Happy Thursday! Today I want to share an early summer garden update with you all! I was pretty vague with my garden plans for this year when I shared them in February, because I had no idea what this year was going to hold! There was a possibility that we would move over the summer and I'd have no garden. Since we aren't moving until the end of 2025, I went ahead with a pretty full garden.

Before we dive into some garden updates, I found a four leaf clover in our yard this week!! My first. I've been buying clover seed instead of grass seed the last few years and it finally paid off!


Our driveway garden is full as usual! I did skip the peppers this year. I did about half the amount of tomatoes that I typically do. Instead I'm doing mini pumpkins, snow peas, bush beans and way more flowers.


Almost all my tomato plants are starting to set fruit, hooray! Hoping for tomatoes soon. I'm growing sungold, chocolate pear, patio choice yellow and golden jubilee.


I had a great time growing snow peas this year! Got a pretty good harvest considering how few plants I had. And the flowers were so pretty! Will definitely grow some again.


I added a lot more flowers both in pots and in the raised beds this year. The calendula is just starting to bloom.


Picked up seeds for a couple different trailing nasturtium and they're doing really well so far!! Blooms are on their way.


I moved most of my mini hostas that I'm taking with me into these two shallow pots that I had on the driveway. They're loving this spot.


We planted out a ton of dahlias this year and still had lots to share with friends. This was an especially tiny tuber that I planted after it sprouted. Pretty cool that this will become a regular sized plant!


I missed pinching a couple of dahlia seedlings so I got my first bloom early! It's a stunner!


My first time getting Lupine to survive and bloom in our yard!! We bought this plant as a seedling last year and I'm shocked that it has thrived where we put it. It's also the most lovely color! I plan to save seeds from it.


Our mock orange really showed off this year. It's a double and it smells so good.


I took a few years away from growing morning glory but decided to throw some seeds in the ground this year. I'm growing some up my free little library!


Another show stopper this year, our mountain laurel. They had an off year in 2024, so it was a treat to see them bloom so well this year! They happen to be the state flower for Pennsylvania, so I have a feeling we'll have another one day!


The hydrangeas are absolutely laden with blooms, although they aren't loving our current heat wave. I'm hoping the blooms will recover once the weather cools down.


Finally, my oak leaf hydrangea! I planted this in the fall and it not only survived the winter, but is thriving! It's such a pretty bush, and the leaves turn red in the fall.

Thanks for coming along on my virtual garden walk today! I'll be back with some crafty updates soon.

Happy Gardening!

Jeni's Dahlia Growing Guide

Happy Friday! It's dahlia planting time around here, and I thought I'd share my tips for growing dahlias. When I give tubers to friends and neighbors I like to include a little one page document with my tips so that they have something to reference, especially if they are growing dahlias for the first time. I wanted to share that here with you all too! I am not an expert on growing dahlias, but this is my 7th year growing them, so I've learned a few things that work well for me.


- Keep dahlia tubers in a cool dark place until you're ready to plant.

- Tubers can be planted once your soil is at least 55 degrees F (ideally 60 F) and the danger of frost has passed (this is early/mid May for me!). Avoid planting before lots of rain in the forecast to prevent rotting.


- Dahlias like to grow in full sun (6+ hours) if possible with good drainage. I find dahlia varieties that produce smaller flowers (3" in diameter or less), can thrive with less than 6 hours of sun.

- Be careful when handling tubers, the necks are fragile. If you break off a sprout, don’t panic! It’s okay, it will sprout again from that spot.


- Plant tubers 4-6” deep, 12-14” apart in ground or 1 tuber per minimum 3-gallon container, Place in hole with any sprouts facing upwards, laying the tuber horizontally in the hole. Add a spoonful of fertilizer (I use Bulbtone by Espoma) in the hole. Cover with lightly moistened soil.

- Do not water tubers until you see a sprout with leaves cracking the surface of the dirt. Unless it gets super dry, then you can give them a little water.


- Place a stake for each plant at planting time so that the tuber isn’t accidentally pierced. Plants will need to be tied to this support as they get taller.

- Alternatively, you could place stakes every 6-8 ft and use a corralling method for support. Kristine Albrecht has a great video on this: Staking Dahlia Plants: The Corral Method. Last year I used Hortonova Netting (by Tenax) for the first time, and it worked really well!


- Slugs love dahlia sprouts, they may need some protection or an application of ‘Sluggo’.

- Fertilize every few weeks if desired with a basic, balanced fertilizer. Switch to a fertilizer with less nitrogen when plants start to bloom to encourage more bloom production.


- After the plant is around 1’ tall, pinch off the center main stem, leaving at least two sets of leaves on the plant. This encourages branching and results in many more flowers!

- Plants will need consistent watering throughout the season.

- You should get flowers starting in August, and they will bloom until you get a hard frost!


- Dahlias are a “cut and come again flower”, typically the more you cut, the more flowers you’ll get! Cut stems above a set of leaves. Cutting deep into the plant will encourage longer stems.

- Cut flowers only last a few days inside. Even if you don’t want to bring flowers inside, your plants will benefit from regular deadheading.

- After frost or at least 120 days of growing, cut back plants to a few inches above the ground. Let tubers cure underground for 2-3 weeks.


- Carefully dig up tubers with a pitchfork to avoid damaging tubers. Gently remove dirt with a brush. Divide clumps now or in the following Spring when eyes start to sprout. In my personal experience, tubers store easier as whole clumps if you have the space. There are a lot of resources online to guide you through the dividing process, this visual explanation of tuber anatomy and dividing is excellent: Dahlia Tuber and Splitting Guide from Summer Dreams Farm.

- Dust tubers with sulfur fungicide dust or cinnamon if desired to help prevent mold in storage.

- Store tubers in plastic tubs with pine shavings. Ideally tubers like to be stored at temps around 45-55 degrees F. They can stand colder temps as long as they don’t freeze (32 F). Warmer storage will be more prone to rotting. I keep the lids on, but not snapped shut to allow some airflow.


- Check tubers every few weeks for rotting or shriveling. Mist shavings with water if the tubers start to dry out. Remove and discard any rotting tubers or overly wet shavings.

- If you have time at the end of the season, go ahead and amend your dahlia patch after digging up tubers, but before raking the dirt back in place. It's a great way to use up leftover potting soil from the season. I usually try to mix in any leftover straw mulch, or mulched leaves. I also put a thick layer of leaf mulch on top of the patch to finish.

- In April/May of following year move tubers to warmer storage to encourage them to wake up in preparation for dividing and planting!

Happy Growing!

DIY Seed Germination Book and My Seed Starting Setup

It's an exciting time of year if you love gardening, time to start seeds! One of my favorite things about starting seeds indoors is that I get to start gardening now instead of having to wait until it's warmer. This is my 5th year starting seeds indoors and I've learned so much in that time. I've made a lot of mistakes (some more than once!), but I feel really good about my practices and set up now.

I start as much as I can from seed to be able to grow exactly which varieties I want. If I time things right, I can get a good jump start on my garden by being able to plant out seedlings that are ahead of what I could purchase at a nursery. Plus I find it rewarding and fun! I could go on and on, but the main purpose of today's post is to share a tutorial for a Seed Germination "Book" and share my seed starting set up. So let's get into it!

For most seeds I prefer to germinate between wet paper towels. Once the seeds have sprouted I carefully move them to dirt. This allows me to keep a better eye on the germination and use less dirt/six packs. To keep things organized, I like to make a little “book” out of folded paper towels. This is handy when I’m starting more than one seed type or variety at a time, but sometimes it gets messy and seeds can get mixed up!

Last year I decided to sew a line of stitching to make a “spine” and keep the pages completely separate. It took no time and it made things so much neater!

DIY Seed Germination Book

Materials:
- Paper Towels (I prefer the choose-a-size type for this.)
- Sewing machine + thread
- Pencil

Instructions:

1. Layer three to four paper towels halves on top of each other.


2. Mark the center line with a pencil.



3. Sew on the line.


4. Fold in half along stitching.

5. Each spread can be used to start a different variety! Mark each page with the variety and start germinating!

How to Germinate Seeds Using a Paper Towel "Book":

1. Completely saturate paper towel book with water. Ring out excess water.

2. Place seeds between layers of paper towel.

3. Carefully close book and place in a plastic container with a lid. Close lid most of the way.

4. Find a warm place for the container. Check every few days for germination and to make sure it's still wet.

5. Once seeds have germinated, transfer to soil and get growing! Try to move seeds out as soon as a root appears, to avoid it getting too tangled in the paper towel!

My Seed Starting Setup:

I start seeds in my unfinished basement, which is typically around 65 degrees. I use an adjustable wire storage shelf that's meant for kitchen storage. I believe I purchased it from either Home Depot or Target. The one I use is 48" wide.


Each shelf has two simple shop lights that take two bulbs each, for a total of four bulbs per level! I use one warm and one cool bulb in each light. These are just basic bulbs, not specifically grow light bulbs. The lights hang from the shelves with little "S" hooks that fit the chains on the lights. I have a few seedling heating pads to help with initial seed germination. Everything is set up on smart plugs and is on for 14 hours per day.


To help keep the growing environment warm and humid, I have two shower curtain liners installed along the top edge of the shelf unit. They're attached with cheap shower curtain rings! The top is covered with a fleece blanket. I use clothespins to keep the curtains closed. I added this feature a couple years ago and it has helped SO much! And was a less than $10 addition to this setup.

A note on costs: This set up was a bit of an investment upfront. I have four shelves of growing space, which amounts to eight shop lights. Between the lights and the bulbs, it adds up! However, I have yet to need to replace any of the bulbs. I fill these entire set up every Spring, but you may not need or want this much space. If you're new to starting seeds, I would recommend starting small to see how you like it.

A Few Tips and Tricks for Starting Seeds:

- Keep notes. I've been using this notebook to keep track of my seed starting for the last five seasons. I take notes on when I start germinating something, when it sprouts, when I move it up a pot size, and when I plant it outside, and any other detail that could be useful. It's really nice to look back and see what I did in years past and what did or didn't work out.

- Adjustable lighting is really helpful. You want to be able to move the lights close to the soil surface when the seeds are germinating and first sprouting. Being able to move them futher away as they grow is critical to getting healthy seedlings.


- Size up your pot sooner rather than later. This mistake I have made many times and some types of plants are more sensitive to this than others. Keeping your seedlings in a container that is too small can stunt their growth, and it can be difficult for them to recover, even after they are planted outdoors.

- I prefer a seed starting medium that has some organic matter in it. Or I'll add it myself via some earthworm castings. When I size up the pot for the seedlings I switch to a regular potting mix that has fertilizer.


- Before packing six-cells or pots with dirt, wet it. It's nice to be able to avoid disturbing seeds with an initial watering right after planting. I add my seed starting medium to a small laundry tub, add water a little at a time and mix it up with gloved hands. Once it is evenly moist I pack it lightly into my containers.

- I keep a spray bottle of water nearby to lightly spray my seed germination "book", as well as any surface sown seeds.


I hope this tutorial and these tips are helpful to you on your seed starting journey! Here are a few other garden related tutorials I've published over the years:


DIY Felt Grow Bags (with Video Tutorial)


DIY Budget Wooden Tomato Trellis


DIY Fabric Grow Bags

Happy Gardening!

My 2024 Garden and 2025 Garden Plans

Happy Thursday! Today I wanted to spend some time looking back on my 2024 garden and looking forward to my 2025 garden plans! See past gardening posts here.


In 2024 I started lots of things from seed: all of our tomato plants, pepper plants, strawflowers, marigolds, and a few other bits. I love starting my own seeds. It's a good excuse to start the season early, and I can choose exactly what varieties I want to grow! It's taken some trial and error to figure out a good setup but I feel pretty confident at this point.


On our driveway garden this year we kept things pretty simple. We grew four cherry tomato varieties (Sungold, Sunsugar, Cherry Bomb and Chocolate Pear) and three pepper varieties (Anaheim, Sweet Banana and Serrano). We also had our fig tree, dahlias, lantana and strawflowers. For the veg I was able to use all seed from the year before, which was nice! I needed to use some of them up. My favorite tomato is Sungold, which did well this year. The Chocolate Pear was one I'd gotten for free with a seed order a few years ago and just thought I'd try out. It ended up being a surprise hit! Very prolific and didn't crack. I put a bunch in the freezer for soups. Peppers did okay, the Serrano is always the most productive for us in containers and that didn't change this year!


For 2025 we're going to skip peppers altogether, we just didn't eat them much last year. For tomatoes we'll definitely grow sungold, but beyond that I'm not sure yet! I might try another new red cherry, or maybe a currant style tomato! I had a currant tomato in my community garden plot in Madison one year and it had SO much fruit. Might be fun to try that again.


My perennial patch in the front yard did really well again! We even had a little bunny visitor for a while.


On the topic of perennials, I started a bunch of Candytuft from see this year. We've had a white Candytuft plant for years and it's done super well. I was constantly seeing seed packets for a pink/purple/red Candytuft mix, but never plants. Finally I broke and bought a packet of seeds! They were really easy to start and soon I had some purple! I hope to start even more this year.


Of course I grew strawflowers last year. I ordered a wide mix of seeds from Select Seeds and they did fantastic! I think it was one of my best strawflower years. I planted them at the bottom of the dahlia patch on both sides and I was constantly picking flowers. I'll always have these in my garden. I'm hoping to use up leftover seed from last year in 2025.


Another thing I grow every year without fail is marigolds! I just love them, especially the giant ones! I've been growing the heirloom yellow Mission Giant Marigolds for a few years and in 2024 I discovered Burpee had a hybrid orange Mission Giant! I couldn't help myself, I had to try them out. Unfortunately they weren't quite up to par with the yellow. First off, the yellow are heirloom, so I can save my own seeds at the end of each season. The orange are hybrid, so they won't be true from saved seed. More importantly, they just weren't quite the same blooms as the yellow, many looked like a regular giant marigold, without the frilly Chrysanthemum style of the yellow. They also had really weak stems, near the bloom, so they were quite floppy. I really wanted to love them, but I'm going to stick with the yellow and a regular giant orange this year!



I think the biggest success in my garden in 2024 was my dahlia seedling patch! I started seeds from Floret Flowers called "Cancan Girls" that were all taken from their anemone breeding patch. The last few years of growing dahlia seedlings, I've really want to try getting some anemone style dahlias, but haven't had any luck. Well this packet of seeds hit it out of the park! I ended up with more anemone dahlias than I could save!! Above are a couple that I really loved. Hopefully the tubers survive their winter storage!


One new thing I tried this year in both the dahlia seedling patch and the main dahlia patch was Hortonova netting. You place a few different levels of netting horizontally for the plants to grow up into, instead of staking each dahlia individually or corralling them with twine. I was a bit skeptical that it would work, but it was AMAZING! Easy to install (especially with two people), held up my plants all summer/fall, and was easy to remove and save at the end of the season. I was honestly blown away. Very excited to use this in years to come!


The main dahlia patch got a real upgrade this season! Our neighbors got a chip drop and had extra, so I was able to mulch the entire dahlia patch with wood chips!! It was so nice and it really kept the weeding and watering to a minimum this season.


Overall this was not a good dahlia year for me. I'm not sure why exactly, but my patch struggled. I had a bunch of plants that barely bloomed or didn't bloom at all. I still had plenty of blooms, and a few fun new varieties too, so not a total loss!

I haven't bought any new dahlia tubers yet this year, and I may not buy any. I have such a great mix of tubers already, and I'm really enjoying growing seedlings too. I collected seeds from my patch (which I still need to process!) and will hopefully be starting some of those this year.


Megan Dean was probably my favorite new variety I grew last year, a beautiful white/purple.


The other new variety I grew was Blyton Softer Gleam, which was beautiful!


That's a wrap on my 2024 garden! My love for gardening continues to grow each year (haha!), and I can't wait to get out in the dirt again this spring.

Happy Growing!