My friend Fruit Lady is brand new to veggie growing. This spring she put in several good-sized raised beds, but doesn’t care how much she harvests. She grows vegetables so that she and her kids can learn about the process. Really, it’s mostly for the kids, and anything picked is bonus. That’s not how it…
Designing and Building
Rock Solid Plant Labels
I garden with kids. My 7 year old is a dream garden helper, when I can pry her out of her books and get her to help. (I have the nicest problems, truly.) She can thin seedlings, pick peas, weed and chicken wrangle. I really don’t know what I’d do without her. My 10 month…
Right Tool, Right Job, Right Technique, Your Technique
One of my best friends is moving to the eastern side of Washington State, where much of the land is under agricultural production. She is joining her fiance, who happens to be a professional seed farmer, on their 5 acre rural plot of land. My friend, Kristen, is excited to have room to start a…
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…
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…
Keeping Dry: Securing Tunnel Cloches
The past few days in the Seattle area have been so lovely, I think the weather Gods are apologizing for the veritable monsoon of rain that dumped on us two weeks ago. If you are not in the Maritime Northwest, you might be shaking your head right now, saying: “Seattle is called Rain City for…
Be A Very Lazy Garden Planner
When I look out the window right now my garden has big bare patches that trick me into thinking I have far more room for fruit trees than I really do. When the rain is coming down and my infant is asleep, I like to stare out to the garden, imagining a wonderland of edible…
Turn Your Old Wire Hangers Into Garden Staples!
If you or a housemate work off the farm at one of those jobs that require clean, starched shirts, you probably have a lot of dry-cleaner’s wire hangers kicking around the house. We return our wire hangers to our dry cleaners for re-use (better for the earth and helpful to the small business owners who…
New Year, New Blog, New Seed Catalogues
It’s the beginning of January and everything seems fallow and sleepy. The garden is shivering through it’s second cold snap of the winter. The first came just before Thanksgiving and brought us temperatures in the teens and lots of snow (lots for Seattle, mind you: some places got 5 inches). The second we are enjoying…