Gardening

Get Ready…it’s almost iPhone season!

- Joel Heffner

In the Northeast, where I live, things are getting warmer. The plant nurseries are opening and my wife is itching to get into the garden. For me, that means folks should get ready to take pictures of the garden. It’s a good idea to check the camera directions…even if you are using an iPhone. If you take a few minutes to check the directions you will probably be surprised to see what your iPhone’s camera can do. And if you go to the Photos app and then click on Edit, you’ll find a large number of controls you can utilize to enhance your images. Go to Photos –> Edit. If you click on the Magic Wand, you’ll be shocked at what you can do with one click. No kidding!

This is the Magic Wand.

Preserve your garden…before it’s too late!

- Joel Heffner

Most of us are facing colder weather…soon. Those lovely flowers won’t be there much longer. Preserve your garden memories by taking photos now. Make prints and hang them up to admire them during the winter. They also serve as reminders of where you planted what. Go ahead…preserve your garden memories!

Garden Overview
Garden Overview — Summer, 2019

Little Missy is Back!

- Joel Heffner

One of our Pug’s was named Missy. After she died my wife found a flower called Little Missy. She’s been growing it ever since. This morning, for the first time in at least four years, Little Missy had a flower. I immediately took a picture. It’s amazing the detail you can get with an iPhone. Look at the center of the flower. Not many cameras could have done better. I think Missy would have been proud.

Little Missy … The Flower

How to create a gardening blog…fast and free!

- Joel Heffner

The best way to show off your garden and learn about other gardens is to see pictures…on blogs.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many gardening blogs by flower clubs! And the ones that do exist are usually not maintained. It’s not unusual to look at a club’s site that talks about their recent show…in 2015.

Considering that you can create a website in a manner of minutes (yes, minutes) and you can create one for free…I’m not sure why there aren’t more of them. If your club wants to get started here’s a quick list of things to do.

  1. Go to Blogger to create an account. All it takes is a free email address using Gmail.
  2. Once you have an account you can create a blog and have it online…in minutes.
  3. Yes, it’s that fast…and free.
  4. Your site will have an address that will look like this: namethatyoupick.blogspot.com.
    If you want to get fancy you can register your own domain name (i.e. namethatyoupick.com) for $12 per year. No kidding, it’s that cheap.
  5. Enjoy. Need help, don’t hesitate to contact me. No kidding.

The first gardening blog…?

- Joel Heffner

Gardening is very popular. Blogging is very popular. It’s no wonder that there are so many excellent gardening blogs. However, the first and probably the best gardening blog had no photos. It was begun on March 30, 1766 … by Thomas Jefferson!

Jefferson was an avid gardener who kept meticulous records of his garden. He probably thought of it a diary. We call them blogs. Here’s an example of the first entry that Jefferson made.

As Jefferson wrote it…
As reproduced…

The collection makes up The Garden and Farm Books of Thomas Jefferson. It consists of more than 500 pages of information about his garden.