Share my passion for all things gardening!
Organic gardening: Adding organic amendments to your soil is a great way to grow beautiful, productive plants. Here is a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: When going organic, it helps to know your surroundings. This one is the first of two parts on organic gardening. (you can also read my garden column lower in this […]
Read moreOver the years, I’ve written about my battles with leaf miners. They are the larvae that tunnel in between the cells in the leaves of spinach, beets and Swiss chard. How do they get there in the first place? What are leaf miners? Well, the adult is a fly that lays eggs on the leaves. Once the eggs hatch, the […]
Read moreIt’s hard to believe we’re at the end of March already. The good news is we’re getting closer to more pleasant weather and getting to garden on a regular basis. Hooray for that! Here is a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Get early start with spinach, chard. (or you can read my column lower in […]
Read moreHere is a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Tango celery excels in short seasons. (or you can read my column lower in this post.) The headline makes it sound like it’s only about growing celery (I don’t write the headlines). But it’s also about growing tomatillos, both of which warm-season crops. What? You’ve never grown […]
Read moreHappy Easter! Here is a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: With proper care, winter squash thrive. It’s all about growing winter squash and pumpkins. (you can also read my column below) Last year, I really got ours off to a great start by starting them early indoors. Then I covered the soil in their bed […]
Read morePhoto #1: Getting ready to swap out the old T Tape for Aqua Traxx Last year, my husband and I installed a new drip irrigation system on our raised beds. We’ve used soaker hoses on each bed for years but they frequently clogged with minerals. That in turn reduced the amount of water coming out of them. We felt it […]
Read morePhoto #1: drip irrigation This is a continuation of our discussion (see previous post) about the new drip irrigation system we recently installed. I wanted to show you what we did on one of our 3′ x 8′ raised beds. Drip irrigation supplies: Photo #1 shows the supplies we needed: 1/2″ tubing to make the manifold, 1/2″ figure-8 ends to […]
Read moreThis young Chickadee mugged for the camera in my garden last summer. Here is a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Bringing in the birds. (you can also read my column lower in this post.) It’s about one of my favorite subjects, which is attracting birds to the garden. If you regularly follow this blog and/or […]
Read more
This photo shows the 4 metal trellises attached to the cattle panel. Here is a link to my column about trellises in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Trellises transform look of fence. Or you can read my column below. I hope you’ll enjoy this one because it was a bit of a departure for me. It’s all about a fence […]
Read moreEach year, we gardeners enjoy picking out the flowers and vegetable crops we want to grow. We have fun growing plants from seeds. And we especially enjoy the process of tending our gardens throughout the season. But one thing we often neglect is the soil. It’s just kind of “there” for planting purposes, right? It’s easy to forget that it […]
Read more