• Flowers - Fruits & Veggies - Our Garden - Plant problems - Trees

    My garden in late May

    June 2, 2009 - By 

    Lots of things to share, and I think I’ll just use the photos as my guide: My Clematis ‘Ville de Lyon’ is beginning its bloom season now. It will hit its peak probably a week from now, and I’ll post another photo later. I’m having a little trouble with the clematis, because after this time of year, the trees by it are leafed out and start to give it too much shade. I don’t know if it can handle transplanting, but I don’t have another great place to put it anyway. First roses of the season. This is some unknown…

  • Fruits & Veggies - Our Garden - Utah gardening

    The midnight gardener: planting tomatoes, corn, etc.

    May 19, 2009 - By 

    It can be so hard to find gardening time when you have young kids! For several days, it’s been my intention each day to get my tomatoes in the ground and plant some corn seeds. Tonight, my wife was gone to her regular Tuesday night youth activities with the girls at church, and I had the younger kids at home. I thought maybe I could get the twins to watch our two-year old son, but he’s such a bundle of energy lately, and they didn’t seem quite up to it tonight. So, I played with him outside and listened to…

  • Flowers - Fruits & Veggies - Propagation

    My seed inventory, winter 2008-09

    December 12, 2008 - By 

    A few days ago, I was walking in downtown Salt Lake City, and I saw some very cool Paperbark maples at the LDS Church Conference Center. I like small maples. Well, I actually like all maples. These ones have a papery, peeling bark that gives them some visual interest even when they’re dormant in the winter. So, anyway, there were some seed clusters on them, and I filled my coat pocket. They’re somewhat unique maple seeds, with a fuzzy surface on the round seed part. That got me thinking that I need to list all the seeds that I have…

  • Fruits & Veggies - Master Gardener Stuff - Our Garden

    Started Master Gardener class — answer on my apple problem

    October 7, 2008 - By 

    Last Thursday, I started the Master Gardener class with Utah State University Extension at Thanksgiving Point. Larry Sagers is the primary instructor — he’s the guy who does the KSL Radio Greenhouse Show on Saturday mornings and writes a gardening column in the Deseret News. By the way, I want to know why the D-News doesn’t give him a columnist page for looking up his archived columns! But you can see several of his latest on their Home & Garden page. I’m looking foward to learning a lot more technical horticulture stuff in this class. I’m also happy to be…

  • Fruits & Veggies

    First hints of frost this morning

    September 24, 2008 - By 

    I did not notice frost on my lawn this morning, but I did notice that as I drove through the middle of American Fork on my way to work that the houses had frost on their roofs. That’s the first sign of frost that I’ve seen yet this season. But we are heading into another warm spell this week, starting today. So, my green beans should continue developing. I think they need another week or two to produce a crop. This reminds me of something amazing I learned on the GardenWeb Rocky Mountain Gardening forum recently. When it gets cold…

  • Fruits & Veggies - Our Garden

    Enjoying the fruits of my labor

    September 6, 2008 - By 

    Kind of like peaches ‘n’ cream, tonight I had nectarines and vanilla ice cream (that really good, double-churned, extra smooth Breyer’s). These are the Mericrest variety of nectarines. They taste pretty much like peaches (perhaps slightly more bitter than a peach?) but they have no fuzz, so their skin is completely edible. The skin has a deep red color, which is repeated in the color of the pit and the flesh immediately around the pit. The red makes a nice-looking accent — these could make for a good-looking culinary masterpiece-type dessert! I do like the way the red shows up…

  • Fruits & Veggies

    The Midnight Gardener is at it again!

    September 3, 2008 - By 

    I am sometimes out in the garden late at night, because I can’t make the time during daylight hours to get things done. I was pulling weeds till dark a few days ago, but that gets a little dangerous, because I sometimes pull out a flower, thinking it’s a weed when I can’t see well. So, last night, I knew I needed to pick more nectarines, because they’re really quite ripe on the tree now, and some are falling off while others are getting too squishy. I did some in the evening, with my toddler (cute little McKay LOVES to…