Share my passion for all things gardening!
My husband, Bill, and I just finished building a hoop house in our vegetable garden so we can grow veggies through the fall and winter months. A hoop house is a greenhouse that is covered with plastic rather than glass or polycarbonate panels. The goal was to create a structure that would cover two of our 3’ x 8’ raised […]
Read more‘Peppermint Stick’ chard (read about it and other vegetable varieties below) As promised, here is a report card on how the vegetable varieties I grew in my garden this year performed. Their grades are in parentheses. Artichoke: Green Globe – (A) This variety has more rounded heads and greener foliage. It was less productive and seemed more prone to aphids […]
Read moreIt’s hard to believe that my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review is my last one for this season. Time flies, eh? But not to worry, I’ll be back to writing them again in February. In the meantime, today’s column is a wrap-up of the season so I wanted to provide you with a link to it: Tomatoes, squash gave […]
Read moreIf you’re like me, you’ve probably been scurrying around in your garden lately, trying to pick and preserve as much of the harvest as possible. After all, it’s hard to know how much longer our weather will hold, right? Today, I’ve picked most of our sweet peppers. Preserving peppers can be tricky because, unlike tomatoes that you can turn into […]
Read moreI just posted a video about curing winter squash and pumpkins before storing them on my Facebook page and YouTube channel. One thing you might be wondering about is the ideal conditions for storing them after the curing process.
Read moreDiane and Bruce Moriarty in their productive straw bale garden. I think you are going to love today’s column from The Spokesman-Review! Remember how I wrote a feature story in May about a Spokane Valley couple who were trying straw-bale gardening? Well, that was Bruce and Diane Moriarty. They had 40 straw bales and grew all sorts of veggies in […]
Read moreNow that you’ve watched the video about my pole bean trellis, I wanted to better show you how it’s set up in my garden. As you can see by the above photo, I have 4 arbors that span a 3-foot-wide path between two of my raised beds. Each arbor has spikes that you push down into the soil for stability. […]
Read moreAmaranth ‘Joseph’s Coat’ Here’s a link to my column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Blend of gardening, quilting. This one is all about an upcoming event that I think you’ll enjoy. It’s called “Art in Bloom: Flowers, Fabric and Friends” and it’s a fundraiser for the beautiful Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens on Spokane’s lower South Hill. The event, held on […]
Read moreJoe uses cattle panels to support his tomato plants in his salsa garden. In my column in today’s Spokesman-Review, I’ve written a profile of another local gardener. His name is Joe Hutchinson and he is crazy about tomato salsa. Each year, he grows a lot of tomatoes, onions, peppers and herbs so he and his wife, Donna, can bottle up […]
Read moreLook at these gorgeous Victoria lily pads at Longwood Gardens! Wow. It’s two-fer Sunday! In addition to my garden column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review (see post), I also wrote a travel article about our trip to see the amazing Pennsylvania gardens. Here’s a link to it: A gardener’s vacation. Hope you’ll enjoy the photos that accompany it as […]
Read more