Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
A garden is only going to be as good as its soil quality, which is why we gardeners are obsessed with building better soil. Many of us are not blessed with perfect soil where we have planted our gardens. We also do not have the luxury of an endless gardening budget, allowing us to bring in fine garden loam by the dump truck load. And
Before leaving our house in Portland, I took a few snapshots of projects that have been allowed to grow. Remember when I found that ugly old brass dog kennel fencing? I took it apart and hung it on the outside of our house, hoping to the train the rose there to climb up the fencing. That post was written last Fall. After a few months
Our garden is starting to take off for the season and this weekend required some thinning in the raised beds. I salvaged some lettuce starts by transporting them to new containers. In this case, I used two old plastic hanging baskets I received as a gift a few years back. At that time, they were overflowing with annual flowers. When the season ended, they took
I have always found it challenging to be a container gardener without spending loads of cash on pretty pots, but as time goes on I find myself becoming more resourceful with what could make a good plant home. One of the latest spontaneous containers uses an old plastic nursery pot. The japanese maple we received as a gift came in the large container and it
Our front yard is a troubling area for me. So much of my attention has been focused on our backyard oasis that the front yard has become an after thought. We have two currants, two flowering quince, a fruiting dogwood, an aronia, a cornelian cherry and an herb spiral all planted in the front yard. These are still only a year or two old though,
Last Fall, my grandmother gave me some cuttings from a hydrangea shrub. She advised me to make a fresh cut, dip the end in water, dip in rooting hormone, and stick in the ground. This seemingly too-simple-sounding method of propagation worked well for her last year. I planted about eight cuttings around the yard with guarded enthusiasm. It’s too early to see if these little
Sunday I took a nice long drive up north of Seattle, Washington, to participate in a seed exchange at Laura’s Not-So-Urban Hennery. And somehow I managed to convince my friend Denise to come along! Round trip, this was a seven hour drive, plus a diversion to Morton, Washington, to visit a nursery that I will write more about later. The seed exchange was really fun!
Recently I have been working on a small research paper about the history of Victory Gardens in the US during World War II. As an advocate of edible urban gardening, be that cultivating a grass-less yard to beekeeping to urban chickens, Victory Gardens mark an interesting time in our history where I feel my advocacy is originally rooted. Without going into too much heavy history
This weekend I have been contributing to the world of garden karma. Sometimes we take, and sometimes we give back. I spent two lovely, brisk autumn days giving back but walked off with more than I had walking in. Yesterday I spent a few hours at my lovely friend Denise’s house out in St Johns shoveling three cubic yards of bark dust. We really blew
