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Garden Activities

Pruning fruit trees - but staying inside while the white stuff comes down!

Taking a break over the holidays!

Raking up leaves around the trees - no use letting them go to waste on the grass!

Planting a few extra garlic cloves in pots. They make nice gifts!

What’s Happenin’ in the Kitchen?

Kale, kale, and more kale! Combined with garlic, of course! With chicken, cauliflower, over pasta, in stir-fries…you name it. Kale rules!

Homemade bone-broth soup with ham, beans, carrots, onions, kale - a chilly day - perfect for hot soup!

More dried apples & gingerbread w/molasses & fresh chopped ginger - yum!

Pumpkin custard with whipped raw cream…yum! Thank you Dungeness Valley Creamery!

Homegrown potato-leek soup w/shallots :P I Love soup weather!

MORE dog biscuits! "Woof!"

Drying apples

What I’m Reading

Creating a Forest Garden - $49.95
Retail Price: $59.95
(You Save: $10.00)
from: Chelsea Green Publishing
An amazing book! Click the link above to buy from Chelsea Green - or go to the Bookstore for a quick link to Amazon.

Chelsea Green Publishing

Chelsea Green Publishing - the leading publisher of sustainable living books since 1985.

Weather – What’s Going On Out There?

Snow is almost gone - the wind and rain have chased it out of here! Hold on to your hats! Surf is UP. Most definitely.

For the Love of Kale (and Garlic and Cauliflower)

What’s to salvage out of a garden hammered by winter storms? Italian Lacinato (or Tuscan) Kale stands strong! Here’s a great recipe for Chicken-Kale-Cauliflower casserole (with a fair amount of garlic, of course!)

How to Prune an Old Apple Tree

Got pruning phobia? Never fear. This 5-step approach to fruit tree pruning will help you get those old apple trees back into shape in no time! (Well, maybe in a few years, anyway.)

What to Do with a Phat Jack

Did you grow a giant pumpkin this year and are now wondering what to do with it? We’ve got some ideas…

A Memorial Garden Sanctuary

We planted my mother with the dogs in the pet cemetery. It’s true. She would have wanted it that way, right next to her best friend, little Lambchop. It’s not as bad as it sounds. The cemetery, which we affectionately call “Boot Hill,” sits on a little knoll with a view of the Olympic Mountains, [...]

Permaculture: What is it? How do you do it? And how do you save the world?

If you’re looking for a really good book on permaculture, check out Toby Hemenway’s “Gaia’s Garden, A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture,” second edition. This book was life-changing for me – and could be for the world, if we would only apply it.

Square Foot Gardening and Getting a Grip on What You Really Need

Want to grow more food in less space with less effort? The “All New Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew has the approach you might be looking for. With gas headed skyward, putting away the tiller and growing what you need makes a lot of sense. 100% of the harvest at 50% of the costs, 20% of the space, 10% of the water, 5% of the seeds, and 2% of the work – that makes it a no-brainer.

Garden Planning Season

Blame it on Seasonal Affective Disorder if you wish, but this is the time of year when many of us otherwise-very-reasonable people succumb to buying seeds for things we know we don’t have room for or can’t possibly grow in our zones. We need to get real. A strategy. A garden PLAN. I’ve been reading a lot of books this winter and am passing on some cool ideas – obviously, not my own. This post is an introduction.

Garlic Under Snow

Snowstorm in the PNW! The garlic is under a blanket. Here’s a good recipe for a simple high-energy food mix for the birds.

Garlic is UP! and Much about Mulch

Garlic is up and growing strong! This year, we did not apply mulch to the garlic beds. Mulch is the new mantra for a lot of people – we say, that depends…

Garden Planning 2011: Some Successes from 2010

Time to plan this year’s garden! In this post, I share a bunch of pictures of plants I grew from Renee’s Garden Seeds – things like poppies, morning glory, larkspur, yellow pole beans, beets, kohlrabi, and more. These will definitely be on my “grow again” list.