What does gardening have to do with being more environmentally friendly? Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just beginning, I’m here to encourage everyone to start or expand their edible landscaping this year. Maybe it will come as a decision of economics or to fulfill as desire to live more lightly on the planet. Maybe […]
Down and Dirty
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To Till or No-till?
Whether you have a flower pot on a windowsill or your whole yard turned garden wonderland, growing flowers and vegetables is easy. Plants want to grow. But when starting a garden of any size, like when you start any new project, there are choices to be made. One of these choices is how to prepare […]
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Copy Nature and Grow a Thriving Kitchen Garden
The secret to growing a thriving kitchen garden is to follow nature. A quick look at any healthy, living system reveals a clamor of diversity: plants of different kinds keeping company while a mix of good bugs and bad ones busy themselves with the routine of daily living. You’ll also find a variety of birds […]
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Tales from the Underground
The soil at my new place is marginal but well drained and it hasn’t been gardened in a few years, so the weeds are pretty intense. A season’s worth of root vegetables will condition the garden for spring planting. It’s a formula I’ve used many times: Dig up the lawn and plant potatoes, beets, turnips […]
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Hashtag, Bumper Crop
For the first five or so years that I was a gardener, I never planted anything in August. It just seems so crazy! It’s too hot, how would anything grow? And I don’t even really want to be out there right now. But it doesn’t take so long to plant some seeds, and if you […]
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Going Wild in the Garden
Interested in attracting more birds, bees, and butterflies to your garden? Pete Haggard, a local expert on insects and co-author, with his wife Judy, of Insects of the Pacific Northwest, has compiled a list of the best local native plants for wildlife. Here are his top 10 picks. Red Alder This fast-growing, deciduous tree commonly […]
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Turning the Page on Native Plants
If you’ve been wanting to learn more about native plants, here are reviews of seven of my favorite books on the subject (all available in the Humboldt County Library). Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants (2009): If you only read one of the books in this column, choose this one […]
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Plotting Out Your Garden: Part 2
Last month we talked about the importance of planning out a garden design on paper to create a beautiful space that is easier to maintain, more abundant and, at the end of the day, better connected to the surrounding environment. We left off by working through the first half of a step-by-step system I developed […]
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The Function of Design
In previous columns, I’ve addressed sustainability issues in landscape design. Here I’d like to focus on several functional issues. Welcoming Entries It’s a good idea to provide a gracious way for your guests to approach your house. Stepping stone walkways are picturesque, but save them for less-traveled portions of the landscape. A front walkway surface […]
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Think Outside the Garden Box
Whether we realize it or not, all of us are designers. And all design is ecological design in that it either hurts or helps nature, regardless of the intent. As gardeners, whether forging paths, building beds or pruning trees, we are always designing. Every choice we make affects the whole and when we become conscious […]
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Greening the Garden
My column last month focused on how sustainable landscaping promotes biodiversity. Following are several other important components of sustainable landscaping. Conserve water In this era of water shortages, a sustainable landscape is a water-wise landscape. Here on the North Coast we have been spared the worst of the concerns about drought, but the ever-rising cost […]
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Sowing Seeds of Sustainability
I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do in this weather is go outside and muck around in the garden. I thought about writing an article entitled, “Things You Can Do in the Garden During a Torrential Downpour,” but yeah … no thanks! Instead, let’s explore some of the best […]