There was a glorious blue day, filled with columns of flowering trees.

Continue Reading »

Spring is a lovely season, full of flowers and briskness and things growing. My only beef with spring is that it goes by way too fast. Nascar has nothing on spring. I’ve scarcely had a chance to see that the plum tree in my backyard is budding:

When WHAM!! It is in full flower and starting to drop petals like faux snow.

Continue Reading »

This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

It’s time to get started on the vegetable garden for the coming season so you can grow your own healthy, organic food again this year. Many of us have already started seedlings indoors to transplant out to the garden or the cold frames as soon as weather permits. Kathryn and I have come up with a checklist of ten things to consider before you plant. Each item on the list helps to prevent pests and diseases in your vegetable garden. All ten of them acting in concert really gives you a leg up for a successful and productive year.

1. Sanitize. If you didn’t get around to cleaning up old left-over garden debris last autumn, do it now. Pay special attention to any dead plant material from diseased or infested plants and get it out of your garden. Fungal spores, insect eggs, and bacteria lurking on old infected dead leaves lying on the ground can quickly infect your new plants and ruin your produce all summer long.

2. Right plant, right place. Be sure and read the instructions on the seed pack or the vegetable start plant label and put your plants in the best location to meet those requirements. If your plants have the right amount of light and water, the correct temperature, and the proper soil they won’t be under stress. And stress, as we all know, predisposes our plants (as well as ourselves) to attack by pests and diseases.

Continue Reading »

February in Portland. Often really rainy, though dryer than January. Everything is on the edge of exploding in March.

A few bulbs are starting to come up. (I think these are my fritillaries! But maybe I’m delusional! My veins are all crossed in excitement!)

Continue Reading »

People everywhere are starting seeds these days, and over the course of the next few weeks, I’m going to be starting some seeds too. Hooray for seed starting season! Over the weekend I sorted through my seed collection to asses what I need to buy, what I should toss, and what I can keep.

You know how you’re supposed to throw away your spices every once in a while, because they don’t last forever? (Yeah, I don’t know anybody who does that either.) Seeds are the same way — they don’t last forever, and it’s really, really hard for me to accept that and move on.

Here are my seeds (do not be distracted by the butter dish, pineapple, and cake in the background.)

Continue Reading »

Last year at this time, I had fond dreams of growing sweet peas that would climb up the railings of my front porch and fill the air with sweet scents. I would have a chair on the porch, of course, and sit there with a cup of hot lemon tea on warm spring mornings. Everything would be perfect.*

Continue Reading »