some progress

i've started!! and i am so excited.

my plans have changed a bit and i now have a clear vision of how i want things to look.

there will now be a small rock wall at the top of the hill and an evergreen hedge at the bottom with perennials, ground covers, and herbs in between.
on the top flat part of the hill will be vegetables, soft fruit and more herbs.

this week i started by digging up a few plants and transplanting them elsewhere. but before long my plans changed and i began to dig up everything. i am starting completely over. a clean slate.

we started to break up a concrete walkway where a small flagstone path will go with herbs in between.

my neighbors keep walking by and asking what i am up to now.
i told them to get used to seeing me up front.

the job is a bit messy right now and planting will have to wait a few weeks.
but as much as i like to plant, i love to create spaces.
stay tuned.....

This year's sugar snap trellis

Last year we used the dried okra stalks left in the ground as a natural trellis for the new sugar snaps. That method worked up to a point but then the sugar snaps grew too large for the okra stalks to support them. So this year we are trying something else. With some leftover wire fencing and wooden stakes we built a trellis that looks like my drawing (below). To do this, drive the wooden stakes into the ground and then secure the fencing to the stakes either by wrapping the edge of the fence around the end posts or staple or tie it to the stakes.

Most of the stakes we used are T shaped because we then drape a netting over the entire bed to keep out the birds. The house sparrows around here really like to eat the tender leaves.

There's lots of ways to make a trellis. Do you grow sugar snaps? What trellis method do you like?

morning routine + a tip for small space gardeners

hello! good morning! don't you just love mornings in the garden? i have a little routine around here of eating my morning breakfast (mostly just a bowl of yogurt- waffles are saved for saturdays) with taproot close by & then heading out to the garden.

i always remember my garden boots & jar of scratch for the girls.

the greeting of spring flowers right beside the door lifts my spirits.

i often peek at the radishes, so excited for that one that is just right.

sometimes i harvest greens for our evening meal. arugula is my favorite right now.

& dream of bounties, harvests, hard work & meals to come.
the perfect way to start my day.

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before i go, i want to leave you with a tip. this year, luke & i are planting speckled green lettuce within our broccoli bed. once the lettuce is mature, it will provide a lush mulch underneath the broccoli. lettuce doesn't mind shade, which makes these two great companions. try it out in your small space to grow a little more greens & prevent weeds.

seed starting and spring planting

so, i went ahead and did some early planting (thanks for the encouragement last week!). this weekend was beautiful so i finally sat down and took some inventory of my seed collection, i have a lot! i made a list of everything that i had, and i was only missing a few things that i wanted to plant.

i need (and want!) to do a better job of seed saving this year. it would be great to never have to buy seeds again, wouldn't it? another great way of avoiding seed buying is to swap and share seeds with fellow gardeners. these calendula seeds in my hands were sent to me for my birthday this past year by a dear friend who lives in oakland. it's so fascinating how different they look from the calendula seeds i saved from my own garden last summer (i sent her some of those in return). she didn't tell me the variety, so we'll have to wait and see what they turn out to be. i love that a piece of her will be in my garden this year.

as for what i planted? i can say for sure that it's way too much! but that's okay. last year i was happy to share some of my surplus seedlings and i know i'll be doing the same in a month or so. these seedlings are now taking up three trays under fluorescent lights in my basement. two trays are on heating pads and one (the chard and kale) is not. the lights are timed to stay on for sixteen hours a day. currently, i have plastic covering all of the trays to create a greenhouse effect, but as soon as they start sprouting (which some already are, after only two days!), i'll remove the plastic and bring the lights up a little further (they are suspended on chains from the ceiling so i can adjust the height as the seedlings grow).

i planted:
-silverbeet chard
-kale (dwarf blue curled scotch, lacinato, red russian)
-basil variety
-zinnias (red scarlet, cut and come again)
-amaranth
-tomatoes (cherokee purple, ace bush, yellow pear, sungold, matt's wild cherry)
-peppers (early jalapeno, bull nose bell)
-calendula ("leah's oakland", zeolights)

i also began my outdoor planting of early spring plants, arugula and radishes, but didn't get very far before the weekend was suddenly over (and i was down for the count with a bad cold). i'm hoping to plant some carrots, spinach, and snap peas over the next week.
shari posted some good seed starting links a couple of weeks ago here, here are a couple of my favorites: my post last year detailing my setup, you grow girl's instructions for setting up a diy lighting system, more instructions from you grow girl, another you grow girl list of handy links. i also referenced a few books i have: backyard homestead, and rodale's illustrated encyclopedia of organic gardening.

what are you all starting to plant so far this season?

a work in progress

i am a bit shy to share this post mainly because there is nothing very pretty to show. but i am excited to share with you where i will be spending a lot of my time this season.

when we first bought our home we had big plans to reconfigure the front of our house.
we live in a twin on the corner and have always dreamed of changing the entrance from the front of the house over to the side and converting the front porch into a larger living room. but with all that comes along with a "fixer upper" of a home this large project would have to wait.




with that in mind we found ourselves working from the back of the house first (putting on a back porch, building a patio, creating garden spaces, building rock walls, etc).
we now use the back door as our main entrance and the back of our home has essentially become the front and unfortunately the front has been a bit neglected and forgotten. i found myself not wanting to put too much energy into it since i knew we had big plans that would involve major construction and demolition.

but here we are 13 years later and that has not happened yet. i know one day it will but for now i have decided to give my front a little tlc and have claimed this year to be the year of the front garden!
there is no reason why i cannot be working on part of the garden space. and the beauty of the front of our home is that it is where we get the most sun.

i started this week by transplanting some currants, gooseberry and blueberries from the side where they just weren't producing much at all to the front where i think they will be much happier.

i plan to begin another rock wall in the front to help retain the large slope. i envision the hillside with culinary and medicinal herbs, strawberries, annual vegetables,and succulents.

it's kind of exciting to have a brand new space to fill with plants. even though it will take a bit of time before i truly love how the front looks i know that we need to start somewhere.
i confess that i planned this post mainly to help me to focus on an eyesore of a space that i have been ignoring. i look forward to sharing with you my progress.

We are thrilled to welcome Abby Meadow as a guest this week at Tend.
. . . . . . . .

While tending plants has always been an enjoyable part of Abby's life, it wasn't until she and her partner settled into a home of their own that she fully delved into the world of growing food. On the temperate Oregon Coast, Abby enjoys organic gardening throughout the year, in the small garden plot that she and her partner created from a patch of weedy grass. A lot of other patches of grass have also been transformed, as the pair works to make their property a place full of edibles, medicinals and native plants; and a safe and healthy home to the many bees, birds and deer that share their space.











Just a little over a week ago, I was giddy with the energy that comes with those first soft, warm, spring-like days. I started cleaning up the garden and planting seeds, and was feeling so excited. It was so warm that I was even wearing shorts while doing so! I was sure it was time! And then... the impossible happened. The central coast of Oregon had a freak snow storm! We almost never have snow here, this close to sea level. Our garden, and every other green thing was flattened with a very wet and very heavy blanket of white.

Everything has bounced back pretty well, with just a few breakages, but it is quite cold out still. So, this past week I have had some time to *think* about gardening, in lieu of actually *doing* any real gardening. Our garden is 2 years old this year. It has come a long way from the grass patch it once was. In these last couple years we have learned a lot about growing food in our climate. I thought I would share a few of the things I have learned in the past couple years here.

- Always plant extra starts, and keep some aside, even after transplanting as much as you want in the garden. Spring can be fickle and slugs and bugs are hungry! You can always give away the extras. We lost whole plantings to slugs and root maggots last year.
- Consider the winter months when planting. We live in zone 8b and can grow certain things year round, but we have done best to have those plants already well established by August.
- Compost, compost, compost. Our soil is benefiting hugely from every bit of organic matter that we add.
- Create micro-climates! We have a lot of wind in the summer. Creating a wind block and/or placing a stone on the north side of a plant, can make all the difference in generating the extra warmth a young plant needs to get a strong start. Growing taller plants on the south side of those that appreciate some afternoon shade is another example.
- When planting perennials, don't forget about crop rotation of the annuals they might share space with.
- In a small space, grow up! There are so many plants that can be trellised up instead of left to sprawl. This year we will grow a lot more cucumbers and squash with this simple idea in mind.
- Tomato plants are heavy and they get big fast. This might seem like a no-brainer, but I didn't stake soon enough or strong enough last year and struggled with it all summer as a result.
- Interplant. Some plants are more susceptible to disease and pests, and as we know, other plants can help repel some of these offenders. But in addition to this, if you have a loss of a certain plant (for example, our crazy root maggot problem last year, that seemed to only affect radishes and broccoli), you will not be left with an empty bed.

Are there certain lessons you have learned, that stand out in your own gardening experience? I'd love to hear some! What might seem like the simplest thing to one, can be overlooked by another.

early planting?

welcome to the earliest minnesota spring on record! i'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it's only mid-march and yet it's been hitting almost eighty degrees and sunny for over a week now. apparently my garden is also confused. the bees are out and buzzing, and many things are blooming and sprouting already...lilac, st. john's wort, yarrow, lavender, borage, chives, oregano, rhubarb...

i'm trying to figure out if i should go ahead and start planting some early crops like peas and greens. normally a freak warm day or two in march would definitely get me excited but i know it's still way too early to plant. but this year is different. they're not predicting any more snow or really cold temps. it will probably get down to the thirties again, but maybe not even a frost. there's some chatter on my local community gardening list-serv about whether it's too early to plant this year, most folks are suggesting to go ahead and try it (why not?!). what i'm really wondering about is whether or not i should be starting my seeds indoors now, i had planned to wait another three weeks or so (planting around april 8 or so, which is about what i did last year), but now i'm all freaked out that i'll be way behind if i wait that long!

either way, it's pretty exciting to see all the sprouting and blooming!

how are you dealing with your early spring (if you're having one)? are you planting already, or holding off?