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Every year, I write garden columns for The Spokesman-Review from February to October. I’m happy to report that my first column of the 2015 garden season, which is about soil care, has run in today’s edition of the paper. Here is a link to it: Time to dig deep. (or you can read my column lower in this post.) In it, […]
Read moreI’m sure all of you are anxious to begin seed-starting and plant your veggie seeds. That way, you can get the 2015 garden season under way! I completely understand, but correct timing is critical so you don’t end up with leggy, root-bound seedlings. Susan’s growing season I live in Spokane, Wash., which is in USDA zone 5 (or 6, depending […]
Read moreI wanted to let you know about a few modifications we’ve made to our hoop house. My husband, Bill, and I felt it needed to be a bit more “buttoned-up” for the winter. Here’s what we’ve done: 1) We purchased a 4-inch-wide roll of greenhouse repair tape from FarmTek. We built the front and back walls of the hoop house […]
Read moreMy husband, Bill, and I just finished building a hoop house in our vegetable garden. Our goal is to grow veggies through the fall and winter months. A hoop house is a greenhouse that is covered with plastic rather than glass or polycarbonate panels. We wanted to create a structure that would cover two of our 3’ x 8’ raised […]
Read moreIt’s hard to believe that my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review is my last one for this season. Time flies, eh? But not to worry, I’ll be back to writing them again in February. In the meantime, today’s column is a wrap-up of the season so I wanted to provide you with a link to it: Tomatoes, squash gave […]
Read moreIf you’re like me, you’ve probably been scurrying around in your garden lately, trying to pick and preserve as much of the harvest as possible. After all, it’s hard to know how much longer our weather will hold, right? Today, I’ve picked most of our sweet peppers. Preserving peppers can be tricky because, unlike tomatoes that you can turn into […]
Read moreI just posted a video about curing winter squash and pumpkins before storing them on my Facebook page and YouTube channel. One thing you might be wondering about is the ideal conditions for storing them after the curing process.
Read moreDiane and Bruce Moriarty in their productive straw bale garden. I think you are going to love today’s column from The Spokesman-Review! Remember how I wrote a feature story in May about a Spokane Valley couple who were trying straw-bale gardening? Well, that was Bruce and Diane Moriarty. They had 40 straw bales and grew all sorts of veggies in […]
Read moreHave you watched the video about my pole bean trellis? I wanted to better show you how it’s set up in my garden. As you can see by the above photo, I have 4 arbors. They span a 3-foot-wide path between two of my raised beds. Each arbor has spikes that you push down into the soil for stability. If […]
Read moreJoe uses cattle panels to support his tomato plants in his salsa garden. In my column in today’s Spokesman-Review, I’ve written a profile of local gardener. His name is Joe Hutchinson and he is crazy about tomato salsa. Each year, he grows a lot of tomatoes, onions, peppers and herbs in his salsa garden. That way, he and his wife, […]
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