Cosmos Flowers in the Garden
It’s summer, and summer is a good time for a break, a good time to send post cards. Here’s my summer garden post card to you. While the “official” purpose…
In Praise of Bolted Carrots
There’s nothing delightful about carrot roots that have bolted. Yet, I’m here to sing their praises. Carrots are biennials, and are supposed to wait until year two to produce flowers.…
We Grew it From Seed – Will Rogers Zinnias
One of the delights of my gardening life is trying new seed varieties – a pleasure that my husband Chad and I share. Lately though, I’ve been dealing with gut…
We Grew It From Seed – California Poppies
While we still grow some exotic garden flowers in our polyculture garden, such as cosmos and zinnias, this year I decided to add more native annuals to the mix. One…
We Grew It From Seed – Plains Coreopsis
Coreopsis is a plant I’ve been fond of back since my high school days when I had an afternoon job working at a family owned garden center. There’s something reassuring…
We Grew It from Seed – Lauren’s Grape Poppy
I’m not sure why, exactly, but I decided to grow several different types of poppies from seed this year. Lauren’s Grape poppy was one of my favorite varieties. With deep…
Watching Our Pollinator Neighbors
Once the days are warm and the flowers in bloom, one of my greatest and most simple pleasures is watching insects – and our garden affords many opportunities to do…
Fall Color on the Farm
As much as I love gardening during summer, the transition into autumn makes me want to give a big sigh of relief. Along with the cooler weather, some glimpses of…
Showy Milkweed – Weed or Wildflower?
When it comes to differentiating between a weed and a wildflower, the answer lies in one’s perspective. Many farmers find that milkweed gets in the way. I wouldn’t exactly say…
An Experience with Histamine Intolerance
As I went through our garden and orchard this morning, watering our annuals and fruit trees, I marveled at how much better I felt today than yesterday. It was a…
Death and Life – A Walk in the Desert
Who needs candy and costumes? We celebrated Halloween with a hike in the desert where we found signs of life and death to help us contemplate the holiday. Since we’ve…
Celebrating the Autumn Equinox
Being nature lovers, we like to celebrate the equinoxes and solstices, those special moments in the year that mark the rotation of the earth around the sun. At each of…
We Grew It From Seed – Costata Romanesco Zucchini
In addition to ‘Cube of Butter,’ another of our favorite zucchini varieties in the Hearthwilde garden is this Italian heirloom, ‘Costata Romanesca.’ What initially appealed to me about this summer…
A Low Oxalate Garden
Since I began gardening seriously in 2013, I have always been focused on expansion. How can I grow the most diversity of foods? How can I incorporate perennials, fruit trees,…
Are Plants Trying to Kill Us? A Look at Oxalates
It can be easy to forget that a plant has a point of view. We tend to not see them doing much, so we think that they aren’t very much…
Why We Grow Our Own Food
Sometimes in the middle of summer when it seems like all our spare time goes to the garden, both Chad and I can start to question our commitment to gardening.…
The Totally Unexpected Way I Reduced My Inflammation: A Low Oxalate Diet
A year ago today, my body was so inflamed, it seemed like everything hurt: my back and my joints in particular. I felt like my body was attacking itself and…
Celebrating a New Season – Autumn Rituals
As I sat outside this morning throwing the ball for Leo, I looked at the ground and noticed that the first leaves had begun to fall. The air was crisp,…
A Dying Sheep – Saying Goodbye to Izzy
We keep sheep for their wool and for manure for our garden – and because we love animals. This week we had to say goodbye to our sheep Isadora (also…
Garden News – Summer’s Harvests – 2019
Winter seems like a good time to look back at the past year’s summer bounty and see what did well for us out here in the high desert. Here are…
Edible Weeds: Dandelion
The first seeds in our spring garden are just barely starting to come up, and with less frequent access to the supermarket, I’ve been missing fresh greens. I was thrilled…
Edible Weeds: Blue Mustard, Arugula’s Wild Cousin
I have been craving sauteed greens lately – and as our stocks of frozen spinach have started to disappear, I’ve been thinking about what’s in the garden. Not the plants…
Garden News – Winter Seed Catalogs and Garden Planning
My spirits tend to get low during the winter – the post-holiday blues, gloomy weather, and reduced outdoors time always get to me. Winter here in NE Utah is long,…
Gardening: How to Grow a Survival Garden for Beginners
Growing your own food must be sounding pretty good right about now, eh? And you’re not alone, based on the current run on seeds. The seed companies can’t keep up…
Tips – How to Keep Track of Your Polyculture Garden Plantings
A few years ago I excitedly planted several varieties of snap beans and dry beans in the same section of the garden. At the time of planting, I marked the…
Garden News – Harvesting Apricots – 2019
Harvesting Apricots in July in Utah We have one mature apricot tree on our property. Mostly every year it blooms a bit early, then a frost comes along and kills…
Native Plants – Elkweed
On a recent hike I was excited to discover a plant I was unfamiliar with. For those of you who grew up in the Western US, you probably are familiar…
Garden News – New Cold Frame
Me and my sweetie went a little crazy ordering seeds a couple of weeks ago. When we combined households last year our seed collections expanded dramatically! I added a lot of…
Native Plants: Curly-Cup Gumweed
This summer, anytime we walked up to the end of our lane, Chad would point out a plant with bright yellow flowers growing along side it and tell me he…
Wildlife: How to Attract Birds to Your Backyard
Last weekend I took a class on birds. It was a great crash course in ornithology and I was delighted to learn all sorts of interesting things about our feathery friends. The…
