Lasagna gardening (a.k.a. sheet mulching) is a slow composting method that is used to create and maintain planting areas. It is useful during the growing season for controlling weeds and keeping soil healthy, and it is an especially easy way to transition from lawn to garden during the “off-season.” You can lay down raw materials
Composting can be complicated. But it doesn't have to be! The first step in setting up a successful compost system (and the only step we'll cover here) is knowing what you can put in your pile. You might be familiar with some of the no-nos: meat, bones, dairy, fat, and garbage. And you might have
In the Portland metro area, we are lucky. Very lucky, in fact. With the right planning and preparation, we can harvest year-round from our edible gardens. What follow are some of the pieces of information we find most crucial for planning and planting successful fall gardens. First Frost Date The #1 factor in planning your
It might be worth stating, as a start to this blog entry, that we don't view any plant as inherently BAD. Nope, not even weeds! Weeds are just plants doing the work they were programmed to do, in conditions favorable to their survival that we've either actively encouraged or passively allowed to exist. However, in
It's spring! Even as the rain keeps coming down between the sunbreaks, we're starting to see flowers bloom...garlic stretch to the sky...pea shoots unfurl...and weeds start to get a foothold in our overwintered gardens. We did the first spring weeding in our garden a few days ago, and sheet mulched a fenceline border
This Saturday (3/12) from 10 am-12 pm, we're very pleased to be leading a garden tool-sharpening work party at Livingscape Nursery. As a precursor to the event, I thought I'd post a few (well, it's a few more than a few...but skim for what you need) tool care tips. So here they are: Purchasing We
The most basic question when it comes to edible gardening is this: What is an edible garden? Our generic answer is a little too simple: A garden with edible plants, of course! But there’s another key question lurking behind the surface of the first: Edible...for whom? Our answer to that takes us deep into garden
This past Saturday, we were delighted to collaborate with Barbara from the One Stop Sustainability Shop and Glenda from Tomboy Tools to host a sustainable garden tool party. What, you wonder, is a sustainable garden tool? Based on our conversation during the gathering, I can offer the following suggestions for the elements of
At a recent event, we handed out "sprout cards," attached to which was a mixture of seeds (radish, alfalfa, and red clover) that can be grown through the winter indoors as a tasty and incredibly nutritious addition to our diets. These cards were more symbolic than anything else, but we wanted to make sure that
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