Here in the Maritime Northwest, year round growing is easier and, to my mind, more rewarding, with season extension techniques. Perhaps the cheapest and easiest semi-permanent option for season extension is the low tunnel cloche. With a low tunnel cloche, any garden bed can be turned into something like a very petite hoophouse with some…
Archives for April 2013
Recipe Videos From The Northwest Flower and Garden Show
As you guys might recall, in February I spoke at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. The show launched their new DIY Stage this year, and I was both thrilled and terrified to be the first person in the 25-year history of the show to do a cooking demo. Newly-launched gardening website Garden TV showed…
How To Spot And Avoid A Crappy Seedling
So, it’s the time of year out here in the Maritime Northwest where periodic nice days start to happen. A few legitimately sunny Spring days in Seattle send thoughts to the veggie patch, and gardeners everywhere start running to buy plant starts. This can become a caveat emptor situation pretty fast, because baby plants are,…
How To Right-Size Your Lawn: In Defense Of (A Little) Turf
Something amazing has happened. I no longer loathe my lawn. For nearly ten years, I have hated my lawn, and muttered curses at the landscaper who insisted that, “with small kids, grass really is the easiest thing to maintain,” before hydroseeding everything in sight. Lies, damn lies. I am no shirker. In fact, I like physical work….
A Community Thing
Hi there. I’m Erica. Been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I have been elbows deep in my real life, for good and for bad. This blog is real enough. It’s as true as it needs to be. The stuff I write about doing, I actually do. The rants about food politics, I actually…
How To Make A Heavy Duty Potato Cage
Every year about this time gardeners start inflicting all manner of experiments upon the humble spud. We drop them into burlap sacks, grow pots, wood towers, mesh towers, tire towers, garbage cans, straw bales and more. We attempt the Square Foot method, the Ruth Stout method, the Hilled Row Method, the Plastic Mulch Method. The…