I toured more than a dozen gardens this weekend and saw lots of creative ideas, from antiques in the garden to exciting plant combinations. Two of my favorite ideas were ways to protect plants from marauding critters. This contraption is a deer deterrent in a large rural garden near Hudson, Wis. No doubt deer are a constant problem in this…
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The garden tour season has officially started, and today I took a trip over the border to Hudson, Wis., for what is billed as an Artful Garden Tour. The wonderful part about this tour was that whether the gardens featured artists or musicians, the six gardens themselves were carefully crafted works of art. The tour is sponsored by the Hudson…
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I’m a huge fan of crisps. They are quick to put together, endlessly adaptable and feature butter and brown sugar prominently — what’s not to love? Since we are getting toward the end of the rhubarb season and the weather has cooled off, I wanted to use some rhubarb from the garden and pair it with the delicious strawberries I…
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I still get a mushroom or 30 in my straw-bale gardens from time to time, but overall, I am really pleased with how they are growing. The four tomato plants I put in two of the bales are getting tall and sturdy. The zinnia seeds I spread across another two bales have all germinated and are putting out leaves, and…
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Like a lot of gardeners in the North (and South and everywhere else, it seems), my garden has been under constant attack from rabbits this year. I’m working on some fencing, but in the meantime, I decided to plant lettuce in these window boxes, which are on my back deck. The rabbits are huge, but not big enough to get…
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