About

 

Hi, welcome to Home Garden Diggers

My name is Yael; and I love to garden.  I start each year dreaming of what’s new in the seed cataloges, and I can’t wait until the weather is nice enough to get out and dig in the dirt.   I have even been known to put on my goretex and muck boots and garden in the rain when it is a little above freezing.

It wasn’t always this way.  I used to hate gardening.  I had been the one my parents sent out to mow the grass and dig the weeds.  I couldn’t stand it.  I couldn’t stand working in the sun.  Then I got married and bought a house and tried planting roses.  I fell in love with the scents and being able to cut my own bouquets.

I expanded my repertoire to include vinca and raphiolepis (a shrub with pretty pink flowers), which were very popular in Southern California in the ’80’s.  Then I expanded my planting even more to include tomatoes, radishes and onions.  Lo and behold, I discovered that radishes from the garden actually have flavor and home grown tomatoes taste ever so much better than those bought in a supermarket.  I was hooked.

When I divorced, I was bereft of my home, my garden and my roses.  A year later, I was overjoyed to find a Community Garden, where I learned to raise an even wider variety of vegetables and of course my roses.  The rest is history.

I now live in the Pacific Northwest, which is home to many plants very different from those in Southern California.  However, I can still have my roses if I want to fight black spot.  (The trick is to find disease resistant varieties, which I do.)

I now have another house with a fairly large garden, which includes many perennials, shrubs and vegetables.  There is plenty of room to play and dig in the dirt.  My passion is vegetable gardening and I do love my tomatoes.  I have become very interested in planting things that bloom in winter, like hellebores and witch hazel, and in clematises.

I think I have a typical home garden with plants that thrive, plants that die, plants that get hit with weather damage and those which suffer from weeds and garden pests.

Come along with me as I weather the ups and downs of my gardening passion, and learn along with me what is working and what isn’t.  I will try to show the good, the bad and the ugly.  And I’ll take pictures of my efforts.  Best of all, maybe we can share our own gardening journeys with each other and all become better gardeners.