Crocuses, Capsicum, and Celery Vases: We Are Back for Season 8!

Season 8, Episode 1, January 7, 2026

Carol’s favorite this week is her little puddle of snowdrops,

And we are back from our holiday hiatus! We hope you all enjoyed your holidays as well! Dee and I recorded this episode on Sunday afternoon, January 4th. If you’d like to listen to this episode right now, you can click here, and it will take you to our podcast website, where you can listen to this episode.

Or maybe you’d like to watch us record this episode? You can do that on YouTube by clicking here.

As usual, we started this new episode by talking about what we’ve been doing in our gardens this past week, answered a question or two, and then it was on to the Insect of the Week. We didn’t have a particular insect to discuss, but I recommended reading a book, Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live by Rob Dunn (Amazon link).

Carol’s crocus lawn. it’s hard to get a good picture of it

For our flower topic, we talked about 2026 being the Year of the Crocus per the National Garden Bureau. We also talked about where we buy our bulbs: Van Engelen for large orders and from our friends, Brent and Becky’s Bulbs.

For our vegetable topics, the National Garden Bureau has proclaimed 2026 the year of the hot pepper, Capsicum sp.

We have a question for listeners: Which hot pepper do you always grow? Listen to find out what hot peppers Dee and I usually grow.

Cover of The Continuous Vegetable Gardenby Charlie Nardozzi

On the Bookshelf, we were pleased to review The Continuous Vegetable Garden: Create a Perpetual Food Garden that Sows and Grows Itself by Charlie Nardozzi (Amazon link), which is coming out on February 3rd.

Carol’s celery vase, with celery!

Our dirt topic was all about how celery vases are making a big comeback! Check out this article in House Beautiful and then can someone watch the movie, The Bishop’s Wife, and let us know if they had a celery vase on their dinner table?

And here’s another question for our listeners. Do you have a celery vase?

Dee’s favorite this week is the cardinals that visit her bird feeder.

Down in our rabbit holes, I wrote about another Lost Lady of Garden Writing, Peggie Schulz. She was a beautician who became a garden writer! I also talked about Elizabeth Coatsworth’s children’s book, The Cat Who Went to Heaven (Amazon link) from 1930. Wondering why I want to read that old book? Listen to find out!

I also recommended that Dee watch a BBC series of three YouTube videos featuring monks and nuns in England and Ireland as they prepare for Christmas with their communities and local residents. It’s what I call a quiet little documentary.

Now, to wrap this up, you should be watching Dee’s Instagram stories about winter interest in the garden. And is anyone besides me excited by the new Lego Botanical sets that they’ve launched this month, including the Peace Lily and Blooming Cactus.

And that is our new episode for this week. We hope you have a great week in and out of your garden.

Oh, one more thing! I have some signet marigold seeds to give away! If you’d like some, make sure you subscribe to my weekly newsletter, then send me an email with your mailing address, and I’ll send you a note and some seeds. Don’t delay, I have just ten packets to send out.

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