carry the garden fork back up the 250 feet, only to […]

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The peonies from Reath’s came on Monday the 7th, but because of various commitments I couldn’t plant them until Thursday. They came wrapped in plastic with wood shavings to keep them damp, and then the whole shebang was packed in straw or hay–the first time I ever saw that used as a shipping material. I […]

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