In late fall and winter, you may start to notice a lack of anything looking alive in your landscape. The trees lose their leaves and there’s nothing left behind but a skeleton of plantings. That is when you know you need more “evergreen structure” – something to give life to your garden year round. Here is a plant that may just solve multiple problems for
Garden of Plenty
We visited our house in Portland this past weekend, which we are renting out while I finish my grad program. We planned on spending all day there working on weeding and pruning. The garden is in such beautiful shape though that we spent the morning doing light pruning and admiring what a healthy, lush garden it has become. It’s amazing how a few years of
Problem Solver: Evergreen Huckleberry
Planning and planting typically keeps my mind on the garden even in winter. As I have learned, it can take years and years for a garden to really come into it’s own. The process I chose for my home garden was drawing out a planting plan for the trees, large shrubs and structures. As time went on, I have begun to fill in little bare
Making Good Garden Soil
A garden is only going to be as good as its soil quality, which is why we gardeners are obsessed with building better soil. Many of us are not blessed with perfect soil where we have planted our gardens. We also do not have the luxury of an endless gardening budget, allowing us to bring in fine garden loam by the dump truck load. And
Back Home
I spent a recent morning working in my garden back at our house in Portland, which we are renting out while I am in Eugene going through grad school. Summer is long gone and I wanted to check in on the permanent plantings. It was a mixed experience. It felt good to be back home, even though it’s not my home right now. The familiar
Intro to Beekeeping: Part III
The first post in this series covered the roles of different bees in the colony. The second post in this series talked about reproduction, swarming and environmental needs of a colony. This final post will focus on equipment needed to start keeping bees in the city and potential disease. Glen Andresen advised that a love of nature and a love of puttering is a good
Intro to Beekeeping: Part II
This is part two of a three part series on the beekeeping workshop I attended recently. Reproduction: It was interesting to learn that it is up to the female worker bees to determine when it is time to hatch a new queen bee, more worker bees, or drone bees. The worker bees are the ones who prepare the cells (areas in the comb where eggs
Intro to Beekeeping: Part I
Last summer I was introduced to Glen Andresen, a local bee-keeper, at the Lents Farmers Market. He gave a short overview of bee-keeping and I signed up to receive notices about future workshops he typically hosts in the Spring. I was lucky to snag a spot in one of his recent “Intro to Beekeeping” workshops in Portland a couple weeks ago, which eventually sold out.
Certified National Wildlife Habitat
Our urban homestead is now a certified wildlife habitat thanks to the National Wildlife Federation (and a small fee). There is a house in our neighborhood with a metal plaque on one of their large trees stating they are certified, which is what originally piqued my interest. A couple months later, the fine folks over at GardenPunks wrote a great blog post about their certification
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