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Between the bougie plant names (e.g.: Madame Emile Debatene, Little Miss Daisy, Abraham Darby) and a seemingly never-ending list of “necessary” tools, gardening can feel like a rich man’s hobby reserved only for those with the money to “do it right”. It doesn’t help that books such as The $64 Tomato are contending that it costs upwards of $16,000 dollars to get a garden going! That’s bewildering—16k is over half of my family’s yearly income, and we aren’t spending anywhere close to that on our garden. Here’s the truth: gardening can be dirt cheap. Sure, at first the raised beds and heirloom seeds are going to set you back a bit, but in the long-run, gardening […]

It’s finally starting to feel like spring in Kansas City… rainy, bright grey, sweet-smelling spring. While March was warmer and sunnier, the regrowth and renewal were missing. It felt like we had skipped right into the comfy days of late May, the edges of summer. The air was warm, but the ground still felt dead. All that has changed! My city has been reborn: lush, muggy and verdant, floral-scented and noisy. While my daffodils are long gone, the tulips have bloomed, as did my grape hyacinth. The family of house finches that built a nest on my patio last year have returned. Each morning I awaken to the the cackle of grackles, the song of starlings, and […]

When Tom and I moved into our home in August of 2013, we knew that we wanted raised garden beds. Our house sits on the northwest side of our property, leaving us with plenty of land in the path of the sun. We’re also lucky that we live on a hill and our backyard is relatively tree free. It’s a gardener’s dream! We are unlucky enough to have dense, rocky soil, so a raised bed where we could control the soil density made sense. Unfortunately, we had to put our raised bed dreams on the back-burner. Purchasing a house is stressful, not to mention all the painting, packing, planning and unpacking that comes with moving. As if we […]