Southerlee Farm

09/29/2026

Heading North, y’all!

Preparing to bring my garden goodness to the prettiest market venue on the East Coast! 𝒜𝒾𝓍 ℒ𝒶 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑒 ℱ𝒶𝓇𝓂 is host to Old Line Market AND Mid Atlantic Antique & Garden Festival back-to-back weekends!

I will sticking my wonderful Japanese garden tools, my farm-made petroleum free board butter, Sister's Sauce sauce bloody Mary mix and other curated items for the Southern sustainable lifestyle.

If you know you want the 40 lbs bags of my worm castings, a small deposit will reserve your bags at a pre-show discount! Stay tuned for a post about that special.

I will be staying in Maryland for the week between shows and have limited availability for a few in-person garden consultations for anyone in the region. Message me if you want to learn more.

09/14/2026

06/26/2026

You step outside on a warm June night and the dark is loud — trills, banjo plunks, sleigh-bell jingles, a low snore. That's not one sound. It's a chorus of different species, each male calling for a mate in a voice you can learn to tell apart.

Here are five you're hearing right now.

The spring peeper — a high, clear, rising whistle, repeated like a sleigh bell — is the tiny one, smaller than your thumbnail, that somehow carries across the whole yard.

The gray tree frog — a short, musical trill from up in the leaves — is the chunky climber with sticky toes you'll find stuck to your window glass, hunting moths at the light.

The American toad — a long, high, sustained trill that can run ten or fifteen seconds — is the warty one patrolling your garden, eating slugs by the hundred.

The green frog — a single, loose, banjo-string plunk, like a plucked rubber band — is the one at the pond's edge that yelps and leaps when you walk too close.

And the bullfrog — that deep, chest-rattling jug-o-rum from the water — is the giant, the one whose voice you feel as much as hear.

Five voices, one June night. Once you can sort them, the wall of noise turns into a roster of neighbors, each one telling you the yard is healthy enough to hold it.

Step outside and listen. The dark is taking attendance.

06/26/2026

Want to see your garden absolutely buzzing?
Plant mountain mint.
In a three-year Penn State study tracking native flowers for pollinator visits, clustered mountain mint came out on top — every single year.

When it's in bloom, it's covered in bees, butterflies, and the occasional hummingbird.
It's deer-resistant, fragrant, low-maintenance, and flowers for a month or more in mid to late summer.

If there's one native that belongs in every pollinator garden, this is it!

Do you have it in your garden?

🌿 Link in comments to learn more!

06/26/2026

🌿 You planted native. Your neighbor has opinions.

Join Lorraine Johnson, author, activist, and longtime advocate for native plant gardening, for a practical conversation on navigating HOA rules, responding to neighbor concerns, and building support for ecological landscapes.

Part of the Less Lawn More Life Challenge, this free webinar will help you communicate the value of native plants with confidence.

Register for the free webinar: https://wildones.org/how-to-talk-about-native-plants-with-your-hoa/

Not part of the challenge yet? Join thousands of people transforming their outdoor spaces into habitat: https://www.lesslawnmorelife.com/?ref=wildones

Wildr Places

06/26/2026

You flick the porch light on a June night and within minutes the soft-winged crowd arrives — and most people never look closely enough to see how beautiful, and how harmless, the regulars are. None of these is eating your house or your sweaters. The fabric-eaters are tiny and live in dark closets; these big showy ones at the bulb are pollinators and moonlight wanderers.

Meet five you'll see this month.

The luna moth — pale green, long-tailed, the size of your palm — is the showstopper. It has no mouth and only about a week to live; it's here to find a mate, nothing more.

The rosy maple moth — small, in sherbet pink and yellow like a frosted candy — looks invented. It isn't. It's one of the most common big moths in the East.

The underwing moths — drab gray bark-mimics at rest — flash startling orange or red hindwings when they jump, a trick to spook a hungry bird.

The sphinx, or hawk, moths — fast, heavy-bodied, hovering at flowers like a hummingbird at dusk — are some of the best night pollinators you have.

And the tiger moths — furry, boldly patterned — whose caterpillars are the woolly bears you'll meet crossing the sidewalk in fall.

Five moths at one bulb, and not one is a threat to anything you own. They're the flowers' night shift, and the reason your porch is briefly the most interesting place in the yard.

Turn the light off when you're done. They've got a moon to follow.

06/26/2026

Have you been hearing the loud “peent” song of Common Nighthawks (Chordeiles minor)? They’re commonly heard on warm evenings from late spring through summer (listen in comments) across the United States and Canada. If you hear one, look up high to see their long, pointed wings with a white wingbar and their erratic flight. Common Nighthawks often fly near bright city lights to capture flying insects, but you’ll also see them flying over open fields and rivers too. Common Nighthawks nest on the ground where their cryptic coloration that helps them blend in with rocky ground cover.

Unfortunately, Common Nighthawks aren’t as common as they used to be. Pesticides, habitat loss, and a reduction in flat, gravel rooftops in towns are all thought to be part of the cause.

Hear them in the comments.

Photo by Andy Reago and Chrissy McClarren, CC BY 2.0