pollinator garden Archives - grace grits and gardening

Sunday Letter: 06.19.22

June 19, 2022 By Talya Tate Boerner 8 Comments

Dear Sunday Letter friends,

It’s Father’s Day, and I’m thinking about all the strong men who influenced my life, helping to make me the crazy person I am – haha!

But seriously, today I would like to honor these men who were important in my world during my growing up years: my Daddy, Thomas Tate; both my grandfathers, Reven Creecy and Homer Tate; and three of my favorite uncles, Woodrow “Woody” Johnson, Ted Parnell, and Rex Creecy.

(I could devote several posts to other fathers who in some way influenced me—parents of my friends, men from Brinkley Chapel, male teachers—but today I’ll focus on kinfolk.)Continue Reading

Sunday Letter: 09.05.21

September 5, 2021 By Talya Tate Boerner 15 Comments

Dear Sunday Letter friends,

September is here, and I’m glad about it. I look forward to harvest time on the farm, the promise of cooler temperatures and turning leaves, twisty-stemmed pumpkins, and, yay, college football. With my favorite holidays waiting on the horizon so close we begin to count down—oh yeah, I’m a happy camper.

Of course, we still have a few days of summer left, but once school starts back it’s as though a switch flips in my mind. My focus turns from vacation and roasted marshmallows to tailgates and chili.

And even during a week of 90° temperatures, there’s already a touch of fall in the air.Continue Reading

Life in Milkweed

August 20, 2021 By Talya Tate Boerner 5 Comments

Life in Milkweed

Milkweed is vital for monarchs because it is THE host plant for monarch butterflies (meaning, monarch butterflies lay eggs ONLY on milkweed, AND monarch caterpillars ONLY eat milkweed). Of course, there are a variety of other species besides monarchs that enjoy nectaring from milkweed.

This year, I’ve been keeping track of the critters I’ve noticed in my swamp milkweed—life beyond monarchs. And, I thought it would be fun to document this life in milkweed, the teeny flies and bugs, frogs and just-hatched insects, the butterflies feeding every afternoon. Each time I inspect my milkweed (and I do it multiple times a day), I see something new.

Remember Horton Hears a Who?

I think of that Dr. Seuss book often, because there is so much life thriving in and around the plants and blossoms.Continue Reading