I realized a few days ago that this week I would probably post the 500th post on this blog. Five-Oh-Oh.
And this is it.
I started this blog in 2004 and left six posts from that year. There were a few earlier posts that I thought were pretty lame, so I deleted them. Then in 2005, I posted only twice. In 2006, I started posting again on January 11th, and as they say “didn’t look back”. In the process of blogging I also started a couple of other blogs.
There’s the Hoe Collection blog where I put the hoe pictures and hoe collection, along with some other mostly picture entries from last summer. I don’t update it any more, unless I get a new hoe.
There’s also the Garden Bloggers’ Book Club blog which I started before Blogger added the feature of tags. I thought the separate blog would make it easier to find posts about the book club that I put on May Dreams Gardens. Now tags would serve the same purpose, but it would seem “incomplete” to me to disband the GBBC blog.
Not related to gardening, some of you may have discovered the blog with the posts of my Grandma’s diaries from the 1920’s and the companion picture blog. On that blog I posted the 500th entry yesterday. I only have diaries through 1927, so that blog will have a natural end in another year and a half.
But the May Dreams Gardens blog? I’m not sure where it will go from here or how it will end or if it will end someday. I just keep posting as things happen in the garden or thoughts occur to me about gardening in general.
I’m often asked how long it takes me to write up a post so I’ve been timing it recently and the average is 30 minutes. That’s 30 minutes that I didn’t just veg out and watch TV!
In honor of this 500th blog entry, I’ve come up with five questions to answer about my gardening. If you would like to answer these same questions on your blog, too, please do so!
What are you most proud of about your garden?
I am most proud of the fact that other than the fence and the lawn, I have installed or planted everything in my garden. However, pride goeth before a fall, they say, so at some point, to take my garden further, I’m going to probably have to hire some help.
When you go to sleep at night, what are you worried about in your garden?
I’m worried we won’t get any rain this summer! And that the rabbits will once again eat all of my green beans. See below for a picture of the garden and that darn rabbit who won’t leave! He acts as though this is his home and garden!
When others come and see your garden, what do you think they remember most about it?
I think they remember the raised bed vegetable garden. I am an evangelist for raised bed vegetable gardens (see below). It makes it so easy to start planting in the spring and to keep up with weeding throughout the season. And if I show them, they remember all the hoes hanging up in the garage.
What is your favorite gardening tool, the one you would recommend every gardener get?
You all think I am going to list one of my hoes, don’t you? But I can’t really choose a favorite hoe, they are all my favorite! So, I’ll say the tool I think every gardener needs is Felco pruners. And maybe a really good trowel. And a Cape Cod Weeder. And of course, a good hoe.
If you woke up this morning with all the time and money in the world to spend in your garden, what would you do first?
I’d finally plant a nice shrub border along the east side of the back yard by the privacy fence, and also add a nice pond and a garden shed (forget those neighborhood covenants), and then install some nice walking paths to lead you from garden bed to garden bed. That’s what I would do!
How about you, how would you answer these questions?
This rabbit is my enemy. The one above at the top of this post is my new statue for my new miniature garden. This one here was caught, again, in the vegetable garden
This is the garden today, the first day of summer. It’s overcast, maybe it will rain!
Wow, 500 posts, that’s pretty cool! I don’t think your fellow bloggers will let you go anywhere anytime soon. Your posts are always interesting (I get great tips) and you know how to have fun and bring everyone together. The bloom report is a great idea and I know Apple enjoys the book club. Here’s to the next 500!
Reading the responses to your questions is so very strange. I could have written them myself! Worried about rain. Pleased as punch with my raised beds. I figure that and the picket fence are what most people remember most. Wanting a proper border next to the woods where the driveway turnaround. I love my pruners too!
–Robin (aka Bumblebee)
Congrats on 500 posts! I visit every day, and you never fail to teach me something, make me laugh, or just enjoy myself as I look at your garden. Here’s to 500 more!
Awesome achievement Carol. There are those who do “500” posts and then there are those who do 500 “posts”. Yours are of the latter and I’ve appreciated reading or viewing them.
Here’s to another 500 – if you can get them done by the end of the week, that would be great! Lol.
Those devil rabbits are eating my green beans as fast as they pop out of the ground! I hate them!
What a marvelous accomplishment 500 posts is, Carol: and such entertaining, enlightning and uplifting posts they are. wishing you (and all your loyal readers, including me) 500 more delightful postings over the next year or so…and I wish I could send you a cure for wascally wabbits.
Carol,
Your garden looks great. We awoke to the sound of the weather radio alarming because of a severe thunderstorm alert. Music to my ears! So, thanks for planning that garage sale. I’m sure that is what caused the rains to come 🙂
Would you like to borrow Muncie for the day? I’m sure she would scare your rabbit away!
Hi Neighbor Carol and congrats on entertaining and inspiring us with 500 posts.
Your garden is amazing and makes me want that much space. I wish I could send you my squirrel-and-rabbit chasing Schnauzer , Jojo to catch that veggie-eating varmit.
Those are very thought-provoking questions and I will attempt to answer them in a post.
Carol: That is quite an achievement! Your blogs are always interesting and as for the questions ‘ditto’ although I have to substitute ‘deer’ for rabbits but he is a cutie. Trap him and then use his pellets for your garden! I doubt thtat there are any heavy metals in rabbit poop!
Keep up the good words and thanks for sharing. I now feel like I have been to Indiana…indeed, I visit there every day!
Congratulations, Carol! I hope you never tire of blogging and will continue to encourage, insprire and entertain us for many years to come. I also hope you win the rabbit war.
Robin’s Nesting Place
Way to Go Carol!! My day is always brighter, more inspiring, and more soulful after reading your posts. Your questions, which I plan to answer, will give me insight into myself and my gardens. Also, I have ordered the book for July. Thank you for all you do to bring everyone together!
Sister of the homestead referred to Muncie to catch the rabbit. Muncie is a minature Daschund who will nip at anything that threatenes her 2 favorite people & the rest of her world (her human daddy Don and her human sister Sophie) As for catching rabbits, I don’t know. After all she lives with 6 cats, 2 other dogs, a ferrett and a pet rabbit. She might think another rabbit is just a member of her family.
Congratulations on the 500th post Carol! And I hope you find a solution to your troublesome rabbit!
Hello Carol – I stand in awe of your 500 posts – you are amazing!
I just read through the last couple of weeks and my head is reeling with rabbits, hosta, clematis, tools, corn, grapes, garden statues, towers, miniature gardens, sprinklers, fairies, and the promise of tomatoes [ours have hit the wall as predicted].
Your world expands ours and we thank you for it!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I’m having my own rabbit drama today. The rabbits around here are pretty well fed so they never touch the stuff in the garden, but a doe is DETERMINED to live in my Chiogga beets. She’s got a form dug in the middle of the bed, which she’s lined with grass and I’ve chased her out of the garden three times in the last twenty minutes. She is SO not having another litter in the garden! Of course the dog is being useless, I set her on the rabbit and she’s running in circles.
All… thanks for the comments and kind remarks. I have no plans to stop blogging any time soon, and I enjoy reading all of your blogs, too!
(Steven… can’t resist commenting about what it must be like to have a deer trying to make a place to have a baby deer in your yard. As I’ve said, “deer” beats “rabbit” any day as for as garden destruction).
Carol from May Dreams Gardens
doe=female rabbit, but I can understand the confusion. Imagine what it’s like for people learning English, confronted with words that like “doe” that can describe two entirely different animals. Heck I speak the language and I manage to mangle it pretty well myself.
Steven… you know how the song goes “doe a deer a female deer”. If I ever knew a female rabbit was also called a doe, I had forgotten. But now that I re-read your comment, it makes sense.
I also have a rabbit who has spot all formed up in my lawn. If she has babies there… well I won’t post about it, but you know that rabbit are vermin.
Congrats dear Carol.
500! that surely requires patience and perseverance.
Maydream gardens, to me, is almost synonymous with the word ‘garden blog’ and its not easy to imagine a blogging(garden) world, without it. I hope and pray that ‘Maydream garden’ continues forever as it is a brand in itself.
Carol,
Can you believe that I NEVER use a hoe? I don’t even think I own one.
I love those raised beds of yours. Someday I would like a raised bed veggie garden.
Oh, the bunnies are so cute! Of course, we don’t get a lot of bunnies in our garden here, so I can afford to be cavalier about them. Your raised beds are awesome, I hope to do something similar in my new garden, which is a completely blank slate. Completely. Congrats on your 500th post! ~A 🙂
Congratulations on your 500th post, Carol! I think I’ve read them all, you are most entertaining!
hello Carol! I have been reading your blog for a month now and learn a lot from it. I too have a passion for my big garden but then I cannot relate to rabbits and deers because I live in the tropics :-). I also have started using a hoe for weeding—found it rusting in a corner. Thanks! It makes my gardening a lot easier! We also believe in garden sprites here and try our best to harmonize with them. Congrats on your 500 posts!