Lost Time in the Garden (Podcast)
Season 5, Episode 13, February 8, 2023
Dee took this picture of pelargoniums on one of her trips to England. Dee might have a pelargonium problem. But let’s put a more positive spin on it, as we should. Dee has a pelargonium passion!
Would you like to know the story of this week’s episode and why we called it “Lost Time in the Garden (Podcast)?” I assume yes!
You know how you can go out to your garden for just a few minutes and then later an hour has gone by? (Yes, I did just link to a post I wrote about time in the garden back in 2009. Time flies!) Well, apparently two gardeners can start recording a podcast without their usual method of keeping track of the time, and the next thing you know, they’ve recorded their longest episode so far.
Oops. You might need two cups of tea to get through this episode!
Our original topic was spring garden clean-up. Dee mentioned Flylady's website, because she uses Flylady’s method of cleaning up one room at a time, though for Dee it’s one garden area at a time
Dee has many more garden areas than I do. Check out her latest blog post on her garden plans and view her reel on Instagram showing some time she spent in her greenhouse.
While talking about garden clean up, of course we talked about how a plant’s goal is to produce seeds so if you keep cutting off the flowers—or the peppers—they’ll keep producing flowers, or peppers. This reminded me of a one-act play about a marigold I wrote a long-time ago (2011 ago).
Then Dee mentioned she once wrote a wasp poem, which is honestly the best poem I’ve ever read about a mud dauber/wasp. (From 2010!)
Enough of that little diversion—that step back in time—let’s move on to the bookshelf!
This week we talked about The Vegetable Garden Problem Solver Handbook by Susan Mulvihill (Amazon Link). I sent her questions in advance and we loved her answers. You should check out Susan's website, her YouTube channel, and her other book, The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook (Amazon Link).
Honestly, if you grow vegetables, you should have both of these books in your personal library, ready to reference when you find problems or pests in your garden, which you will.
For this week’s dirt, we talked about Dr. Jared Barnes's blog Meristem and his post about how he handles cutting back plants in his Texas garden. I learned a new saying and a new word. Listen to learn them too!
Oh, and a round of applause for Ohio, the first state to ban the sale of Bradford pears!
Maybe it was our rabbit holes that made us lose track of time? Dee shared about Mr. Pelargonium on YouTube and his video on feeding pelargoniums.
I watched some videos about cross-stitching and found out about flower pillows offered by Proven Winners. Truly, all roads, all stitches, lead to gardening! (Any other cross-stitchers out there?)
Before I forget, for my microgreens, I’m trying out micro-mats in 5” x 5” containers, all available from True Leaf Market (affiliate link). I’ll share an update on how they work for me in a future podcast episode. Dee is still hoping to someday have some microgreens to eat but not until Masha learns they aren’t for her. Yes, we did have a minute with Masha this week, the prettiest cat on the internet.
Whew! Did you make it through the whole episode? If so, thank you. And tell us via email or a comment how long do you like our podcast episodes to be?
Now the business-y stuff…
We’ve added some new affiliates. If you visit their websites via our links and end up buying something, we’ll earn a small commission and it won’t cost you anything extra.
Our Affiliates:
Botanical Interests
Farmers Defense
Etsy
Territorial Seeds
True Leaf Market
Book links are also affiliate links.
You can also support us via a monthly subscription for as little as $3 or a one-time payment through Paypal. Thanks to everyone who has already done so!
Email us anytime at TheGardenangelists@gmail.com
For more info on Carol and her books, visit her website. Visit her blog May Dreams Gardens.
For more info on Dee and her book, visit her website. Visit her blog Red Dirt Ramblings.
On Instagram: Carol: Indygardener, Dee: RedDirtRamblings, Our podcast: TheGardenangelists.
On Facebook: The Gardenangelists' Garden Club.
On YouTube.
P.S. - The Complete Book of Composting is 1,000-ish pages, not 3,000 like we said. Still a big book!
P.S.S. - No video this week. We’ll try for next week!
Hi - I have a question about the square foot gardening system and plant layout. I have container beds that are 4'x4' and 4'x8' and have been thinking about using the Square Foot Gardening/Mel Bartholomew suggested plant layouts even though I didn't use his recommended soil mix of compost/vermiculite/peat moss. Does it matter? For example, what would the drawbacks be of planting 9 bush beans in a 1'x1' square rather than spacing them out in a row?
Thanks!