Ahhhhh, garlic!  With a variety of uses--both culinary and medicinal--it's no wonder that it is such a popular plant to grow!

The garlic plant (Allium sativum), which produces a bulb, is a member of the lily family, just like shallots, onions, and chives.  To learn more about garlic, check out this article on Wikipedia.

Here in New England, the best time to plant is around October/November, before the hard frost sets in.  In this article, I'm going to demonstrate how easy it is to plant and grow your own garlic.  Check it out...

As the days grow colder for most of us, preparations must be made to bring all your favorite plants that have been thriving in containers on your deck, patio, or what-have-you.  The most important task that must be done is to re-pot those plants that have outgrown their little plastic/terracotta/ceramic britches and get them comfy cozy for their winter residence inside the home.

I have several plants that were desperately in need of re-potting; namely, my "infamous" $2 rosemary plant, which is doing tremendously well these days and has now been re-potted three times since I rescued it from the clearance table at Russell's.

Many of us try to do what we can to safely grow our flowers, fruits, and veggies without the use of harmful chemicals that will basically kill us dead in a slow and painful manner.  One of the more popular ways of taking care of our precious gifts from Mother Nature is to use organic soil; either homemade or store bought.  So one would think that if it says "organic" on the label, it means that the soil is all natural and good for growing your plants...guess again!

My husband, knowing that I only use organic soil, had purchased a bag of Miracle-Gro® Organic Choice Potting Mix so that I could re-pot a few of my little green babies--orange tree seedlings and African violet babies, to be exact.  Well let me tell ya...I got more than just dirt in that bag!

Happy Holidays, everyone!  For those of us in the colder regions of the planet, our outdoor gardening days have come to a lull for now, but that doesn't mean we can have fun indoors!

A LOT has happened since the last time I posted.  The softneck and hardneck garlic that I ordered arrived in the mail, I'm biting at the bit to harvest the sweet potatoes that are growing in my garden and the "tomato fairy" left us a surprise among the mums growing along the walkway in our front yard!

A few months ago, just for fun and curiosity, I decided to plant onions from the sprouts that were growing out of preexisting organic onions that had been purchased at the grocery store.  Out of the eight that I had planted, four of them survived.  Of the four, I had one that was decent-sized and used successfully in a delicious risotto recipe...yummy!  Two of the onions stayed fairly small, although I left them in the dirt as long as possible to see if they'd get any bigger.  The fourth and final onion remains to be seen, as it is still resting comfortably in the dirt of my garden.

So, today I was able to get the gardens *mostly* finished.  At least they look more like gardens and not jungles requiring of a machete to hack through it.  ;-)

After a late start--and taking time to mow the back yard (I *heart* my reel mower...yay!)--I was able to finish reorganizing the garden in the back yard and finish off the walkway in the front.

Over the years, I've considered myself more of a "serious dabbler" in gardening, than anything else.  During the past decade or so, I have managed to acquire several books on gardening and even have a lifetime subscription to the National Home Gardening Club.  It was only recently that I decided to turn my casual love for gardening into a potential business.