See those cute, spoon-shaped leaves?  See those sword-green shoots?  See how they are growing together?  This is not an accident!  This is success!You are looking here at one of my better moments in the quest for the perfect relay between crops, insuring that garden bed will not be bare, even for a moment.  While […]

  See that compost bin?  Not for long.  In a very short while it’s going to be full of the weeds of the winter garden then topped with a couple inches of finished compost and immediately planted.  So what appears to be a compost bin now will soon look like a planter.  That’s the kind […]

Snow flurries outside, a cup of joe and seed catalogs spread ’round inside Well, on Monday it was actually snowing, but now it’s settled back to the more usual rain.  Either way, the weather’s just dandy for sitting indoors around a big table and poring over the seed catalogs – as fine a work as any […]

  Let me conclude my last post by adding the final element of the record-keeping system….a behavioral one.  Even all the finest tags and notebooks won’t mean a thing if you never actually update them.  Beside making the initial seeding entry, you’ve got to get out into your garden, notebook in hand, look at those […]

Crucial elements of the seed starting/plant tracking system Looking over a 20-plus-year career in gardening and farming,  I realize that these days, having less free time than I ever have had in my life, the only way I am able to keep up with things in the various gardens I tend is through the magic of […]

Time marches forward, but the garden cycles around.  Oh, for sure there will be some new characters making their way into the lineup this year, but for the most part, it’ll be many of the tried-and-trues stepping up the plate for another at-bat.  Seed catalogs have arrived, and so in about a week or two, […]

I admit to having slipped off the wagon in terms of regularity of posts. Sheesh, the last one was in March! Tax season and the busyness of spring in general have contributed to my laxity, but here I am again, with tail figuratively between legs, ready to begin anew. Today’s topic is a magical, nearly […]

Before I launch into the main substance of this post, permit me, dear reader, a moment of self-pity. It has been raining for something like the last 33 out of 35 days, and I am tired of it. Before I distort truth, I must say this is not straight, day-long rain, just some measurable rain. […]

Photo: Happy Rich Mini-Head Broccoli, taken today I have for many years enjoyed the wonderfully sweet, deeply purple, lance-like florets thrust up in the spring by Purple Sprouting Broccoli. We have even grown some on the rooftop with modest success in plastic wading pools. The bugger of the thing is that they require a bed […]

Hold on to this first image for a bit…I’ll address it at the end of the post. Keep scrolling… Just got back from an amazing time at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show at the Seattle Convention Center. It was my first time ever at this storied show, and with only a day to spend, […]