Late fall’s the time when straw bales abound, the castoffs of every Harvest Festival and Apple Tasting. While others are busy celebrating the harvest, the astute gardener  still thinks about planting and celebrates that what others cast off can become an instant garden treasure. Drop bales in desired location. Add soil top. Plant.  Yes, it’s […]

The blogger’s current garden notebook.  It’s actually a 2016 calendar which I got cheap by buying it in February.  I can make entries on particular dates, which is good for noting things like plantings and the weather, and I can write long, rhapsodic reflections on the lined pages in the back.   While you’re saucing […]

There’s barely an organinzation out there that doesn’t benefit from some good volunteers; you know, the folks who come in, ask little or nothing from you, roll up their sleeves, and get to work doing what you’d have to do yourself.  Well, same goes in the garden, though here I’m not talking about the people. […]

This year I have decided to take on garlic rust, a very formidable foe that levelled my rooftop garlic crop completely last year.  Funny thing about these diseases, they can have the most lyrical Latin names.  Garlic rust is alternatively called Puccinia allii and Puccinia porri, either of which I could imagine coming off the lips of […]

Annie Novak is one of the hot-shots of urban agriculture, and she’s written a great new book on a subject near and dear to my heart: rooftop agriculture.  On Sunday, April 10th from 2-4 pm, if you happen to be in Portland, OR,  you should make it your aim to come to Noble Rot, the restaurant where […]

With this post I start a new occasional subline within the blog, similar to Tool Drool, this one about ideas or experiments that somehow remove a mental gardening barrier and open the way for innovation, which as a gardener may mean a longer season, earlier crops, a more bountiful way of growing an old favorite…you […]

The other day I was discussing the edible lawn/Buckhorn Plantain with one of the Noble Rot chefs, and he was saying that the kitchen staff didn’t feel that the greens were as tasty this year as last, perhaps, he mused, for want of cold.  I wondered back to him if they had tried them cooked, […]

It’s a feverish time of the season, when seedings from weeks past wash up on the shores of this week as young plants needing to be transplanted to larger pots.  Plus there’s still this week’s seeding to do, plants to be planted out-of-doors, weeding, harvesting, and then the rest of life….hence the fever. While certain crops like lettuce fairly […]

[metaslider id=52]There are a few achievements in life that I remember with a satisfaction disproportionate to the actual mastery shown.  Typing is one.  I skipped typing class in high school, pecked my way with two fingers through my college thesis, then decided that I was never going to do that again.  I sat at my parents’ […]