Random December Gardening

Today I did a few garden related things just to get outside - nothing major - nothing terribly exciting. Just a few little things as an excuse to breathe some fresh (and rather cold) air. The weather forecast calls for snow flurries over night but little or no accumulation - at least in our area.

Butterfly Bush Cuttings

I took about 20 cuttings from one of our butterfly bushes. It's the one in the birdbath garden and was admired by my garden club when we met at my house in the summer. Of all the plants in my garden that I find fascinating the red twig dogwoods, the 'Powis Castle' artemisia, the salvias, the gaillardia the one that received the most comments was the butterfly bush! I gave away many cuttings that day but no one has reported back to me that any lived. I figured I would root some hardwood cuttings to give away in the spring. Butterfly bush is really easy to root. I used rooting hormone on cuttings with multiple nodes and stuck them in sand (see my page on rooting butterfly bushes for more "how to" details). I put them in a nice pot indoors for them to root over the winter. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some rooted cuttings to share. (Free plants are just one benefit to becoming a member of garden clubs!)

I Dumped out the Compost

I took a load of compost that's been sitting in an old nursery pot just off of our patio. I use the old nursery pots as temporary holding spots for compost material until I can get around to dumping it in the back compost bin. It works pretty good except that when it gets cold I get lazy and I don't get the compost back to the bin as often as I should!

I Tinkered on the Blog

Last year I put together a post to use as a directory of sorts for all the landscape plans, designs, and layouts that I've put together for our yard over the years. I spent a little time today improving the layout of the layout page! I added short descriptions, thumbnail pictures of the designs, and arranged the thumbnail pictures to double as links to the post where I talked about the plan.

And that's about it! I know it's not much but maybe, just maybe, it was enough for me to get outside for a few minutes.

Tennessee Garden Bloggers

Are there any other Tennessee garden bloggers out there? I found one yesterday courtesy of Nan at Gardening Gone Wild. If you have a chance go visit Frances over at Faire Gardening over in east Tennessee. If you are a Tennessee garden blogger let me know and I'll add you to the roll!

A $50 Greenhouse!

Today I was stumbling through Stumble Upon and happened to come across a great tutorial on building a $50 greenhouse!  What is especially cool is that the author of the blog (The Door Garden) who wrote the tutorial is also a Tennessean (Cookeville).  The greenhouse he built is a hoop house made from PVC and has about 165 square feet of space.  This looks like a very economical project that home gardeners could definitely benefit from building.  Go say "Hi!" to David and his $50 Greenhouse.

More on GM Seeds

Last week the idea of genetically modified seeds popped up due to a seed giveaway I was hosting. I mentioned that it would be a good topic for further discussion and recently Susy at Chiot's Run put together a great post explaining everything that you need to know about GM seeds. It's frustrating to realize that a large seed conglomerate can dominate so much of the agricultural market but there are options for the home gardener. Certain heirloom seed companies are competing against the big corporation Susy mentions and offer quality open pollinated heirloom seeds that you can save each year. I'll let you read her post to find out more, and I highly recommend that you do!

Feed Scrapers and Me

I am by no means and expert on the subject but over the last couple months I've learned a lot about feed scrapers and content theft. It's an insidious problem that just seems to get worse. Mr. Brownthumb recently invited me to do a guest post on his blog GardenBloggers (a great place for garden bloggers to get blogging tips) about my feed scraping experiences and you can find it here: Feed Scrapers.

And just to update you on the feed scraping of this blog I've tackled two and had my blog removed but have since learned of two more. Thanks to good blogging neighbors, like Gail!

Not GMO

I think the whole subject of GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) in our food supply is definitely worth its own post as many people (including myself) have some great concerns. I will not knowingly advocate for GMO's and definitely caution against their consumption. I am not a scientist and don't know all the facts regarding the genetic manipulation of organisms but I can't say I'm a fan of the idea behind Franken-Cucumber.

I hope to explore the subject in greater depth later but I felt that I needed to provide some information I received from Hometown Seeds who are sponsoring this week's seed giveaway. Two separate bloggers from other sites notified me that Hometown Seeds uses GMO seeds. Since I was concerned I sent an email to the company to investigate and find out what products were GMO in their catalog. The answer was good news: NONE. Mr Peterson sent me the following email regarding an unfortunate mistake in communication with the previous bloggers.  I have printed the unedited email for you to read (the first part is his response to me and the second part is what I believe he sent the other bloggers):

Dave,

I am the owner of Hometown Seeds.  Chelsea forwarded your message with your concerns for GMO seeds.  I appreciate you addressing us first as our mistake has led to some very negative blog posts.  Please see the detailed explanation below.  We are vigorously trying to remove these concerns.  We have no GMO seeds.  We have a single supplier that shares our belief that GMO seeds have too many unknowns and should be avoided.  Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Scott Peterson

Owner

Hometown Seeds

I am the owner of Hometown Seeds and I need to clarify a terrible misunderstanding.  Chelsea showed me your email and I worked back from there.  Let me explain.

First, our survival seeds are all non-hybrid and none are GMO.  Secondly, the mistake is all my fault.  Chelsea is working in our little company part time.  She is a student at a local university helping us  build traffic to our website by reaching out to sites like yours.  She is not an expert in gardening and relies on me to answer any technical questions.  When the gentlemen from Oklahoma Peppers Network asked if our seeds were Hybrid or  GMO, I told her to respond that we sell some hybrid seeds but they are not in the survival seeds, and none of our seeds are GMO.  This is obviously not how she responded and had no idea how badly the mistake would be received.   I have seen what she emailed back, hence the misunderstanding and negative blog posts.  It was there in black and white after all.

We completely agree with the evils of GMO seeds.  We do not now nor ever will carry GMO seeds.  As for the survival seeds, the whole point is to provide open pollinated seed that will generate seed for the next year as well as food for the family.  All seeds in the survival seed packet are non-hybrid.

We have already sent the survival seed package out to you and I would hope you would examine the types of seeds and the instructions that clearly describe each type of seed.

I feel terrible that we have created such a problem.  What I feel the worst about is that in your efforts to help us out, we created confusion with your loyal readers.  I don’t know what else I can do but accept full responsibility for the what we have done and apologize profoundly.

I am very sorry.  I ask forgiveness from you and your readers.

Scott

Scott Peterson, owner

HometownSeeds.com

"More garden for your dollar"

He unequivocally states that Hometown seeds does not use GMO stock. This definitely is good news. Mistakes happen and it sounds to me that the company is trying to rectify the error.

Low-Cost Gifts For Gardeners - Make Something!

The holiday season is in full swing and while they say the recession is slowing we all should still be watching our pennies. Why not put together some low cost holiday gifts? If you're interested check out my post on Low Cost Gifts For Gardeners at Complete Organizing Solutions!

A New Branch

Since changing my URL to www.growingthehomegarden.com from thehomegarden.blogspot.com over the summer I've realized that I have been under-utilizing my fancy new domain name. There's this whole concept of subdomains that can fit right in with your main domain that can really enable blogs to branch out in different directions, which is what I'm in the process of working on right now. It's just a new way for me to organize subjects that might be similar but may not always fit together.  So what am I really talking about? My Greenhouse project. I decided that I would try to host my future posts about the greenhouse on it's own blog cleverly titled The Home Garden ~ In The Greenhouse. Very creative don't you think? ;)

It's all part of the same fun garden stuff I like to talk about here but housing it on it's own site will help to keep things focused. The neat thing about a subdomain is that it is associated with the main domain and the resulting URL becomes: www.greenhouse.growingthehomegarden.com. All you need to do to find the Greenhouse section of The Home Garden is add a greenhouse to the beginning of the URL (or follow one of the links).  Hopefully I've set up the feed correctly so that it will post a partial feed here when I post a new article on the Greenhouse blog. We'll see how it works out, there may be some tweaking necessary as time goes by. If you would like to add my greenhouse blog to your blogroll or other lists I would definitely appreciate it!

The Home Garden ~ In The Greenhouse is still being pieced together but I thought I would let you know about it and my new post on the greenhouse project called: Greenhouse Security. I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday this Thanksgiving! Visit well, eat well, and most of all give thanks for all the wonders of life that we take for granted each and every day.

I would like to thank everyone who reads this gardening blog for adding something extra to the enjoyment of my favorite pastime! Without the readers and commentors blogging would be a whole lot like talking to myself (which I have been known to do sometimes!)

Also I would really like to thank my parents for all the help they have been with my Greenhouse project so far. I couldn't have gotten this far without you!

Blogging about Blogging

So on Wednesday of this coming week I'll have had this blog open for a month. I find it interesting that about two weeks after I start articles all over pop up about garden blogging. Is it something that is catching on? Or is it publicity brought on by the talented folks who have paved the garden blogging way. The first article I noticed was Doug Green's article in the American Horticultural Society's magazine "The American Gardener." It was a very good article about how to start blogging and about some interesting people who blog. This morning in the USA Weekend section of our newspaper another blurb about garden blogging appeared. Each blog site seems to have its own niche. Subjects range from the personal to the informative or even to the political. To most people who are reading this now this probably isn't news. You probably have your own blog!

Now where do I fit in?
The demographics of those who garden blog does not seem as varied as the subjects. Younger garden bloggers are in the minority and there are very few men who garden blog. I'm a little out of place I guess, but why not be different? A thirty something gardener guy writing about his experiences...why not? There are worse ideas out there! The subject of age in garden blogging popped up in a post at Cold Climate Gardening the other day. It's an interesting read about older gardeners not blogging and it left me thinking about the blogging community demographics.

So why am I blogging about gardening?
Its been a subject that I've had an interest in for a long time and sadly I find that most people around me don't have the interest that I do in gardening or plants. For several years I was only able to garden in other peoples yards or on my back porch in pots. Now I have the space to do it. So why not write about it? I have the opportunity to talk about whatever I want, whenever I want. I can share my ideas or the work I've done with others who may appreciate it.

So what have I learned?
There's lots to see out there, lots to do, and a lot more to learn. It's also addictive! It's fun to share your accomplishments, your plans, and your experiences. It can even be a good way to record information for yourself.

Garden blogging, why not try it? Your comments are always welcome, so tell me what you think!

A Blog Redesign for Growing The Home Garden

In 2007 I started this blog on gardening.  I didn't know where I was going with it, or what I was really doing to begin with, but I knew I wanted to talk more about gardening with other gardeners.  I was constantly talking about gardening and garden ideas with my family, and I'm sure they got tired of my incessant prattling about what plant would be good here and what design idea to put there.  Ideas have never been never anything I've been short on!  So I started this blog toward the end of the month of October in 2007 in order to prattle on to a larger audience.  It's been over five years now.  I've posted over 1,800 posts and GrowingTheHomeGarden.com has had over 900,000 visitors since July 13, 2009 (when I started tracking).  That averages to over 20,000 visits per month.  Pages have been viewed here over 1.7 million times.  I'm really astounded and grateful for all those who have stopped by, followed the blog, or left comments.  I really and truly appreciate you and everything you do to support this blog.

When I began writing I was writing nearly every day of the week.  Over time I cut back a little.  Mostly because as our family grows my time hasn't.  As a stay at home dad my mornings switched from running out to the garden at 6 AM or blogging about a new plant to getting school lunches made and rushing the kids out the door to the bus stop.  Life changes just like the garden.  It evolves and so must the gardener.

Where is GrowingTheHomeGarden.com going in the future?  Nowhere and somewhere I hope!  Going into a new year of blogging is exciting.  Another year and new changes in the garden.  New things to do, new projects, new gardens (don't tell my wife), new plants (also don't tell my wife ;)), and the unknown.  Each year new opportunities pop up which are always fun to experience! The blogging will continue!

That's why I thought it was time to freshen the blog up with some new graphics and new features. It needed an update!  I spent a good deal of time learning HTML and CSS to redesign the blog.  I'm excited to have that new knowledge in my head.  It's like learning a new language, now I know enough to be dangerous!  I've added a slide show to the main page that will highlight certain special posts.  I was also able to fix a few other issues that were bugging me.  I do want you to note that this site was optimized for Firefox and Chrome.  There are issues that I haven't been able to correct yet on Internet Explorer which apparently is the most backwards and bugging of all browsers.  If you use Internet Explorer I recommend switching!  I will continue to tinker away at the IE issues since I do want everyone to enjoy their experience on this blog.  I will also be transferring a similar formatting to the Garden Shed Blog and some of the other offshoots of Growing the Home Garden.


I hope you enjoy the changes and continue to support Growing The Home Garden as it continues into its 6th year of blogging and well into 2013!  Dig in and see what we're Growing in the Home Garden!

A Rant on Content Theft

OK folks, I'm more than a little irritated at the moment. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's the case then several someones have really enjoyed what they have read here on The Home Garden. It's not the idea of someone using my content to promote gardening, to teach someone something, or to display a plant they might want in their garden that bothers me.  In fact I really enjoy being able to share the things I do here in the garden with everyone I can, that's the whole point! It's fun to talk about it. But here's the thing that bothers me, and it's really important, permission. I've never given it. No one has asked for permission yet in the last couple weeks at least two feed aggregator websites have taken my content. One of which didn't even have a return link to this site and misrepresented the content as their own claiming it was written by "Mr. Gardener". No credit, no link, simply theft. I attempted to contact them twice through their site with no response and finally looked up the owner of the url using WHOIS and contacted that person. Since then the site is no longer up. The second site I just discovered today. I have questioned them on taking my content and haven't received a response yet. It's early so I'll give them time. The fact is this I spend time writing what hopefully are interesting posts for my subscribers, friends, and family to read. I'm not writing for Mr. Aggregator. Without my express permission it is theft, plain and simple.

How does this happen? Through subscription feeds. The offending site takes my content through the feed and puts it up on theirs in an attempt to find keyword rich content that Google and other search engines will love. Then they can charge advertisers for space on the webpage or use Google Ads on the site to generate revenue off of someone else's hard work. The funny thing about the site taking from my feed is a line on the bottom of each feed that says "Not to be reproduced or reblogged without permission." It's now reprinted all over their website plain as day on all my stolen posts.

I know you're probably curious as to what this site is but for now I'm choosing to not call it by name. I want to give the site the chance to do the right thing and I also don't want to send any traffic over there.  I'll keep an eye out for other bloggers I know and try to let you know if I see your site there. It was mere happenstance that I found it today. I did a search on Google where I typed in "site:www.growingthehomegarden.com" and found various mentions of my URL, one of which happened to be the site. I recommend you do this for your own blog if you are concerned about your content being stolen and used.You could also use "link:www.yourblog.com" to see who is linking to your site. Sometimes links you that have put into your content are not blocked or removed.

My strategy for dealing with content theft is this:

1. Contact the individual and request removal/conversation.
2. If contact doesn't work contact the ISP and report them.
3. Contact Google and report them.
4. Contact a lawyer for a cease and desist letter.

I hope the last step is unnecessary. Most reasonable people should remove the content after first contact.

Unfortunately if content theft of this blog continues I may have to change the feed back to partial feeds only. I know this will disappoint some people but I hope you understand the reasons why.

Anyone know a good lawyer?

;)

If you are reading this and it is not on the website URL: www.growingthehomegarden.com please follow the URL and contact me, the content may be stolen and in violation of copyright.

Free Stuff Friday! (Organic Bug Killer Giveaway)

While this won't happen every Friday (I don't have enough sponsors) I do have something that some readers and bloggers may want to try in their own homes or gardens. If you remember a month or so back I tested some products from a company called EcoSMART. The specialize in making insect repellents, organic bug killers, and other products that are environmentally friendly and safe to use around children and pets. They are interested in giving away some of their product for you to try at home.  

Here's what you have to do to win their product: Tell me about your worst bug experience this year!

I've already told you about my worst bug tale (I'm not eligible for the contest so don't let my tale of the never ending hiccups intimidate you) so now it's your turn.  All you have to do is post either in the comments or on your blog and tell us your worst bug problem this year. Everyone who tells their bug story  gets an entry into the hat for a drawing that will happen next weekend. Make sure you let me know if you post your story on your blog.  All entry stories must be posted by 12:00 AM Central Time on Friday November 13th! Unfortunately you must be in the United States to participate but you are more than welcome to still share your worst bug story anyway!

Now let's hear about some bugs!

 

Edit: I'll be announcing the winner on Monday, so stay tuned!

Time to Stop

It occurred to me today that I've been writing this blog, The Home Garden for over two years. I completely missed the second year mark, which happened last week while I was totally immersed Fall Color Projects and the greenhouse project. Two years of blogging has past and has been a ton of fun. In two years I've published 858 posts while writing a total of 945 posts (including this one).  87 posts remain unpublished in draft limbo either because I started them then went on to something else or I didn't think were good enough to publish.

I think that after two years of blogging it is definitely time to stop and say thank you to everyone who has made this blogging experience fun!  It's nearly impossible to mention everyone individually since there are so many people who have been through this blog in some fashion and contributed whether through a comment, suggestion, or an email. It's amazing to me when I think back at the things that have happened this year as a result of blogging. The Better Homes & Gardens Arbor project, mentions in several newspaper articles, radio show visits, teaching lectures on propagation for master gardeners and garden clubs, and all the projects I've been able to do for the blog are a result of this thing called blogging. The blog seems to give me extra motivation to accomplish projects so that I can have something neat to share with those who read The Home Garden, in other words: you!

I also want to thank anyone who has ever shopped, clicked, or viewed the advertisements on this site. I know many people get turned off by advertisements but those who have used them in some way have enabled me to do projects I could not have done otherwise due to the limited finances of a stay-at-home-dad and a single income family (by choice). The backyard greenhouse project is a direct result of these passive contributions to our garden budget.

Without the people who take the time to read what I write continuing this blog would be pointless and it is because of you that it is so fun to do. In high school the last thing I would ever have imagined myself doing is writing for fun but ironically that's what I do now! I suppose a large portion of my excitement for this blog is that it's all about a subject matter that I find very interesting. Two years of garden talk are over and who knows how many more are in the future?

While I'm thanking you I do have one thing to ask to help this blog become better: what should I talk about now? Do you want to hear more about plant propagation? If so what plants do you want to know about? More about the vegetable garden? More personal stories about blowing up or careening mowers? Or do you just want to see more pictures of the cutest two kids on the planet?

Thanks again for reading The Home Garden and don't be afraid to tell me what you think!

I'm Over There Too!

Every now and then I'll be doing some posts for another blog called Complete Organizing Solutions. Tanna, the author of the blog, has invited several other bloggers to do a post every once a month or so to add greater diversity to her site. Can you guess what I'll be talking about? And no, it's not how to organize your closet (I could use some serious help in that area!) I'll let you know when a new post of mine comes up but I would like to encourage you to follow along with Tanna, Jennifer (Simple Scrapper), or Shaina (Food For My Family) throughout the month for some very interesting ideas.

My first post over there is up and ready to read so go take a look at Five Things For Fall Gardening!

Garden Blogger Fall Color Project: A Garden Path of Fall Foliage

Take a Walk Down the Garden Path and visit some Pennsylvania fall color.  Cindy's pictures are an excellent example of lighting and color blended to make perfect pictures.  The maples are turning and shedding their leaves creating a carpet of color.  Fantastic images of fall are all around Pennsylvania!

Garden Blogger Fall Color Project: An Autumn Acre and a Saturday Road Trip

Jump on over to Our Little Acre to see the fall colors! Not my acre, Kylee's! She has viburnums, a gingko, sumacs, and many other plants that are showing some great fall foliage. The bald cypress and the beautyberry are two that I will have to add to our garden!

Don't forget to journey up to Kalamazoo, Michigan and the blog Through the Looking Glass where Jelly Fish Bay is traveling on a roadtrip in the search for fall colors.  Playing hookey to search for fall colors is definitely worth it (says the former teacher)!  You'll see the glowing sumacs and the vibrant colors of a northern fall.  The last stop by the river brings to great day trip to a close!

Garden Blogger Fall Color Project: An English Fall and a Japanese Painting

Today I have two more Garden Blogger Fall Color Project posts to share with you!


Take another trip overseas to Veg Plotting in Chippenham, England where VP has taken some great shots of the fall colors and pieced them together in a collage for us to see. Colorful smoke trees and Japanese maples are certainly brightening up what could be a vintage year for autumn colors in England!

Steve Silk and his new blog, Chatter Valley Gardens, are bringing us an array of fall treats. His photos of Japanese maples are nothing short of an elegant painting and his post on seed pods will definitely catch your eye!

Garden Blogger Fall Color Project: In the UK

Do you want to dig a little deeper into the science behind the magical fall colors we see each fall? Or maybe you just want to take a peak at the fall show of a Continus coggygria (Smoke Tree). Either way stop over and visit Joco in the UK at Joco Serious. Joco posted a very detailed and thorough explanation of the process. I definitely agree that Nature Needs no Paintbrush!

Garden Blogger Fall Color Project:

A sea of color is what awaits you at Tina's blog (In the Garden). Tina is writing to us from the undersea world of foliage, with photographs of maples, redbuds, and sumac displaying their fall color. The pictures come to us from Maine, Indiana and Tina's garden so there is a variety of pictures to see! Or should I have said sea?

How about a trip to Indiana to visit Carol's Fall colors (May Dream's Gardens)? The viburnums are glowing and the maples are blazing! You can also get a bit of the yellows in her Amsonia. Carol also brings the science behind the color change to mind for a post that is both fun to look at and great to learn from!