Karl's Garden Blog

Out of all the things I thought I might someday put in a garden, a toad was definitely not on that list. In fact, I’d probably in the past have gone out of my way to get a toad OUT of the garden if I’d ever noticed it in the first place.
Until the Cucumber [...]

Even after weeks of searching, the purchase of a magnifying glass, and stalking my garden at all hours, I’m still left wondering what in the ever loving heck is eating my Cucurbits, cabbage species, carrot tops, bean leaves, and (!!) marigolds. Whatever it is, it’s removing all the green foliage it can get it’s hands [...]

… running their mouths, running to their lobbyists, running their photocopiers and fax machines with press releases…
Gory details of how much Organic gardening makes Scott’s & Co shudder over at Garden Rant.

I got some flack for preferring Cypress bark mulch for dressing the front beds of my house. I defended my preference, citing my allergies to most conventional cedar, pine, and hardwood mulches. Personally, I’d prefer to use cheap shredded leaves, but I don’t have easy access to a large enough supply of them (anyone from [...]

Since I have plenty of little pills for this soil testing kit, and I had already decided not to trust it, I figured I’d test a few other things sitting around the house. This is where the laugh track starts.
In case you missed them, here’s Part One and Part Two.
One of the things I [...]

When we last saw our heros… wait, wrong blog. We left off last time on a cliffhanger — what will our first test results be? Well, the answer ends up being — not quite what we were looking for.
First, the pH test. pH stands for Potential Hydrogen, and is a measure of how acidic [...]

If you need me, I’ll be the crazy guy in the park shoveling dead leaves and sticks into five gallon buckets and putting them in his trunk.
No, I’m not kidding, unfortunately. I live in a new housing community. It’s three years old. There are no trees. I use a recycling/mulching lawnmower. The only thing [...]

Over at the Cheap Vegetable Gardener, they posted a great write up of What Nutrients Gardens Need a few days ago. Somewhat inspired by their post, I picked up a home soil testing kit from the Co-Op last time I was there buying seeds. It came with testing containers and enough supplies to conduct ten [...]

Sorry about the lack of updates. It won’t happen again. Promise. I was sick with the flu last week, so no work got done on the raised bed other than some small feeble moving-around-of-soil, and I didn’t really get all that much done indoors either. Except sleep. I got a LOT of sleep. And I [...]