A Growing Concern
Update September 2023 I've been growing amaranth for more than a dozen years now, so it is time for a little update. The article below is still a good place to start if you wish to learn a little more about this fun and beautiful crop, but after doing this for a few years I [...]
Summer garden abundance came early to much of the rest of the country, as an early summer heat wave kicked in on the east coast. Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest has remained one of the cool spots on the globe this year. Spring was two to three weeks late, the summer was cool, and only time [...]
The parsnip seed project looks to be a success this year. Plants left in the ground over winter are happy to turn the energy stored in their delicious roots into vigorous growth in the spring. The parsnips were one of the first things to green up in the spring, and now they have the record [...]
The Fourth of July weekend brought beautiful weather for camping up the McKenzie River. Everything is late this year, including the mountain wildflowers. The meadows were carpeted with little pale blue flowers and deep blue larkspur, with paintbrush adding accent. Arriving home, the berries and peas needed picking. The strawberries are just about done, but there are [...]
On the last day of May, I just harvested the first seed of the season. Last fall, I planted some mache (aka corn salad or lamb's lettuce) but it was too late, so there wasn't anything for the fall, and I forgot about it over the winter. This spring, I was cleaning up that section [...]
[ Update 7/13/2010 Most of the plants in the beds have matured. Some did well, other not so well. I've come to believe that the differences in plant hight noted below have a more prosaic cause. The two beds were built similarly, and are similarly located in the garden, but I suspect that Bed B is slightly [...]
I invested in tomato futures this week end. Ellen and I rode our bikes to Saturday Market and I returned with the panniers filled with a dozen tomato plants. There are so many varieties of tomatoes that I'm always sure to find something new and different. This year I returned with Pineapple, Brandywine, Isis Candy, Black Plum, and Tula, [...]
The middle of April is the ideal time to plant squash, according to Nick's Spring Seeding Guide. Squash like warm weather and warm soil to sprout, so the middle of April can be a bit marginal around here. In my shady garden, any extra time for the winter squash is a benefit worth going for. If we [...]
This famous leek and potato soup starts with planting the leeks and potatoes. I did that on Sunday. Leeks have become a favorite garden vegetable, because they are edible, from the garden, for more than half the year. Long-season crops have a tendency to get big and produce a lot of food - leeks are [...]
The sun was out on Saturday, some of my lettuce starts were crowding the borders of their six-packs, so it was time to transplant. In the past I would rototill virtually all of the garden. Lots of vegetables came out of the garden using that method, but as I've tried to garden more year-round, [...]
Squash Practice 