December usually alternates between stretches of cold, clear weather and weeklong downpours, so there’s usually plenty of time for both indoor planning and crafts as well as some of the normal outdoor garden care. Here’s what to do in the December garden. Protect tender plants. This December has shown us some of the coldest weather […]
Genevieve Schmidt
Posted inLife + Outdoors
To Leave or Not to Leave?
Fall leaf raking seems like such a straightforward task — rake the leaves, stuff a few down the back of someone’s shirt, get chased around the garden and end up dirty and sweating with a large pile to take to the green waste or the compost bin. Fun and done, right? But every year I […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
November Gardening
Though that primal urge to get out in the garden isn’t as strong now as it was in spring, November is one of the most active months in the garden, just because there’s so much to prepare before the winter weather arrives. Pruning and cleanup, some judicious fertilizing and the start of bare-root season are […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Providing Water for Wildlife
There’s little that irritates me more than going to the garden center and seeing an array of gorgeous, well-made bird baths that are all completely and utterly useless. It seems that the manufacturers of such things have never really researched or even given the most cursory amount of thought to what qualities a bird might […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Why I Hate Landscape Fabric
The black death — aka landscape fabric — stifles your soil and looks lousy when it inevitably peeks through. Sometimes I try to be fair and balanced on an issue so I don’t sound like some kind of gardening zealot. Today isn’t one of those times. I think landscape fabric sucks. There, I said it. […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Gen X and Y Gardeners
Genevieve Schmidt weeds her vegetable patch. The chickens aren’t boomers, either. Every year or two, some horticultural marketing team gets a buzzing insect in its collective shorts about Gen X and Y and how we aren’t gardening enough. The subtext is that gardening is a boomer activity and that at some scary date in the […]