Share my passion for all things gardening!
My 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, […]
Read moreEvery year I grow a lot of green beans. I usually only grow pole beans (‘Italian Snap’) but am also growing bush beans (‘French filet’ style beans) which have been really productive. I have to admit that I’m a bit of a chicken when it comes to canning low-acid vegetables, which beans are. That’s because of the risk of botulism […]
Read moreThe veggies are ready to go into the oven for tomato sauce! Boy, are we in the middle of tomato-harvesting season and I’ll bet you are, too. We primarily grow paste tomatoes for making sauces and catsup. However, we don’t always have the time or inclination to break out all of the canning gear. Today, I picked our first big […]
Read moreAre you’re wondering how my vegetable garden is coming along? You’ll be pleased to know that my column in The Spokesman-Review today is an update on that very topic. Most everything is growing and producing well, but I’ve had a few frustrating setbacks. Take a look: Good summer for vegetables. Or you can read my column below. The photo above […]
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