I'm glad you found The Westside Gardener! This site is dedicated to all growers who live west of the Cascade Mountains. While the main focus of this site is vegetable gardening, we'll also discuss garden-related "how to" projects, herbs, fruit, and occasionally wander even further afield!
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If this is your first visit, please take a minute to read some notes about this Website that I've put together.
It's pretty miserable out there today, at least around my place. But you know what? This is just about the perfect weather for transplanting my leeks! So yeah, I was out there in the rain this afternoon. I got soaked and muddy, but my leeks are now in their winter bed.
Rain and 70 degrees sure beats rain and 35 degrees...
Disjointed Ramblings: Why I'm still sitting out the e-book revolution
New seedling photographs added: Cilantro, Dill, and Shallot! Also, a couple existing seedling pages have been updated.
From the Mailbag: Can soap be safely used as an insecticide?
If you want to have a winter vegetable garden this year, it's time to get busy! I know it's difficult to think about winter when it's finally just starting to warm up - but that's the way it goes. You might want to look at my Vegetable Garden Timetable and my Winter Vegetable Gardening pages for a start. If you're feeling more ambitious, here are several more articles I've written related to winter gardening.
From the Mailbag: How often do you apply organic fertilizer?
My snap beans, sown June 13, are starting to poke through the soil. Given the continued cool, rainy weather, I wasn't sure they'd germinate - so I covered the bed with a sheet of clear plastic to warm it up (did the same thing for my summer squash, actually). This time of year, though, you have to be careful - if the sun pokes through the clouds for any length of time you can quickly cook your seeds doing this! Fortunately (or unfortunately), this hasn't been an issue at my place this week.
Of course as soon as the seeds start to push through the soil, you don't want the plastic laying on top of them - so as of today both beans and summer squash are under cloches.
Cloches... in late June. Ugh...
By the way - if you haven't sown your beans yet, don't despair. I've planted pole beans as late as July 11 and still gotten a good harvest from them in September.
New article: The Reactionary Gardener
I sowed my winter squash and my cucumbers inside under lights yesterday, using 3.5" square pots. Remember, these cucurbits are touchy about transplanting; so start as many pots as you want plants; thin the pots using scissors rather than pulling the extras out (or trying to transplant them); and most importantly make sure your beds are ready for them without delay! I expect to be moving the squash into my garden by June 5 at the latest - the cukes, being somewhat less vigorous growers, may run a week or so behind that.
Local event: "From Damsels to Demons: The Hidden Art of Netsuke Carving" - Portland Japanese Garden's 2010 Art in the Garden series, June 19 - July 10.
Disjointed Ramblings: An Open Letter to the Seattle Mariners
Older items from the front page can be found in the archives...
All contents © 1997-2007 Travis Saling
This page was last updated
August 7, 2010
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