“Last year I just planted and prayed, stuff worked or didn’t. Now I have seed catalogs and am so overwhelmed I don’t know what to order. Should I be picking stuff based on the shortest growing rate and that’s all? This is crazy!” -Reader Question Feeling Seed Catalog Crazy? Right now, like most gardeners, you…
Growing Vegetables
Infographic: How Hard Is It To Grow That Brassica?
Broccoli, kale, cauliflower, turnips, cabbage, mustard greens, oh my! I get asked, “so, how hard is that to grow?” a lot. I made this infographic to answer that question, as I see it, with regards to my favorite winter vegetable family, brassicas. This is based on my experience in a maritime climate that is generally…
When and How To Harvest Broccoli and Cauliflower
You’d think that the hard part would be getting the seeds to germinate and coaxing that little seedling to grow. But time and again I see gardeners stumble just at the finish line: harvesting. All season long plants have been tended and, just at the big, edible moment of payoff, the gardener hesitates: “Is it…
August Garden Photo Tour
Early August and I’m not jumping for joy at the heat-lover yields I’ve been getting. A couple of eggplants, a half-dozen almost-ripe cherry tomatoes, a few small summer squash and one good red pepper. But it’s looking like maybe, just maybe, a harvest is around the corner. And until then, I’m doing great on potatoes…
The Garden In June: Photo Tour
In a garden, some years things go smooth(ish) and some years things are a little bumpier. The biggest bump I’ve run into this year is cabbage maggots which decimated a full bed of nearly-sized-up broccoli and did a number on a few other spring brassicas around the garden. The root maggots, combined with a few…
Be Not Discouraged (If Your Garden Doesn’t Look Like Erica’s)
Meet Ugly Garden: I’m not a long-time reader of Northwest Edible Life. I’m not a long time gardener either. Both these afflictions are rather new for me. I started my measly little Ugly Garden in earnest last year, with just two beds and some picket fencing repurposed from the neighbor’s dump pile. One of those…
The Spring Garden That Wasn't: A May Photo Tour
This is a very strange spring. I have foot high corn and foot-across squash but hardly any of the typical spring crops. There’s a few heads of lettuce, and peas of course, but for the most part when I should have been most focused on putting in more complete spring garden I was instead mucking…
Potato Chitting Problems: Pale Shoots
When I placed my order for seed potatoes with Irish Eyes this year, they asked when I’d like my potatoes shipped. Based on my zip code, they recommended a date a few weeks hence. “Oh, no, just send them now,” I said, “I like to chit them before I plant them.” Ah, hubris. So my box of…
March Photo Tour of the Garden
March in the garden is a time of transition. I’ve always thought there was a sort of irony, that as weather just starts to warm up and the gardener finally starts to feel spring in her heart, we enter the leanest months of a year-round vegetable garden. The earliest fall-sown greens and overwintering brassicas are…
Seedlings Started Under Lights vs. On A Windowsill
In early February I started some broccoli seeds the way I normally do, under a bank of full spectrum fluorescent light tubes. At the same time, using the same seeds, the same seed potting mix, and an identical pot (a 6-cell starter tray of 72-sized-cells), I started some broccoli seeds for a friend. She took her…
The 5 Best Vegetables To Grow With Kids
I wrote the article below for the website of a local magazine called ParentMap about a month ago. It’s all aglow with the joys and benefits of gardening with kids, and these are many. But I gotta tell you, this past weekend I turned around to see my son standing in the raised bed I’d just been…
A Tour Of The Indoor Seed Starting Rack
My seed-starting set-up is pretty well equipped, which makes it a lot easier to manage the fairly aggressive seed-starting schedule I keep. When we moved into our current home, I commandeered a corner of the garage as my indoor garden and seed-starting area. Having a dedicated area to grow out seedlings is a luxury, but one I would sacrifice…