Will It Frost? April23,2012
  Planted 2 Genovese Basil plants in the new raised bed in the Veggie Garden. My Wife and I dehydrated the Basil we grew last year and have been using it  throughout the Fall and Winter in all sorts of great dishes. She asked me to plant some more this year so we can have some to dehydrate again. I purchased them at Home Depot today. Unfortunately the Weatherman has said (at the last minute I might add) that we should expect patchy frost in the outlying areas of Middle Tennessee. That pretty much includes our garden so I covered the Herb raised bed and the Cucumbers. Hopefully they will make it through just fine and this will be the last time we will have to cover anything in the garden. Our average LFD (Last Frost Date) is April 19th. So this may be the last one for the Spring anyway. Ready for warm sunny days to stay until Fall.

Transitions:April 22,2012
I've decided after 7 years on this property that raised beds are the way to go to successfully have a vegetable garden. My Father-in-law has built me 5 raised beds this Spring(thanks JD). I filled the 5th one this morning with herbs I bought at Lowes. 10 bags of Topsoil, 2 bags of Black Cow,Tarragon, Basil, Thyme, Cilantro and Dill all went in to the garden.

The other beds contain Broccoli and Potatoes, Cabbage, Onions, Lettuce, Spinach, Arugula,Parsley, Rosemary, Kale and Cucumbers. I think I will cover the cucumbers tonight after losing an earlier crop to frost. Tonight's low temp. is forecasted to be 37. Too close for comfort.

           
A beautiful morning after an all day light rain yesterday. Not a cloud in the sky today. Yesterday was a perfect day for the garden. It was beginning to get pretty dry and I already had to water it once. Shouldn't have to water in April but it has been a strange weather year. The Veg is really popping after the rain yesterday. Pulled some Buttercrunch Lettuce to see if it was too bitter to eat. The inner leaves are still very sweet but I can tell it is starting to bolt. Cut some arugula, spinach and parsley. Everything seems to be doing very well. A little rain is all it needs most of the time.

It is a rainy,cool morning here in Middle Tennessee. This is my first attempt to blog but I have always wanted to have a Blog about gardening.I live in Rockvale, TN and I have a little more than 6 acres of property. Unfortunately most of it is on top of large outcroppings of what I suspect are Limestone. When we first bought this property I thought gardening would be out of the question but I learned to adapt and have had more successes than failures thusfar. The secret to gardening on top of rock is simple yet a lot of work. Build enough soil up so the plant can spread it's roots out enough to survive. Lots of raised beds involved especially in the vegetable garden. As far as i can tell I have about 8 to 12 inches of topsoil to work with in the vegetable garden. The first 5 years I just raked the soil in to natural raised beds. This worked fine until about July/August every year. Then the water bill went through the roof. So last year I built 4 raised beds out of scrap lumber I had laying around.I then filled them with 1/2 Potting Soil and 1/2 Composted Manure. The results were amazing. Less watering and weeds were practically non existent. I have added 5 more raised beds this year.

 Most of our 6 acres is wooded. I would say we have about 1-1/2 acres that we can garden on.  I added 2 new shrubs to the landscape last Fall. Another Purple Smokebush (my alltime favorite shrub) and an Oakleaf Hydrangea. Not sure of the named varieties of either of these. They both made it through our mild Winter very well. I planted a Purple Smokebush 5 years ago. It is the easiest but most beautiful shrub I have ever seen. And it grows really fast. It is now 12' tall and about 10' wide from about a foot tall when I planted it 5 years ago. I found it at Home Depot around the side of the Garden Center all by itself and gave $11.00 for it. The bargain of a lifetime!

Close up of Incredible leaf color!

About 5 years ago I ordered some unusual trees and shrubs from Forest Farm, a Nursery out of Oregon. They have a million varieties of trees and shrubs. These included Stewartia Pseudocamellia, Paperbark Maple, Witch Hazel and an Asian(kousa) Dogwood.  The Stewartia and the Maple are both slow growers but they are coming along nicely. The Dogwood has grown much faster than I thought it would. It has yet to bloom but it should be getting old enough now to start to form buds this Fall (fingers crossed). There have been a couple of failures.  A Hydrangea that was planted too close to competeing tree roots and a Katsura tree that I could never get to do well no matter what I tried. Give Forest Farm a try if your looking for hard-to-find varieties. I have never been disappointed with the product or the service.www.forestfarm.com

     I've discovered through trial and error that there are some spaces in between rocks that are large enough to grow anything. But these are very few and far between. I use a metal probe to put in the soil and if i can get it at least 12-18 inches into the ground, I figure I can plant something there.