:: flutter by

Just a few snaps of some fluttery friends enjoying my garden. If you want more butterflies & bees in your gardens then Butterfly Bush & Lantana are a must. I chose to go with a low growing variety of butterfly bush in my raised beds this year to attract more pollinators to my veggies. 

Lantana are also a new favorite, they bloom from the time you plant them until late fall and they grow very fast. I purchased mine on the clearance rack at Lowe's. I have gotten so much bang for my "buck" from each one of these plants...they started out tiny & now they are huge. Great impact in my landscape, 16 plants for 16 bucks and now I have a constant flow of butterflies, bees & even hummingbirds. 

:: peace, love & hugs ::

Carrie

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:: potting nook

I'm several years behind in sharing this little potting nook that I created at my former home. It was in the perfect spot, right outside of the garage and under a shade tree. I could just back right up to it & unload my farmer's market treasures. I loved that little desk/potting bench it was so convenient and it added much needed life & charm to it's location. 

I found the vintage desk at a local antique store for ten dollars. I was instantly attracted to it's color. The fact that it was already shabby & rusty made it perfect for outdoor use. Everything else I simply had lying around the house already. All I had to do was add some pretties like the caladiums & geraniums. I sure miss this little space, but in time I'll create a cute little potting area at our new home as well. For now this one will live on in my memories and here on my blog.

This old Windsor style chair had been with me since my first apartment ha ha,

years of sitting outside gave it a nice chippy & worn patina perfect for this spot. 

Hope you enjoyed my little potting nook, I really miss that cute little space under the trees. 

Do you have a potting nook, shed, or table? I would love to see...leave me a link :).

Happy Gardening!

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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:: farmer's market

v e r b e n a 

p e o n i e s

g r e e n   o n i o n s

b o k   c h o i

love the little green chalkboard signs the Farlow Farm of Archdale used, they had the best farm stand display, barn wood & rusty tin perfection.

l i l i e s    &    f r e s h   b r e a d

d e u t z i a

p u s s y w i l l o w

T h E  E n D

Close ups of a wonderful day spent at the Greensboro Farmer's Market. I mistakenly left all of my other lenses at home so macro photos it was. I'm more than a little behind in sharing these photos from a surprise visit to my Mom for mother's day at the Greensboro Farmer's Market. You can find her at Still Hollow Farm selling her vegetable plants, jellies, jams, jewelry, gourd art, and any other crafty thing that catches her fancy....she's such and inspiration to me.

{ peace, love & hugs }

Carrie

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:: pink peony

•  b e a u t y  •

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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:: marjoram

Marjoram bundles...they smell amazing, 

and by snipping off a few ends I'm hoping for fuller growth.

I'm so happy to have something growing again.

YAY SPRING!

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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:: fall is coming

Though today's temps don't feel too much like fall....

this little crepe myrtle is shouting LOUD & PROUD that fall is on it's way.

Are you ready?

I sure am...

In fact, I met yesterday with my landscaper to discuss changing out some of the trees & shrubs around our new home, fall is the perfect time for planting trees & shrubs after all.  I spent more time today researching & gathering ideas for trees & shrubs, some are old favorites that I'll plant anywhere I ever go & others are new suggestions & plants I would love to add to my gardens.

 Wanna have a peek at some of my {old favorites}?

 

NATCHEZ CREPE MYRTLE 

Lagerstoemia indica x fauriei 'Natchez'

WHY I LOVE THEM: white blooms all summer long, & beautiful mottled bark.

LOROPETALUM  

Loropetalum chinense 'Suzanne'

WHY I LOVE THEM: pink fringe blooms in spring & year round color. I prefer them in their natural shape like above, so it's important to choose the right variety for your space.

LO & BEHOLD 'LILAC CHIP' BUTTERFLY BUSH 

Buddleia

WHY I LOVE THEM: { THE DOG OF COURSE ;D } the best butterfly bush for smaller spaces, the lovely lilac color, and a fragrance like honey { no wonder the butterflies love em' } 

I planted 16 of these lovelies last fall at my old house,  I hated leaving them : (  but at least they were blooming when I planted them so I could enjoy them. Now I'm going to plant more : ).

Leaving my gardens was really one of the hardest parts of moving besides leaving friends. Who am I kidding, it was like leaving my babies behind. I picked and planted most of what was in my landscape, & I loved every plant. I watched them grow each year for 10 years & I handed them over to someone else when they were finally old enough to really enjoy....kinda like marrying off your children I suppose {ha ha just kidding...sort of I do have teenagers right now}. Though it's a little sad to have to start over, it's also very exciting to create new gardens again. I don't know if I'll be here to enjoy them long term, but I sure have fun planting & watching them grow.

peace, love & hugs

Carrie Ann

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:: cool weather garden

I'm working today on my fall/winter planting. I don't usually do this, but before I put my plants in the ground I decided to do a quick layout to decide where I would place them. Using Sketchbook Pro 6  to create my artwork & Carrots love Tomatoes & Roses love Garlic by Louise Riotte as a reference for companion planting I drew up this plan for my fall/winter garden.

So there you have it, my fall/winter garden plans. Now, I'm off to buy some Black Cow & Epson salts to amend my soil & get my plants into the ground before the rains come.

Have a wonderful weekend.

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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:: collecting cilantro seeds

Hello sweet friends, hope this post finds you all well.

Just thought I would pop in & share how I started my morning today.

Well, first I started my morning doing my daily devotionals with my sweet hubby.

Then I headed outside to take care of the gardens before the heat kicked in. It has been one hot summer here in North Carolina, and I'm dreaming of Fall every day now.

Anyhoo I digress. While I was looking around my gardens I decided it was finally time to do something with my fading cilantro. It went straight to seed this year without even one clipping for my kitchen. I'm not sure why I'm having such a hard time with it this year, in years past I've had so much I couldn't possibly use it all. Now....n o t h i n g.....here it is shortly after planting....already flowering.

Here they are a few weeks later, turned to seed. To prepare for collecting the seeds I simply pulled the plants out of their pots root & all. 

Here they are before I started to remove their little seeds. Actually, these are quite large as far as seeds go. The seeds of Cilantro are also known as the spice Coriander and can be used as such, or like me you can collect them & use them for starting new plants.

Once I pulled up the plants, I simply held the dried bunch over an open paper bag & gently rolled the seeds between my fingers to release them from the stems. This is very easy to do, however, it is a little time consuming. This is a self seeding plant so at some point they would probably fall off more easily on their own & then you could probably just shake them off into a larger container. However, mine needed a little more help to drop from their stems.

{ c o r i a n d e r }

or

{ c i l a n t r o  s e e d s }

The seeds are so lovely on their own that I can't wait to place them in little jars to store & display them. I'm pretty sure I have some vintage spice jars that will be just perfect for seed collecting.

 So, this is what you do when your cilantro plants bolt straight to seed in the hot weather. You wait patiently, enjoy their flowers & collect their seeds for next years crop. Or you can be like me & try to replant some right before the weather cools just to see if you can get a second crop in during the cooler months to come...they do prefer temperatures between 68 & 74 degrees after all. Wish me luck. 

 I was also able to collect a few seeds from a few of my basil plants that bloomed & seeded while I was on vacation. I'll try to share them with you next time...they are really tiny seeds. I'm becoming obsessed with seed collecting, it's so fun.

{ peace, love & hugs }

Carrie

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:: potager garden

Welcome to my new & improved potager garden. 

The picture below is my end goal, and as you can see we have a ways to go. 

Here it is just the other day, via instagram.

 It's grown a lot in a few weeks, but as you can see I still have some bare spots to fill in.

 {  roma tomatoes }

 { squash }

{ cucumbers }

First fruits, I love this time of year.

How are your gardens coming along?

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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:: tiered lettuce & herb garden

I'm happy to finally be able to share this project with you, it's been on my list since last year when I created my :: back door herb garden . I am a girl of symmetry, so I knew then that I wanted to create another garden for the opposite side of my back door. So, this spring/summer was the time to get to it, having a graduation party gave me just the push I needed to finish this project up last week.

I purchased my galvanized tubs again from Amazon, the sizes are :: 16.75 gallon tub {bottom}, 4.25 gallon {middle}, and a 10 quart bucket for the top. I knew that I wanted to create a salad garden this time so a few weeks ago I purchased my lettuces at my local farmer's market, they are romaine & curly leaf lettuce. I planned to fill the whole garden with different lettuces, but my basil from last year wasn't doing so great so I decided to add some to this new garden....you can never have too much basil...yes. I also added a few other herbs for color & variety. In the top bucket I have a beautiful healthy lavender plant, it's going to be so pretty when it blooms, and in between the basils I added this lovely wispy silver Artemesia "Satiny" Wormwood I love the look of this herb.

 { Romaine lettuce, Sweet basil, Artemesia "Satiny" wormwood}

 {Sweet basil, Artemesia "Satiny" wormwood, Lavender}

I love how beautiful my lettuces look, it's going to be so hard the cut them for eating.

Below is my tiered herb garden from last season, in this one I have Lemon Balm, Sweet Basil, Cilantro,  Golden Thyme, Parsley, & Oregano. My basil that I overwintered are very slow growing this season, and want to go right into flowering so I'm constantly pinching them back. Hopefully as the season goes on they will perk up. My cilantro also wants to shoot right up to flower & I just purchased them this season so I'm going to have to do some research on how to best grow it. My lemon balm however is very vigorous & I've trimmed it back several times always bringing it in for use in flower arrangements, it smells so lovely. My Thyme & Oregano are doing well also.

{Cilantro, Lemon Balm}

{ Oregano, Cilantro, Parsley, Thyme}

I'm finding that I'm not minding too much that my Cilantro is going straight to flower since it is so lovely with it's delicate little white flowers...so pretty.

Here's how the two gardens look at my back door right outside of my kitchen. I love them, they bring so much life to this area of deck {which coincidentally needs some re-staining soon}

I also thought I would share with you my go to book on herbs, I'm constantly using this reference to learn more about what I'm planting & how to use it.

{found here}

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

p l a n t    s o m e t h i n g

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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