With temperatures rising and both vegetable gardens and landscaped areas hitting their stride, there’s a lot to be done in the garden and it’s easy to fall behind. Not only are there the usual tasks like weeding and deadheading, but some plants are outgrowing their spaces, the daily vegetable harvest is picking up speed, and, […]
Genevieve Schmidt
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The June To-Do List
Though it hardly feels like summer, the half-crazed look of freedom in the eyes of students, college and otherwise, tells a different story. In the garden, the detritus of spring is ready to be cleared away and dead-headed, while summer’s bounty is emerging in the form of early strawberries, artichokes and even a few raspberries. […]
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May To-Do List
Ah, can you feel it? Summer is in the air, with the birds tweeting, plants bursting into bloom and that inexorable itch to get out in the garden and plant something — anything! The intersection of fine weather and a little less rain has me dusting off my hori-hori in anticipation of planting all those […]
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Growin’ Food in the ‘Hood
When you think of growing your own food, chances are the first image that pops into your mind is of raised planting beds with neat rows of squishy little plants that need weeding, water and for you to talk nicely to them every time you pass by. While I can always spare a few words […]
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April To-Do List
The garden is finally showing real signs of spring, with new leaves unfurling from branches and spring bloomers putting on a show. Though the North Coast is still in a drought, in most years April’s notorious showers and warming temperatures make it the perfect month to plant annual flowers and cold-hardy vegetables. The rain also […]
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Using Less Water in the Landscape
Though our recent rains have alleviated some concerns, our brush with drought this winter has many gardeners rethinking water use in the landscape, and rightly so. There are many areas where we waste water or use it frivolously when a minor change could make a big difference. However, cutting off the water to your existing […]
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March To-Do List
The dry weather through much of winter has allowed energetic gardeners to get out and complete most of the obvious gardening tasks, but there’s still plenty to do in March. A few final pruning jobs put the wrap on last year’s growing season, and then we get to look forward by preventing spring weeds, protecting […]
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Take Refuge
With the recent series of storms that are finally reaching our coast, it seems like the ideal opportunity to read all of those delicious gardening magazines and books that have been piling up since last summer, and to take the time to plan both your ornamental and your vegetable gardens for the coming year. Here’s […]
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February Gardening
Though February is usually a cold one, it’s a month filled with hope as we are just starting to see fruit trees, crocus, daffodils and others emerge from dormancy. It’s the perfect time for that primal surge that tells us to wake up and start thinking about the garden again, because there are a few […]
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Those Elusive Winter Blooms
There’s plenty to look at in the winter garden if you attune your eyes to the subtle beauty of peeling bark, colored stems, tufty beige ornamental grasses and upright brown seed heads left over from summer. However, nothing brightens up the garden like a few flowers, and carefully placing some winter-blooming plants around the garden […]
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January Gardening To-Do List
This is certainly the coldest winter I can remember since I’ve been in Humboldt County — so chilly that even plants I think of as being hardy are showing serious damage from frost. Though we have all of January’s usual tasks (pruning, pruning and — oh yeah, pruning!), we should give our plants a little […]
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A Gardener’s Resolutions
After a holiday season of excess, most of us are looking forward to a pleasantly Spartan start to the new year — spending less, exercising more and aiming for a slightly less wicked cookie to vegetable ratio. I love cookies too much to give them up, so I’m differing from the norm by keeping my […]