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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Grassroots Garden Visit

May 12th, 2010 · 2 Comments

Last week our Plants class visited Grassroots Garden, a local non-profit here in Eugene that grows food for the needy. We did some volunteer work that morning planting carrots in the morning sunshine and learning some interesting things about soil amendments.

The garden itself is humming right now, making my own backyard look a little sleepy. [...]

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Tags: green action · school · seeds · tips · urban farm · vegetables

When to Plant

February 18th, 2010 · 8 Comments

There are a few rule-of-thumb planting dates among the gardening community that we enjoy repeating every year. One is to sow your peas on President’s Day. Another is to plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day. These are general rules though which will not apply to you if you happen to live in sunny southern California [...]

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Tags: gardening · row covers · seeds · tips · vegetables

Season Race

August 5th, 2009 · 2 Comments

The race is on to turn my half barren vegetable plot into a success before the season ends. My transplanted tomatoes and peppers are doing very well. Of the seeds I planted, only about half actually survived. Partly that was probably due to a lack of consistent watering, or perhaps it was just related to [...]

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Tags: seeds · urban farm · vegetables

Vegetable Beds Planted

May 22nd, 2009 · 3 Comments

The raised vegetables beds have been planted periodically since early March. The cold weather spinach and kale went in first and I used thick plastic as row covers to keep them toasty. A few weeks later I added carrots, lettuces, beets and parsnips. The plastic have given all those vegetables a great start and they [...]

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Tags: design · row covers · seeds · vegetables · victory garden

Spring Seedlings

April 7th, 2009 · No Comments

This is only the second year I have tried growing vegetables from seed, and I have a long way to go before I feel like an expert. Things seem to be doing well though for early April. The tomatoes and peppers have a couple sets of real leaves. The brussel sprouts and other cold-weather plants [...]

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Tags: seeds · vegetables