Beauty & Politics

Ca. 1400.

Chain at the gate says the fencing isn't about keeping only wildlife out.  And she had to chain it while in the garden?
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No, this isn't a bucolic garden scene.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic It's About Time.  All politics is local.

How to Teach Children Gardening

 Children need a lawn to play?  Children need a place for imagination to play.

Schools across USA plant vegetable plots for children to learn 'gardening'.
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That's not gardening, it's agriculture.
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Who teaches children ornamental horticulture increases agriculture yields almost double?
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Do you know how ornamental horticulture increases agricultural yields?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Pic from Castles, Crowns & Cottages.  Lucky me, I've never stopped going into brambly gardens to play.  Luckier, I've had girlfriends to come with me.  Only once attracting a police chopper !  No, not caught.

Small Kitchen Garden

A few vegetables, greens, roses.  Done!

A rare patch of sun designed the location of their kitchen garden.  Their beloved dog dictated the fencing.  When we designed/installed their garden something fabulous happened.  'They' took over immediately their creativity unleashed.

Notice the leaf litter mulch?

A tree fell & her husband used it for the fencing.
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Sublime to create a garden for long-time-marrieds and they play like kids outside.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pics taken at jobsite this week.  Alas, I was called back because of septic work that demolished a quadrant of the front garden.  Have posted their garden before & must go back in spring for more pics of various garden rooms that they've lightly touched with 'art' yet let Nature rule.

Prancing To The Potager

Primal feelings.  Before the sun sets, I will buy lettuce, & whatever else looks pretty, to plant in my potager. 
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Getting dressed my brain was all about deciding where to find them.
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After today's appointment, Ashe-Simpson is on the way home.  Hall's is a mile away. 
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When the cold comes again, & it will, cloches. 
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A primal planting-the-crop feeling or Marie Antoinette prancing to the potager with her favorite cloche's?

Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pic, cloche in my garden.  Have found most of my cloche at TJMaxx thru the years, Tuesday Morning and several at the late Smith&Hawkin.

Good Looking, And Free, Support

Why buy plant stakes?Sticks are
more attractive & FREE.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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No sticks? Pilfer what your neighbors put out at the street. I do.

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Pics from Rob's garden, Au Coeur du Jardin, in France.

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Puppet Barbuda KNOWS no one reading this has ugly plant supports (costing real $$$) with green plastic ties (costing more $$$). Once, shopping at the Handy Ace Hardware in Tucker, GA I hit the brown twine/jute lottery. As they stocked shelves with product from China its jute twine was tossed aside as trash. Puppet Barbuda was quickly on her knees, gathering her treasure.

Butterflies, Gravel, Fresh Poop

Butterflies, oddly, adore gravel after a rain. Gathering nutrients & moisture.Butterflies adore fresh poop. Again, gathering moisture & minerals.

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Brooke at Velvet & Linen put a potager in her frontyard, above. She also acquired some chickens.

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Increased pollination, the circle of life.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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What good is increased pollination? Increased food production/acre.

GARDEN SPECIALIST

Doctors, lawyers, engineers & more have specialties. ELLEN OGDEN is the KITCHEN GARDEN specialist.

Whether you have acreage or a tiny city apartment you can have a kitchen garden. Beautifully & easily.

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Ellen & I spoke at the same symposium in Vermont a couple of years ago. Wow. Author, speaker, gardener. She's been living a kitchen garden lifestyle for decades.

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No, dahlings, kitchen gardens aren't boring or ugly. Think potagere. The French concept of vegetables-herbs-fruits-flowers-flowering shrubs in lovely combination.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from Ellen's site, Kitchen Garden Designs.

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Note: You think a kitchen garden will be too much work? The work my garden does on me is more important than the work (playing*) I do in my garden.

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* We don't say, "I work tennis, I work football, I work golf." Ha, "I play tennis, I play football, I play golf." However, with thanks, my garden does, indeed, work on me.

A LITTLE WEED PLEASE

Where are the weeds? Gorgeous? Yes, in a Stepford Wife banality (honestly, remove the 'b' from the previous word). Ha, not even garlic chives or marigolds at the edges to repel bugs. PUPPET BARBUDA contemplated deeply about this garden. Conclusion? It lacks ROMANCE. Yet, PUPPET BARBUDA adored the romance of the settings in the rest of the movie, It's Complicated.

Susanne Hudson is using true landscape bamboo fencing for my new window treatments, above. A soft burlap for dust ruffle & chair cushions.

My garden tub, above,

is coming inside, above.

The strength of girlfriends, above. My 2 new gravel terraces? (5 tons, $410) Specifically for more girlfriend action!

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PUPPET BARBUDA has added Hollywood movie garden stylist to her dream job resume. It looks, top pic, like a vegetable garden in a CHEMICAL COMPANY ad circa 1962. Even butterflies, honey bees & lady bugs knew this was a no fly zone. Ugh.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics from the movie, It's Complicated.

VEGETABLE GARDEN: SHAKER STYLE

Shaker settlement Albany, New York, below.

Master Gardeners in Albany, New York recreated a Shaker vegetable garden. Raised beds with planked paths. Easy access to harvest & weed. And, an enclosing fence. Keeping animals & debris to a minimum. Painted blue. Nothing was done solely for aesthetics with the Shakers. Why paint the fence blue? Function? The spirit world. To keep evil spirits away or ask God's bounty upon their crop, or both, I don't know.

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Ann Lee, 1736-1784, founded the Shakers. It was disheartening to discover so little preserved about Shakers in Albany.

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Inventions of the Shakers: marketing packaged seeds, flat broom, washing machine, clothes pin, circular saw, apple peeler & clothes press.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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top pic from Shaker Heritage

PETERSHAM NURSERIES & VEGETABLE GARDENS

How landscapes intersect with a home fascinate me. Petersham Nurseries in England occasionally opens the private garden of Petersham House, below. Does your nursery understand the relationship of house & landscape? Petersham's vegetable garden. A seduction. Peter Rabbit feelings, I want to nibble this garden.

Simplicity. Narrow beds to work in easily. Brick path for foot and wheelbarrow. Soil I want to roll in, smell & feel on my skin.

Tree branches & twine ALWAYS trump

store bought stakes & cheap green plastic ties.

If people saw what I did with their trash they would offer to BUY it back.

. No branches? Field gather from neighbor's prunings.

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This peak at Petersham House, landscape & vegetable garden make me want more. I want to see inside Petersham House.

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Does your landscape do that? Ask yourself, Are people salivating to see inside my home because of my landscape?

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photos from Petersham Nursery. Thank you Pigtown*Design for introducing me to them.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

ANNE RAVER.........NYTIMES YESTERDAY

Anne Raver wrote sweetly on tough topics. Pairing new plants (they're the ones with slick ad campaigns and patents) and old plants performing for a century. Implied between the lines, Which plant is best?

The economy is bad and more are gardening. They're firing the mow-blow-go crew and growing vegetables. Once they encounter tough soil prep and bugs will they continue? Will the younger generation go outside, away from technology, and keep gardening or is it an economic fad? Dan Hinkley thinks it's a fad. Ken Druse knows ornamentals feed the soul. Go Anne!
My Turn: Veg't gardens are great near a door closest to the kitchen. It's usually a sunny spot, veggies need about 6 hrs. Use 3-4 pots, 22" in diameter, filled with Fafard potting soil. Terra cotta loses water quickly, choose something else. Pots must drain. Stuff pots with a tutere for training vines, herbs/veg't/annuals. Crazy busy lives need easy access and seeing the garden grow is a pleasure. Plus you get production.

Arrange pots aesthetically accenting your patio/deck decor.

Form/function. That's what it's about.

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Buy pots gorgeous enough to be empty.

If you tire of veggies you'll have pots for accents and focal points.

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Notice how Extension Service speaks of veggies and landscape design. If you want veggies in a busy life it's landscape design to get them easily integrated with your schedule, sunlight, architecture and aesthetics.

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My pot, above, hasn't been planted in over a decade.

Garden & Be Well............XO T