Centered on home, wonderful memories can be grown inside and out.
Blue grape hyacinth can make the best borders! If placed in ideal soil, it will reward you ever increasing each year as they return in ever greater numbers. These are considered perennials because they don’t have to be replanted annually.
The fried version is often available at popular local restaurants or grown & cooked at home. Unfortunately, it does not grow in the winter in Arkansas so it is best to plan ahead and freeze some.
Okra is a favorite of many in Arkansas. Sometimes a little seems like a lot when you prefer quality over quantity.
The sunny days of this region are friendly to bell peppers, which are full of healthy vitamins and make a delicious addition to quesadillas, casseroles, and pizza.
Sunflowers, panzies, and Asiatic dayflowers all have edible parts that humans can consume, but the pollinators and other wildlife love them. Deer will sometimes enjoy sneaking up in the night to nibble away all the pansy blooms.
They also make great partners in the garden to help deter insects and can help protect your produce.
One plant can produce so many blooms! After the blooms wilt, you can simply pop them off the stem and save them until next year for an exponential opportunity to grow many plants from each bloom.
Be sure to plant some spearmint in a dedicated location where you don’t mind letting it go to seed and you will attract some of the most beautiful butterflies and other pollinators including bumble bees and hummingbird moths.
The stems can be clipped to place in a vase on your dining table for a lovely scent and splash of spring green or hung to dry for extraction of the mint oil. Pull the lower leaves off before placing in water so it will sprout roots and you can share them with friends or family to easily plant at their own homes.
Amazingly, the tiny white flowers on blueberry bushes are very popular for butterflies that help them progress into the greatest berries to make some delicious fruit pies, pancakes and muffins. The Eastern Tiger Swallotail is a joy to watch.
When looking for a home, it can be very important to notice whether the stove is gas or electric, depending on what you are accustomed to using for meal prep.
Did you know that tomatoes clipped but left on the stem right before the first frost can last for weeks in your home? They will ripen gradually in a darker area away from the sunlight and you can select them to eat as they ripen or choose to fry some green ones on occasion across several weeks.
We decided to “rescue” a dwarf redbud tree from a local department store one fall because it had apparently been overlooked all summer. It hung in there and has survived to add some amazing color to the backyard each year.
