garden

Gazing balls for your gorgeous fall yard… craft tutorial

“Gazing Balls” just doesn’t sound right, does it? I mean, I have a spam filter and all, but dang. Gazing balls? I almost wrote “Glitter Balls” but oh my goodness that’s worse. So “Gazing Balls” it is. Overlook the name. Ahem. Because this craft is a really fun and simple one to do outside with your children this fall. Everyone loves the cooler weather and the bright, vibrant colors that fall brings, right? Why not capitalize on all this fall freshness and add some sparkle to your fading garden beds, getting them beautiful for the darker, colder winter months ahead. …

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Saving Summers Seeds (say that three times fast!)

Remember my tutorial, back in June, about allowing some of your garden fruits and veggies to go to seed and how to harvest and save them for replanting? If enjoy gardening, you’ll take twice as much pride and twice as much pleasure in planting seeds that you’ve saved from your own garden.   Propagating your own garden from your own seeds means you have basically a free garden, assuming you use your own compost for fertilizer. That’s my goal… add one or two new crops to the mix each year, but re-grow my old faves from the previous year’s seed. So …

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Recipe: Organic Marinara Sauce from your backyard

  Well, not exactly from *my* backyard… more like from my local farmer’s backyard. As you all know, the tomatoes in my own yard didn’t take off much this year. We had a lovely crop (and it’s still coming!) which gave us enough tomatoes for fresh salads and straight eating this summer, but not enough of a crop for me to can them into sauce. Knowing this, my hubby came home one night after work with three huge baskets full of local fresh tomatoes from John’s Island… Now if you are smarter than me, you will not begin to make …

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Saving Seeds, a tutorial (i.e. the perks of lazy gardening)

  All this heat is causing my plants to bolt early!  Here, you can see my basil has started shooting up flower/seed heads…   I’m really excited about this tutorial. And the reason I’m excited is because I’m going to be trying it for the first time myself, along with anyone out there who wants to try it with me! Okay, so I admit that this topic is only an issue because of my sub-par gardening skills.  That and the extreme heat/drought that we are experiencing in this part of SC.  All of my (admittedly unattended) garden crops are bolting… …

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Tutorial: FREE, eco-friendly firepit starters!!! And a Garden Update…

I have a great tutorial for you today… the perfect thing to do outside, amidst your gorgeous summer garden? Nighttime fire pit! Nothing like a summer bonfire… under a full moon is even better! I love hotdogs and smores cooked in an outdoor firepit on those nights when I don’t even want to *think* about cooking. Add a sprinkler nearby, and you’ve got an instant summertime party. The best part is that the firestarters are free, or near free. I made about three dozen fire starters for exactly $0.00. Perfect! And reusing old containers before recycling them… priceless.   Ready …

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Awesome Reader Idea #2 — Vertical Gardening

    I had a fabulous reader send me pics of her favorite gardening tip… utilizing vertical space. I’ve never seen anything like the awesomeness in Natasya’s garden pictures… she uses hanging baskets and plastic planting containers to hang vertically… perfect for small spaces and/or those that don’t enjoy bending over to garden. I also imagine this is a great way to reduce and maybe eliminate the need to weed… and also make great use of porch spaces as well. I’ve asked Natasya to tell us more!   “I was inspired to do the hanging garden because my yard has …

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Gardening Week… Awesome Reader Idea #1

I love my readers! You all are the absolute BEST. I have gotten such amazing garden photos from my readers (keep ’em coming, you know I love love love to hear from you! Email me directly at heartsong@primary-plus.com any time!) I want to share two amazing ideas from readers with you. This week is going to be all about gardening. Today, Diane shares with us a fabbo way to collect free water for you to water your garden, potted plants, container garden crops, indoor houseplants and such… rain chains!   Diane captures the action of one of her rain chains …

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