Where to Find Missouri Gardener Magazine

Missouri Gardener Magazine now available at Walmart Garden Center check out. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins at Rolla, MO store.)

Where to Find Missouri Gardener Magazine

Every time a garden feature I've written is published in Missouri Gardener Magazine, I try to find at least one outlet where the story subject can find copies of the magazine. It was easier said that done.

For many years, the only local source for this wonderful gardening magazine was local book stores. 

Now the bi-monthly glossy magazine is available through Walmart stores in their garden center section. I stumbled upon this development as I was checking out in my regular haunt, our local garden center. There on the check out counter, taking up space for where I was placing my sale plants was a pile of the magazines.

When I queried the clerk, she said she was told the chain is now carrying the magazine, a wonderful development for gardeners looking for Missouri and regional-specific gardening information.

In addition to interesting garden features, the magazine has regional updates from University of Missouri Extension horticultural experts, something we no longer can easily access since those positions are no longer available at the county level. Although books by gardeners like Jerry Berry are interesting - he was the master gardener who made a name for himself concocting gardening mixtures from beer mixed in with other kitchen products - the advice in this magazine is more reliable.

If you don't want to buy individual magazines, you can also subscribe to have it mailed to you, an annual subscription is $19.95 per year. No, I don't get a cut on the subscriptions, I'm happy to be associated with a gardening magazine that provides good advice and pertinent information.

These were the events for fall 2017, what do you know is scheduled for this fall? (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

You don't see me listed?

Leaf back to the back, every issue features a calendar of upcoming gardening events that I collect and edit, it's a great way to get a sneak peek at what is coming up. I'm collecting September-October 2018 events so if you have something to share, email me by May 25. Thanks!

Charlotte

Fun with Garden Gloves with Claws

Have you seen these gardening gloves with claws on the fingertips?

Fun with Garden Gloves with Claws

Ok, so I don't always use gardening gloves when I should. Sometimes when I'm inspired, it's just too much trouble to stop and put them on, as I was finding a new spot for my mother's lion. I needed to make a little spot in the ground for the red brick to sit and, well - there goes my manicure.

Too easy to do, too mundane of a garden story. Enter these new garden gloves with claws, designed to make digging easier and save your hands.

I gave a friend a set and within hours he said he had to hide them because one of his friends wanted to "borrow" them. Like a good book, one should never loan a good pair of gardening gloves with any expectation to see them again.

Garden gloves with claws worked quite well in loose soil and compost.

After trying the gloves in various areas of my garden, I took them off long enough to finish cleaning my hands and painting my nails.

Then whimsical inspiration hit me and I painted another set of nails.

Adding nail polish to garden gloves with claws gives the gloves a whimsical touch.

Now my garden gloves with claws are ready for garden work!

Charlotte

Busy Gardener

My beekeeping friend David hand-carried this lovely porcelain cup for me from a visit to England.

It's been an unexpectedly busy spring 2016. After retiring from my full time job December 31, 2015, I had this, now apparently quite silly idea that I would be living the leisurely life. 

One of my goals over my work years was to sleep in, something I have yet to do. Not that I am complaining, if the day is sunny and warm and I don't have some meeting to attend or deadline to meet, I am out in my garden. 

Well, first I am in a neighbor's garden. I have permission from the new property owner. Their plan is to bring in a bull dozer and turn over the soil so grass can be planted. In the meantime, I am digging up basically a 50-year plus garden, trying to save everything I can identify, and even some things I can't.

It would probably have worked better if they had just cleared up the property and left the basically flower garden intact with only paths to mow but then the site would have looked like my house. I like not having to mow, it leaves me more time to play with my bees and grow things I can eat. 

Half of the dug up plants are now at my house; the other half are at another nearby beekeeping friend's house. Knowing how much Tom likes to plant, I invited him to help me dig and split the plants with him. We don't worry too much about who has what plant because we know where each other lives. It's enough for now that we saved most of the plants.

Thanks goodness for the excuse to stop long enough to break-in my new teacup. Now the planting starts, again.

What to plant, what to plant....

Charlotte

The Perfect Garden Gift

My new gardening cart has an adjustable handle and moves on its axel like a dump truck.

My original idea was to find a used little red wagon at a yard sale. I didn't want another wheel barrow. I have two I can barely keep upright when moving along the slope of my hillside garden.

Once I started digging up plants at a neighbor's garden, I knew I had to get serious about getting a cart. I would need the help to get the plants I was digging up to their new flower beds.

Enter my beekeeping friend David, who loves to shop. He was headed to Springfield, Mo. so would he mind looking around for a good garden cart. Two hours later, he texted me he had found the one in the photo with an adjustable handle and big tires. It barely fit in his car.

Once home, I was enchanted. It was easy to move and at the right height. 

"Did you see where it moves like a dump truck," David told me as he gave me the manual.

No, I said, but I can't wait to try it. Of all of the garden gifts I could have given myself, this was even better than I had planned.

Happiness, to a gardener, is definitely a new garden cart!

Charlotte