I am having the darndest time with the easy plants this year. The beans, the peas, the broccoli, the berries, the onions, the beets, the lettuce, the squash, the artichokes…all thriving, but the crops you just can’t mess up? Well, they’re messed up. The garlic went tits up due to white rot and my potatoes are…
Gardening
The Barrier Method Of Carrot Protection
We live in Carrot Fly country. I’m not sure why, but it is commonly accepted in Western Washington that you will not grow a decent crop of carrots without some sort of barrier to protect them. (Talking about barrier methods of carrot protection makes me snicker.) I’ve lost most of my unprotected carrot crops to…
The One Edible You Must Grow
Herbs. If you grow nothing else yourself, if you buy all your lettuce and tomatoes and chard and cucumbers at the market, promise me you will at least grow your own herbs. Now I might be bit biased because I did my culinary externship at a restaurant known for its herb-enhanced cuisine, but I can’t imagine…
Birds Eye View: An Overview Of The Garden
I talk a lot about my garden, and if you are kind enough to read this blog, you know a lot about my garden. A reader asked me to put up a garden map or layout to make it more clear how all the parts of “my office” come together. It is still a great…
Garlic Rust and Gardener Waterworks
Last year, Nick really got on board with the gardening thing. His support and assistance and enthusiasm is what has allowed my backyard garden to become our urban homestead. The gateway plant, the crop that drew him into the entire gardening ethos, was garlic. Nick was so enamored of the way hardneck garlic scapes curl and twist,…
A Tour Of The Trellises
When we hit up the Seattle Tilth Plant Sale a few weeks ago, we arrived early and had some time to kill before we could start plant shopping. This gave us some time to walk around the Good Shepherd P-Patch. I was struck by how many methods p-patchers were using to trellis their peas and…
Sowing Peas in Guttering: Wherein I Grudgingly Admit This Technique Rocks
Every American gardening book I own says you absolutely must direct sow peas because they loathe root disturbance. Every British gardening book I own advocates sowing peas early in the season in a length of guttering. They always use this exact phrase – length of guttering – and whenever I read it, my internal dialog…
Backyard Orchard Culture: Designing Fruit Tree Quartets
The whole idea behind the Backyard Orchard Culture method is to prune trees so that they produce an extended harvest of manageable quantities of fresh fruit rather than one really big harvest all at once. This is achieved by planting trees with different ripening times and keeping them small through aggressive but thoughtful pruning that includes annual summer…
Seed Starting 101: When You Didn't Quite Get To It – Quality Nursery Seedlings
You may be looking around the gardening web right about now thinking to yourself, “Oh, shit. Was I supposed to start a bunch of seeds last month? Is it time to be transplanting my seedlings out?” Well, if you live in the Pacific Northwest, as I do, congratulations! Your procrastination has totally paid off. Our…
Backyard Orchard Culture: A Mini-Orchard In The Making
About a month ago, I talked about our plans to attempt the high-density fruit growing method called Backyard Orchard Culture. Well, plans have become reality and the mini-orchard is planted! A few weeks ago our bare-root trees came from Raintree Nursery. A box arrived that was about the size of me. I was very excited to see the…
What Am I Going To Do With These Tomato Seedlings?
Despite my limited success with tomatoes, I have yet again found myself with a whole gaggle of seedlings. I’ve got three flats of tomatoes and peppers; I think there’s 26 individual tomato plants. Goodness knows where I’m going to put them all this year. I’m thinking of trying grow bags placed up on my black asphalt-shingled roof. There’s…
Bags Aren’t Just For Chips: The Potato Sack Experiment
Every year I run out of room. So this year I am moving my biggest space-hogs out of the raised beds and into containers I can stash around paths and patios. I’m starting with potatoes, which I am attempting to grow in huge bags. I received my seed potatoes from Territorial several weeks ago and have been…