I cant help it, I hate Winter.
Just the part right now - when Seattle has seen a big cold snap and we dont know, but can be pretty sure, that there will be another one.....so you just have to sit on your hands. Which is really hard because it's been such a mild Winter up until now that even the plants got confused and got ahead of themsleves a bit.....(I had a maple BLEED on me 2 weeks ago! - if you dont know what that means email me and I'll explain!)....watching the early buds go black is just painful, even my espallier apple tree started to leaf out a tiny bit - it's on the S. side of the house in a very protected spot and for sure thought it was Spring already just a few weeks ago. Sigh.
So what is a gardener to do? Sit on those hands and especially those pruners until Feb. (with the exception of your deciduous trees of course, but it's getting real close to the end of that pruning season so get on it.) The urge to cut back the grasses and the foliage you left up on the perennials is strong, but hold on just a few more weeks! If we do get another cold snap that natural cover is the best thing for the plants.
For the more delicate plants that wont take the cold you should provide a little extra cover, like a pile of leaves. If it gets really cold go out and put a sheet, or hay, or fern fronds, or something to shield those plants each night before the temps drop.....and take them back off the next day when it gets above freezing (if it doesn't go above freezing leave it on for the day) This is a serious commitment but if you want your Gunnera, (for example) to live over the Winter and have those 5 foot leaves next Summer......you have to protect those plants.
(My Gunnera is wrapped in: it's own leaves from the Summer, which I just piled ontop of the plant and did not break off the stems and then fern fronds over the leaves.....then I also created a 'tee-pee' of sticks over the plant which I drape a old down filled sleeping bag for night and day time cold snaps......It's kinda nuts but so far it is still alive in there!)
Think Spring!!
 
 
 
 
 Lawn:

If you have read my earlier posts you know I think you are crazy to still have the big lawn you think needs to look perfectly green all the time! But if you do have a lawn and you were good and watered it sparingly through the hot summer months you are definitely noticing that it is greening up on its own now that some fall rains have started.

The lawn is coming out of it's natural dormancy period right now and that makes it a great time to rake out the thatch from this summer and give it a fertilizing. Fall is the best time to fertilize the lawn and be sure to use organic fertilizer (because we are feeding the soil, not the grass itself) and use the rate described on the bag as a guide, but don't worry about any fancy applicators or the amounts too much, just throw it liberally around and water in well.

Fertilizing the Gardens:
In general a mature garden that is being mulched on a regular basis will not need any supplemental fertilizing- and too much can create unnatural growth that is unhealthy and unsustainable so if things are not as green or lush as you would like them to be try a year of mulching and proper watering before you use any fertilizers. If there is a deficiency in the soil and the plants still look "sick" consult a gardener (ME) to help you diagnose the problem. Throwing fertilizers around usually ends up hurting more than helping. In a new landscape the soil should have been fertilized upon planting and can be gently fertilized the next fall as well - usually two to three "doses" of an organic fertilizer coupled with regular mulching is enough to restart the natural biotic web of food production in the root zone that then will sustain itself with regular mulching.

　
Perennials:
Cutting back the perennials is a standard of fall clean up but it needs to be done at the right time for the best growth for the next year. Remember that the leaves of your daylily or daisy etc. are making food for storage during the winter for the plant and should be left on as long as they are still green. Cutting back the whole plant after it is done flowering robs the plant of this important food gathering time so wait until they die back on their own or the first frost browns them. You can of course leave the foliage on the plant until Spring as the dead foliage is the plants natural protector from cold - but some find it unsightly and it can create a habitat for slugs and other critters to live over winter - so better to cut it back when it is ready and then mulch for a cleaned up garden look.

Leaves:
Once all the leaves have come down you can either use them for mulch thru the winter or compost them. Be sure to rake them off of the tops of plants and shake them off of the shrubs. To use as mulch spread the leaves to a depth of no more than 2-3 inches on the bare soil areas of your garden. Leaves do an excellent job of protecting your soil from harsh winter rains and protects the shallow root zone of perennials and bulbs. But don't smother your perennials with leaves, rather just apply them as mulch right up to the perennials base. In severe cold weather save a pile of leaves in a compost heap that you can place on top of perennials during cold snaps and take them off when the worst has passed. In the Spring when the first bulbs start to come up rake up all the leaves from the beds and pile them to compost and be dug into the soil when you do any future planting or transplanting.

Pruning:
Lots of people let the garden go in the later summer and then do a bunch of pruning and cutting back of summer growth when they clean up for fall. However Fall is not a good time to prune. There are a small host of plants that can be pruned in the fall but in general you don't want to be doing any big pruning and certainly NO renovation pruning in the Fall. All your Spring or Summer flowering shrubs should have been pruned by now and your deciduous trees and shrubs will be running sap as they start to go dormant for the winter so fall is a very detrimental time to prune those plants. (Maples especially) Wait until winter for the deciduous plants.

If you prune any of your Spring flowering shrubs in fall you will be pruning off where the buds have set up, or will be setting up, for the coming Springs bloom. If you have to make some cuts then just cut what is really in the way - for example; you have a few branches that grew over the phone line this summer and your worried a winter snow on those branches might put undue weight on the lines. Take off as little as possible to relieve the line but don't prune the whole tree right now and only do as few cuts as possible to relieve the immediate problem. Then wait until winter to take any big cuts needed.

Weeding:
Fall is one of the best times of the year to weed, because with weed control it is all about getting out the weeds before they set seed. Summer blooming weeds are full of seeds that are drying on the vine this minute and the next wind or rain scatters them far and wide. So concentrate on getting at the weeds hard core in the fall....and get to any that are in bloom or just about done blooming as soon as you can so they don't scatter seeds. Learning to see when certain trouble weeds bloom and eradicating them before they do is a great tool for seriously diminishing your weed problems.

Plant bulbs:
Wait until Oct., at the earliest, to plant bulbs - especially in a predicted El Nino winter (when it is warmer than normal in the Fall). Bulbs need to be kept chilled until you plant them, in a garage or a shady spot that gets no sun at all, then they should not be put in the ground until the soil temps are constantly low enough to keep the bulbs from warming and thinking it is time to grow.

One good rule of thumb for proper planting depth to follow is to plant the bulb half as deep as the height of the flower that bulb will produce. So a short little 3 inch Crocus should only be planted 1.5 inches deep and a tall 1 foot tulip should be planted 6 inches deep.

Enjoy:
If you have been working on achieving diversity in your garden then you will have a large array of plants that will be putting on their best show this time of year as they change into winter outfits. Colors changes, berries come from summer flowers, seed pods look beautiful with the dew on them and scents all have their best moments in the fall.

Here's a tip for a great tree to plant if you like scents in the garden and gorgeous fall color; The dried fallen leaves of the Katsura tree ( Cercidiphyllum japonicum) smell like cotton candy when shuffled through! I kid you not - and it is strong, not one of those "oh I kinda smell it" smells! The fall leaf color of this tree is also amazing.

 
Native Plantings 05/23/2011
 
 
Native Plantings 05/23/2011
 
Native plantings are the best of all worlds.
Beautiful, extremely low maintenance, economical, water efficient and benefits the environment.
Native plants, once established, require little help to thrive IF properly planned. They will attract native species of bird and butterfly, handle the native weather (like our varying situation here in the Pacific Northwest - drenching rains to a few months of drought ) and require much less prep work since they don't need fluffy beds of worked soil to do well.

For the Pacific Northwest garden, here is a quick list of of native plants for each layer of the garden that are sure to please!

TREES: Acer Circinatum ( Vine Maple) Cornus nuttallii (Pacific Dogwood) Tsuga mertensiana (Mountain Hemlock)

SHRUBS: Cornus stolonifera(Redtwig Dogwood) Gaultheria shallon(Salal) Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon Grape) Ribes sanguineum(Pink Winter Currant) Vaccinium ovatum (Evergreen Huckleberry)

GROUND COVERS: Cornus canadensis(Bunchberry) Fragaria chiloensis (Beach Strawberry) Asarum caudatum (Wild Ginger) Maianthemum dilatatum (False Lily-of-the-Valley)

PERENNIALS, FERNS and GRASSES: Aquilegia formosa (Western Columbine) Blechnum spicant (Deer Fern) Dodecatheon (Shooting Star) Fritillaria camschatcensis (Black Lily) Iris, Pacific Coast (Pacific Coast Iris) Lilium columbianum(Columbian Lily)Smilacina racemosa (False Solomon's Seal) Trillium ovatum (Wake Robin)

Your yard may offer enough diversity in growing conditions to open up the palette of natives you can plant too as well; a hot dry rockery or well drained slope will be the perfect environment for some, while a low damp spot or shady area is perfect for others.

Native plants will thrive with a good start and good care as they establish. Here are a few tips to get you going:

When purchasing container grown plants choose young plants that are not root bound in the pot - a young plant will adapt much more successfully than a large plant or one that is already root bound. As with most plants, and especially with trees, planting when the plant is young is best as they given the chance to adapt to the specific climate of your garden as they mature.
Do check that  your native plants have been harvested in an ethically sound practice. If your source is your gardener you should be sure they are licensed so they are able to get plants from the proper sources. (as in not just going out in to the woods and digging stuff up.......this happens and was actually becoming a problem in some of the local parks)

Water immediately after planting being sure to saturate the soil - this eases the stress of planting and helps to settle the soil around the root ball, ensuring there are no large air pockets under the plant.

Water evenly and steadily the first two summers- don't inundate them with water, but don't let them dry out. During the first two years your natives will be doing mostly root work, growing wide for stability before putting on height and growing deep to search for water.

After two years, assuming they have been planted where the natural conditions suit them, native plants usually don't need any supplemental watering in the summer.

In general native plants need no fertilizer - and in some cases applying fertilizer may cause unnatural bursts of growth resulting in weak, poorly matured plants.

Mulching is good, BUT make sure the mulch is not piled up around the base of the plant - burying the crown of the root ball under too much mulch can result in crown rot.


 
Spring Pruning 05/14/2011
 
 Pruning plants during the correct time of the year for the plants really is crucial for the overall health and beauty of the landscape.
Lots of folks make the mistake of pruning when the timing is good for them, which is usually in the Summer when it feels nice to be out in the garden and in the Fall when all the plants you didn't get to that Summer are overgrown, the yards a mess with the leaves and you just want it all whacked back and cleaned up before the Holidays. 
The problem there is that mid Summer is the right time to prune only a small host of plants in your yard and Fall is about the worst time to prune any softwood shrubs or any  trees......most folks dont want to do any yard work in the Winter or early Spring because it's cold and wet and gross out but Winter is the best time to prune your deciduous trees. Early Spring when it's really raining still and cold? - that's the best time for getting the garden cleaned up and mulched. 

(If that does not sound like times of the year your into working in your garden - but you do want it to be healthy and not rely on chemicals or lots of whirring motors to keep it maintained, maybe just call your local, small time, long with experience, friendly, sometimes a little late and behind the 8 ball but always shows up eventually and works hard landscaper or gardener and have them do the real grunt work - which when done right gives you a whole Summer in the garden with nothing to do but dead head an occasional flower and then just hang out and enjoy. :) Hint Hint.)

Here's a guideline for when to prune:

Puning Early Spring Bloomers
For plants such as azalea, rhododendron, camellia and forsythia, the timing is after their Spring show is over and their bloom are fading fast in the oncoming Summer heat. Pruning them soon after the blooms have completely fallen off is a great way to ensure a good looking plant for the rest of the Summer, and to ensure great flowers the next Spring.
 -You can dead head off the spent flower blooms on rhododendron, azalea and camellia if you want to, but be sure to wait until the blooms are fully dry and pop right off as you can damage new delicate growth really easily if you have to tug on the spent bloom at all to get it to come off - it is not necessary at all to do this for the health of the plant - they dont care, but it does look better when they are picked off.

It's important to think about as you prune these kinds of plants as well as many other softwood plants (which are usually all your shrub type plants) that the flower is produced on the previous seasons growth.
So they should be pruned after flowering to allow new wood to grow and that wood will then have time to produce flower buds for the next flowering season. If you look closely at a camellia branch from new tip back and note where the flowers did bloom, and where the new buds that will bloom next are, you can really get a picture of this process to help you make your decisions on where too cut. Your timing is also important depending on how long your growing season is.

Pruning Evergreens
Late Spring is also the perfect time to prune the "narrow leaved" members of the evergreen family such as pine, spruce and fir. These are the kind of evergreens that create a new upright burst of growth from the tips of their branches in Spring called a "candle". To restrict the size of these plants you simply remove one half to two thirds of the candles as they produce. The candles reach full size with in a few weeks of appearing and should be pruned before they "set" for the year. You can also remove unwanted, broken or dead branches at this time. Timing is important for evergreens because of the timing of their sap runs and you never want to prune when the sap is running on any plant.

Post Pruning

Once the pruning is done, and depending on the weather it is always good to give the plant a big drink of water - think of it as a 'post-operative' necessity. You do not want to fertilize after pruning as this will encourage too much of the wrong kind of growth....wait until the fall to fertilize with a basic organic fertilizer and follow the directions on the package exactly.

Since a lot of these kinds of plants can get very large it is important to have them pruned well for the best health and vigor of the plant, and they will pay you back twofold with their particular brand of beauty!

 
 
You get regular check ups and take your pets to the vet - and if you are a home owner there is one more living thing you are responsible for that needs regular check ups as well and that is your yard and garden.
 

Having a healthy, easily managed, pest free and environmentally friendly garden starts with having a health care plan for you garden. The concept of Plant Health Care (PHC) stems from the environmentally sensitive approach to pest control in the garden called Integrated Pest Management (IPM).


IPM practices are more holistic than the name implies and include all aspects of the garden's health, not just how to kill the bugs the most environmentally friendly way. PHC is the first step to successful IPM techniques being utilized in your own garden. Plant health care is both an attitude and use of techniques in garden maintenance and has been being utilized by professional landscape companies that practice organic only gardening for years. (And as my company is one of them, I can speak from 15 years experience that these techniques do work.)


Turns out bugs are not your worst enemy in the garden; Many folks see things going wrong with a plant in the garden and think bugs first, however most of the time this is not the case. For example at the Plant Diagnostic Laboratory at WSU in Puyallup half the plants submitted for diagnosis were not affected by insect pests or disease organisms but rather were sick due to cultural and environmental factors such as drought stress, winter damage and over watering.

Plant Health Care (PHC) "sees proper culture as the foundation of healthy landscapes and emphasizes working with nature rather than fighting it with a 'Learn Your Ecosystem' approach.

  •   The first step in implementing a PHC system for your yard is to identify and list all of the plants in your yard. Once you know what plants are in your yard and garden you will then be able to research them for their cultural needs, most common pest problems and common environmental problems. While researching you may discover that you have some of the kinds of plants that are the most problem prone and require the most attention. If this task sounds too daunting then contact a local landscape company and ask for a consultation for plant identification.
    Once you know what kind of plants you have you can then identify key problems both biotic (insects, fungi, slugs, deer etc.) and biotic (non-living factors such as weather, irrigation, soil fertility). Key problems are the first things to look for as they are the most likely to be impacting a plants health. ( for example; rhododendrons usually suffer from either root weevils or poor drainage. ) 
     The next step is to study your landscapes ecosystem. Become aware of climatic factors such as minimum temperatures, prevailing winds, seasonal patterns of precipitation and the amount of sun received in different areas of the garden. Knowing the wet spots, hot spots, dry spots etc. will enable you to match the right plants to the different habitats in your yard. Also understand what kind of soils you have in different areas and how they drain - there may be clay in one sunny area and sand in another where it is shady and these very different cultures may be only a back yard apart from each other. This can make a huge difference in what plants will thrive in these very different locations.
    A large part of PHC is to monitor your garden on a regular basis (or hire a professional landscape service that understand PHC to do maintenance for you) Monitoring at least every two weeks during the growing season of Spring - Summer and at least once a month during the Fall - Winter is essential. When out in the garden check for signs of plant distress (wilting leaves, yellowing leaves, die back) and be on the look out for developing pest problems (aphids, chew holes on leaves). Concentrate your monitoring on the key plants that get the key problems to start and you will develop your eye for problems over time as you observe for many seasons.

    Once you know what you have and know what is going on with your ecosystems you will have the knowledge to optimize your plants health.

  •  This begins with smart planting in the first place. If you have found you have a lot of problem plants then the best thing to do in the long run may be to replace them with plants properly suited to the conditions and climate you have to work with. This will also give you an opportunity to create more diversity in the garden, which naturally limits infestations. The addition of Native plants is an excellent choice to create the right diversity in your yard for a sustainable ecosystem.
Once these changes have been made and you have the "right plant in the right place" then you must employ good cultural practices to ensure future health: Improve you soil with mulch and organic matter, pay careful attention to watering and, very importantly, prune only in the correct season for the individual plant.


Once cultural and environmental problems have been minimized then many garden problems are naturally avoided - think of it as preventative medicine! Healthy plants are naturally able to withstand insect and disease damage and small infestations will work them selves out in a healthy ecosystem. If problems do arise then an IPM approach can then be used with great success.

 
 
These days who isn't thinking of eating Locally and Organically?
Cant get any more local than your own patio, deck, garden, driveway, rooftop....be creative and grow some food!

Container Gardening is simply the easiest, cheapest, safest and best way to ensure an actual crop of vegetables you can add to your menu - the satisfaction of a homegrown salad a few times a week is well worth it.

Getting Started: When choosing a place to site your container garden, consider these factors first. Where will the plants get the most hours of full sunlight? Is there a source of water that is close at hand and easy to use? And what kind of vegetables do you want to grow?

Installing Pots: For large and deep rooted plants like tomatoes, pole beans or snap peas you want large deep pots that can take the weight of the plants as they get tall and grow up the stakes these climbing and "vining" types of vegetables need. A big tomato plant can weigh far more than the pot and it's soil when it is fruiting, so be sure to use big pots for the big plants.

Shallow rooted plants, like lettuce, spinach and radish which don't need full sun all day, can be tucked amongst the bigger pots so the bigger plants will provide the desired dappled light in the middle of summer. Any type of container will do from a 5 gallon bucket to a beautiful piece of pottery, but be SURE that there are plenty of drainage holes on the bottom of the pot. Putting the pot up on "feet" is really best for good drainage and is very helpful for keeping the area cleaner (you can hose under the pots). Pot feet can be purchased or can be made from anything that will keep the pot a few inches off the ground and stable, such as bricks, flagstone pieces, or blocks of wood.


Soil and fertilizers: You can grow Organic vegetables by making sure:
A) your container has been fully cleaned and not used for any kind of hazardous material (especially important if it is plastic), B) that you purchase certified organic potting soil for your containers. Potting soil is recommended for container planting as the native soil from your yard is usually too heavy for the fast root work annual vegetables need to do in a very short time.
 C)Fertilizing throughout the growing season is great for getting a bumper crop but an organic fertilizer must be used. There are many to choose from on the market today and following the directions carefully is key to success. For a purely organic harvest purchase organic seeds to start with.


Top 5 Vegetable Plants(for the Pacific Northwest)
 Here in the Pacific Northwest we battle cool temperatures and wet environments - many of the vegetables we would like to grow aren't fond of this! However, heat loving plants, like tomato, basil and peppers, can be grown with great success if the guidelines for soil amounts and sunlight needs are satisfied (and proper watering of course). The top five plants listed here are vegetables we can grow easily here in our cooler, wetter climate.

Lettuce (and all kinds of salad greens) - Our cool weather is perfect for lettuces and they last a lot longer before bolting (going to seed) than they do in many parts of the country. There are many beautiful and amazing lettuces on the market these days - seeds for Heirloom varieties are easily found at garden stores and nurseries and they are very easy to grow. Lettuce can be grown almost all year round in the Pacific Northwest.

Spinach (also Kales and Kohlrabi) - Since it requires the same weather as lettuce, spinach does fabulously here - right up until it gets over 75 degrees and it sets seed. Fortunately with our long cool springs you can stagger plant both spinach and lettuce (set new seeds every two weeks for April-June and then again in August for a fall crop) and won't be out of salad greens for months!

Sugar snap peas  The sugar snap pea is the variety you eat "shell and all" and are a staple in most stir-frys. These cool weather plants need a big container and a set up of stakes to climb on as they reach about 4-5 feet as they start to produce pea pods. They are best to eat when still young and the peas inside are just forming.

Broccoli and Cabbage - Also cooler loving weather plants, Broccoli and Cabbage are planted later in the summer, so they will be ready for harvest as the weather cools down in the fall - the warmth of the summer is when they germinate and grow, and the start of the cooler weather makes them "flower".

Herbs- herbs are the spice of life, and fresh ones can take your dinner to that next level. Pesto lovers of the Pacific Northwest know that you can get a basil to grow in a pot just about anywhere it will get a day's full of sun and heat. But, if you are sun challenged then find and plant the varieties that will be okay with some shade. Herbs are generally sun loving plants, however, chive, oregano, parsley, cilantro and leeks will do fine with some shade during the day.

Special Tip: Drip line irrigation (especially handy for vacation time) should be installed before any soil is put into the containers.

Box of Rain offers vegetable garden install, planting, mentorship......We love vegetable gardeners and are here to help with any stage so if you need a consult or the whole thing just built and planted for you.....give us a holler.

 
Lawns 04/17/2011
 
(So if you think this is going to be about how to get that lawn green and gorgeous for the upcoming Summer you might as well just log off now. :)

 The typical large swath of mono culture we call lawns need to be phased out of our landscapes - the sooner the better.
Here's why:

It's the first kind of dry and kind of sunny Sunday in a LONG time here in the Seattle area and with that comes the inevitable first deafening noises of the lawn mowers and grass trimmers getting brushed off and fired up.
It's Spring - birds are singing everywhere, it's a Sunday and all the peace that is supposed to be a Sunday in America is shattered all afternoon with the sounds of gas guzzling, emissions producing, oil burning lawn mowers and the like.
You cant throw the windows open to let in the fresh Spring air because the baby and the dog are scared by the noise, your huband is having an allergy attack and the smell of your neighbors unmaintained lawn mower emissons are making you sick. It's literally crazy isnt it? Seriously people why do we do this to ourselves? Can you imagine living in a neighborhood where there was no lawn mower noises ever? Just the sounds of birds, kids playing, and the soft swish swish of someone using thier pruners as they cut flowers for the table?

DId you ever stop to wonder why we have lawns anyway?
 I mean besides having a place for the dog to poop, the kids to play the occasional game of football and that perfect lawn party you think your going to have one day?
You gonna say it's because it's a lot easier to maintain than a "garden" or a 'landscape". Run those numbers.....trust me, you would be shocked. You have to use gas and oil - chemicals  - fertilizers - never mind the water bill to maintain a lawn. 
Even if you let it go brown in the Summer like a lot of us do here in Seattle to save water you still have to mow it sometimes!
  A properly planted and managed landscape would need NONE of those things once established .

As far as the football games and lawn parties - the community park has the best football grounds, we already pay our taxes to keep that grass maintained so why not use it? At home a flagstone patio or decks surrounded by garden you just may find is a much more peaceful and private respite for you to relax. Dogs will go when they gotta go - figure a place into your landscape for the dog and instead of grass have wood chips or gravel. Clean permeanble ground cover such as wood chips or gravel will mean less fleas and muddy paws too. And it's your dog or cat that gets all that fertilizer, weed spray, etc. you put on the lawn on it's paws, which it licks off, and spreads all over your floors before it does. So really no lawn is a  win win for the better health for your pets and kids too.

Did you ever wonder where the landscape idea for a lawn came from?
It started around the end of the 17th Century when landowners, aristocracy and gentry, owned enough land that they didnt need all of it for food production or grazing area for livestock.
To keep a long history short; If you were really rich you could show that fact off by having fast amounts of land that were cultivated only as lawn so you could stride about with your friends on it, waving a fan in front of your face and talking about how rich you were. (Think Marie Antoinette saying 'Let them have lawn" instead of cake.....kinda irritating when your starving and the good land is being used as a Lawn.)
 
Our Forefathers eventually got around to implementing this principle too once things had settled down and we didnt need every square inch for farming..........The lawns reach right up to the front door at Monticello.........and then of course with the coming of the great equalizer - the suburbs - the lawn became a standard for all that is good and right, right?  A perfect green lawn became a reflection of who you were and how you took care of your own little castle (good old Dad, sweating it out every weekend) but I am really thinking why bother !? He would rather be doing a million other things and it's just such a sad little left over from a day long past. Time to let go and say yes to backyard wildlife sanctuaries, pollinator habitats, ground water cleaning rain gardens and very low to no maintenance native plantings instead of all that lawn, right?

If you just HAVE to have some lawn then maybe go down to a small patch - 15x15 feet or so -  get a push mower, don't use any stuff on it and let it go dormant in the Summer, which is it's natural time to do so, which will also mean you don't have to water it in the heat of Summer......course it will be all brown and dead then sooooooo.......(why bother?) 

So no......no info here on what to do to get that lawn going for the new season......but if you want some help getting rid of it and coming over to the Force, my email is on the contact page. :) (

 Happy Spring! - There are good deals on ear plugs at the Rite Aid by the way.....

 
First Post! 04/16/2011
 
(A Blog! How Fresh huh?l! Hee Hee!) 

 I will be posting ideas, techniques, thoughts, stories and other realated info you might find helpful on your own path to a greener thumb.
But to start ;  Soap box please....thank you....ahem -

My personal belief is the more gardeners in this country, the better!!! 
You might find that counter intuitive since I do make a living doing garden work for people.....but the big picture is more important to me in the long run. Besides, gardens are ever changing living things and as you know, if you do get your nails dirty, is that it's a job that never ends.

 If you think about it we pretty much ALL used to know how to grow something. Our culture as humans had one of it first major leaps because we  figured out what we could grow to eat which allowed us to set up shop and  stay in the same place. Most of us did just about that until really not that long ago.
 Many of us have a story in our families about Grandma's huge tomatos and her sauce she made from them or Great Grandpa's apple tree........Or maybe the farm they used to own. In just a few generations a huge amount of us have become totally disconnected to the land, our food, where it all comes from and at what cost it gets to our tables.....and even to what is going on with in the boundries of our own small kingdoms, the American back yard.  I really truly want to help.

People say get a job that your passionate about and you'll never work a day in your life. It's true to a certain extent. 
(you may even like it enough you feel like writing about it in your spare time)
 My true passion though is to try to sway more of us to the Force and away from the Dark Side. (No more chemical dumps in  your gardens people, Please!)  

I tell ya, just while writing this first post I have jotted down at least 10 ideas for other topics I would like to share in the future.... Stay tuned.

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