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Posts Tagged ‘gardening’

Earthbox Update – Wk02

Posted in Gardening, tagged , , , on 18 Jun 2013| 6 Comments »

Mahonia after rainFrom the Hoodathunkit Dept: This just in…

To the stunned surprise of many–myself included–my vegetable plants are thriving in their Earthboxes.

When I first assembled the boxes, I plunked in the starts and thought, Damn, they’re small. And they were. From their 4″ pots I took them, each only a couple inches high at most, and put them in the big containers. The zucchini and tomatoes looked especially puny, and I despaired of any measurable success.

Now, it’s been two full weeks. Our weather has been pleasant, but not hot [oh, er, I mean…ahem…it rains here every day, yes…don’t come to Seattle, it’s awful, you’ll hate it] and that little slice of yard gets good sun [yeah, like the sun ever comes out…] for late morning and all afternoon. The sun doesn’t set until after 9PM, here at summer’s solstice, so it’s a good long blast of sunshine. (more…)

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EarthBox StartUp

Posted in Gardening, Seattle, tagged , , , , , , on 03 Jun 2013| 11 Comments »

EarthBoxesSeattle has rubbish weather for vegetable gardening. It’s grey, it rains frequently, and our sunshine quotient slacks off in spring and autumn. I’m doubly unlucky in that, despite the great feng shui of my house, our little plot of land is not suited to farming, urban or otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my back garden. Mature trees, deep shade, covered deck off the second level of the house, it’s like a treehouse for grownups. But it’s not suited for vegetable gardening. I’ve also finally put the front gardens into shape, and now that Three Trunks has been taken down, the roses, the lavender, and other flowers are loving the extra sunlight.

So, where to plant a vegetable garden?

I do have this little triangular slice of land on the house’s north side, but the soil is just plain awful. Our cul-de-sac is situated on what used to be a sloping hillside. The developers took all the topsoil from our side of the street and dumped it all on the opposite side of the street to create a wide, level space to build houses. Unfortunately, this left our front garden with no topsoil. Dig down two inches (literally, two inches) past the struggling sod, and you’ll find hard-pan: a compacted, nearly concretized layer of diatomaceous soil that takes no water and allows no roots.

Solution? Raised bed gardening. Sure, but that’s one hell of a lot of work, especially if either my talents or the bit of land prove unsuitable to the task.

Solution? EarthBoxes. (more…)

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Requiescat in Compost

Posted in Gardening, tagged , , , , , on 27 Mar 2013| 3 Comments »

Gossamer WheelToday, as wide-eyed robins tweedle at the bluing grey of the overcast Seattle dawn, I prepare to say farewell to an old friend.

Nearly twenty years ago, we bought this, our first house. It was a blitzkrieg day, viewing house after house, some empty, some occupied, some small, some large. Our realtor took us all across North-of-Seattle King County as we searched the MLS for a home in our price- and requirement-range. This house, which we dubbed “Three Trunks,” was the third one we saw, and on arrival we knew it was the house we wanted. The rest of the day, viewing 17 more homes, was pretty much just spent confirming that first fact.

We called it “Three Trunks” because in the front garden near the street was a sad old triple-trunked alpine fir. I don’t know why, but for some reason alpine firs were popular in this neighborhood, sometime around the mid-1970s. When we take walks around the borough, we see them here and there. All of them are wretchedly ugly, stressed, and usually unhealthy, primarily because (duh!) Seattle is not an alpine climate.

The alpine fir in our front garden is uglier than most. After we moved in, our neighbors gave us the 4-1-1 on the old thing and let’s put it this way: It bore the scars of war.

(more…)

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Express Delivery

Posted in Gardening, Seattle, tagged , , , , , on 13 Mar 2013| Leave a Comment »

Mahonia after rainThe Pineapple Express.

That’s what we call it, and yesterday, I smelled it coming.

6AM. Dark. Walking between the streetlight pools, heading to the bus stop, the wind picked up. I lifted my head, facing the wind, facing the southwest, and I felt it on my face, felt it warm and moist like a facecloth at the barber shop. I could smell the greenery in it, the lush growth of Hawaii and the tropical waters between. This wind had seen land before, jetting from Oahu to Seattle, bringing us rain and rain and rain.

It blew all day, and today the rain is here. Four to seven inches in the elevations, bringing floodwaters to the rivers, rain to my garden, and warmth to my budding groves.

The Pineapple Express has arrived.

k

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Spring is Near

Posted in Seattle, tagged , , , , , , on 04 Mar 2013| Leave a Comment »

Crocus

First Crocus of Spring

It’s coming. Spring is coming. The geese were right, and spring is coming early after a mild maritime winter. I’m not complaining…I love spring.

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The Drought Breaks

Posted in Gardening, Seattle, tagged , , , , , , , on 10 Sep 2012| 2 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI was torn.

It was 3AM, and I was torn between sleep and listening to an old friend. We hadn’t talked, hadn’t seen each other for 50 days, and for us, that’s a long time. Usually, hardly a week goes by without at least a chat. Sometimes we’ll lose track of the days and, especially in the summer, a month will pass us both, but soon, we always meet up. We might meet on the street, or when I’m out in the gardens, or, like today, I look out the window and realize my friend is out there. (more…)

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In Light, I Dream

Posted in Gardening, tagged , , , , on 11 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »

Last week was trying. The day-job seriously got in the way of my life. A big project I have been building for six weeks went into production. I was up late, shepherding it through deployment, and then I was up early, converting six years of historical data. Pretty standard stuff, except that it all went in flawlessly, performed much better than expected, applied all the edits, and successfully moved everything to where it needed to be.

Then the users showed up and said, “Oh, that’s not what we wanted.” Typical example of a rookie mistake: I gave them what they asked for, not what they wanted.

So, today is a stress management day. It’s early, and the day has yet to grow warm. I’m out on the deck, sipping coffee, listening to the birds call through the trees. Moisture glistens on the leaves, and the slanting rays of morning sun give everything a pristine, contre-jour brilliance. The shadows are long, but welcoming, and even the street sounds are gentled, muffled, as if the modern world has yet to fully awaken.

Here, in my bower of leaves, I dream of distant days where this becomes my every-morning, where spiders spin their nighttime webs to catch the sunrise light, and flowers lift their sleepy, dew-spangled heads in preparation of the day.

In cool sunlight, I dream. And I am refreshed.

k

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