Hip Chick Digs

City chick gets her hands dirty on her urban homestead planting an edible garden, raising backyard chickens, preserving the harvest and working toward a greener future

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Problem Solver: Salal

January 12th, 2010 · 3 Comments

Salal is one of those Northwest natives that I have often heard people talk, but have never been familiar with it myself. In my Plants class this term, we are studying evergreen trees, shrubs and ground covers. We learned all about Salal this week and it is really a fantastic problem-solver in the garden.
The botanical [...]

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Tags: plants · school

Plants Class

October 29th, 2009 · No Comments

No matter what we do for our day job, I think it’s safe to assume we are “plant people”. We get fascinated watching bugs, good or bad, climb through our gardens. Every season brings something breath-taking: crisp spring flowers, wavy summer leaves, brilliant fall colors, and the simple lines of winter branches.
I am currently taking [...]

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Tags: plants · school

Divide and Conquer

November 10th, 2008 · No Comments

It’s been quite rainy here in Portland, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to capitalize on frugality in the garden. This is one of the best times of the year to get something for nothing - or, in other words, dividing perennials. And we all know how I love free!
The upper layers of my [...]

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Tags: food forest · frugal · plants

May Plantings

May 4th, 2008 · No Comments

A big highlight from this weekend was spending the day with my sweet nephew, Evan, on Saturday. Evan, Jay and I all went to check out Renn Fayre, which is an annual student celebration/party that happens every spring on the Reed College campus. The students build crazy tents, sculptures, etc and spend the weekend hanging [...]

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Tags: events · plants · trees

The Fig Tree That Could

June 8th, 2007 · 4 Comments

It all started at the Horse Brass… Jay and I were sitting around a table of friends the other night when his buddy, Blair, offered up his fig tree to us. He was even willing to throw in some bamboo he had thinned out recently as well. The fig tree was great, but he had [...]

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Tags: food forest · gardening · trees