The winner of the $40 gift certificate is: Kelly at Creating A Family Home. Congratulations, Kelly! Welcome to the Best of 2011 TGP! Let’s say goodbye to the formal gardening season by linking up your best TGP post (or general gardening post) from 2011- which will automatically enter you in a giveaway for a $40 [...]

Last week I mentioned that this will be our last regular Tuesday Garden Party link up for the season. BUT, stop by next Tuesday, October 18th, for a season-ending extravaganza – a “Best Of 2011″ link up and giveaway for everyone who links!! Be thinking about your best post from the previous gardening season to [...]

For all my Garden Party pals: I’ve decided not to continue the Tuesday Garden Party through the winter like I did last year. Instead, we’ll wrap up the gardening season this week and next and then celebrate the end of another gardening year with a “Best of 2011″ linky party on the 18th, complete with [...]

We’re a smaller group as the season winds down, but I love some of the things I’m seeing! Teri at Plot5E put my pumpkin harvest to shame- my vines have 2 orange and 3 white pumpkins. And lots of withered small ones that never got sufficiently pollinated. The Barnyard linked up with their pear harvest, [...]

Thank you to all who gave me some great recipe ideas for all the peppers that are ripening for me now! My favorite was to make fajitas- we love Mexican and that’s a great way to use a lot of peppers. I’m kinda disappointed in the Sweet Cherry Peppers, though- they are thick with seeds [...]

Oh, the excitement. You probably can’t even handle it. But here it is anyway: My first little ripe sweet peppers. It’s a good thing I grow some of these little peppers- they usually ripen weeks before the big ones so we can get our pepper fix earlier. See those sweet “cherry peppers?” I have one [...]

The tomatoes and corn are finally coming in! I’m roasting my first batch (which is late – I usually get the first batch done in August) of Tomato-Vegetable Sauce and will be able to can the first batch of salsa. I’ve got so many Black Cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes that I’m going to try [...]

I think I’ve mentioned in passing that I started getting some ripe tomatoes the second week of August. They just came on a few at a time for awhile, but last week (which coincided with our first “real” summer warm weather) I harvested quite a few. I think I’ll be able to make a batch [...]

I hope you all know how much I enjoy seeing your gardens and learning from all your experiences each week – this is my most favorite thing about this blog! Even when I’m not able to get to all of the links, I’m always inspired by the ones I do visit. I sure hope you [...]

I’ve been wanting to share with you the front flower beds at our cottage, since they are looking so much nicer than when I shared them with you last April. And now that they are completely covered in newspaper and mulch – both sides at once, which is a big deal around here – I’m [...]

Yep, you read that right- I’ve gotten my first ripe tomatoes and a couple of ripe mini peppers!! And only a couple weeks later than last year, which surprised me after our record-making spring. But before I show you my tomatoes, I want to share with you a harvest picture emailed to me by a [...]

The one thing I’ve learned in almost twenty years of vegetable growing is: There’s always a mystery that is hard to figure out. Always. As in every year. Whether it’s what’s eating the tomatoes or why the broccoli went to seed early. It’s the nature of nature, I guess. So any of you who are [...]

Last April Brian came in from dumping the compost and said he had found a stalk of corn growing in the pile. I said, “Corn doesn’t grow in Oregon in April.” But he insisted it was corn and that it must be able to grow because the compost was so warm. Hmm. I let him [...]

It was another great garden party last week with 53 people participating and lots of great gardens and ideas to look through. You guys are awesome! I visited as many as I could and I’m so impressed with your gardens and their progress. Here are a few of the posts that stood out to me [...]

Isn’t this the most incredible cauliflower? It’s called Romanesco Cauliflower and I found the seeds in the Pintree catalog last winter and thought it would be interesting to grow (Territorial also has the seeds, but they list it as a hybrid broccoli and it’s called Veronica- it seems to be alternately called cauliflower or broccoli, [...]

Things are finally looking like a vegetable garden here at the end of June- it took a while to get going after the second wettest spring in the last 100 years. So for those of you who’ve been basking in summer-like weather for a few months, you’ll have to forgive the tiny corn and beans. [...]

This pitchfork has a story to tell. You see, two weekends ago I was desperately trying to get the corn planted between rain storms. I had one day to prep the beds and then I could plant quickly on Sunday before more rain came (oh by the way…lest you think I complain too much about [...]

I hope everyone got a chance to visit at least some of the fifty-three (!) gardens that linked up last week. There were some fun and inspirational posts- you all are up to incredible things and I’m so glad word is getting out so we can see even more great ideas like these: Debbi from [...]

Really, truly, I don’t mean to just keep throwing sad tales your way, but this is what my four-year-old clematis looks like today after putting out some lush growth, lots of buds, and two blooms: Can you see the leaves and buds? The ones drooping and wilting? The collapsed blooms? No? Well, here’s a closer [...]

Wow- we had the most participants yet for last week’s TGP! It was sure fun to visit all the gardens linked up and see what is happening all over the country (oh, and I did visit all the links, but with 43 blogs linked up, I didn’t have time to comment on all of them…). [...]

I’ve written a lot about growing tomatoes here in the Northwest. We have to start them early from seed, plant them with protection, grow varieties that ripen early, and then pray for warm weather. Even then, we get a year like last year: Cold, wet spring + cool, wet summer = lots of green tomatoes [...]

It was so nice to see all the things that are blooming and growing in your gardens last week- it gives me hope because this is Western Oregon right now: Unseasonably cold. Lots of rain. A day of sun, then back to rain. Night time lows hover around 40 degrees. Gee, just the thing for [...]

I’ve started what I’m calling “The Great Asparagus Experiment of 2011.” It’s an attempt to be able to harvest asparagus more gradually instead of overdosing on it for a few weeks in the spring. Many years ago I read an article in The Oregonian by garden writer Vern Nelson about a way to get a [...]

Almost two years ago to the day, I wrote about my experiences with this plant, warning anyone reading to stay far away from it: Read my initial advice and my experiences with this plant (plus a few more pictures) here. After spending some time during the past few weeks pulling up more of this violet, [...]

Just in case any of you think I’ve got it all together and my yard and gardens look fabulous all the time, I thought I’d share with you a little reality. Welcome to my world: Where the brown, dead hydrangea blossoms from last season hang amidst the new green growth of April. Where visitors see [...]

The rain is pouring down as I type this, so I’m glad I took the opportunity yesterday when it was dry to plant some of the seedlings I had started inside. I had to toss the spinach seedlings, though- I didn’t get them in the ground soon enough and they were already bolting. Spinach is [...]

For this week’s party, I thought I’d share with you what is growing in my garden now- both things I planted in the fall and my first spring plantings, which include: This hardened off container full of early cabbage, spring broccoli, Chinese cabbage, and a few onions I started from seed. I had some really [...]

Today is the last of our winter themes: what are some seasonal recipes you’re eating in March? After today, it’s just a free-for-all about all the cool things happening in our gardens as spring arrives- oh yeah, I’m SO ready for it…how about you? But back to the recipes: March begins our “use up the [...]

Today is all about favorites: perennials, annuals, shrubs, and trees. This is good to talk about now because the beginning of spring (doesn’t that sound wonderful? Never mind the driving rain going on outside…concentrate, concentrate…) is a good time to analyze what is and isn’t working in your garden and to find some great plants [...]

I think the theme for today’s Garden Party was supposed to be “favorite garden views or structures” or some such thing. But since I did take advantage of our snow day last Thursday (school was canceled…) to plant some seeds, the “view” I’m going to share with you all is this: This is good- I [...]

Ah- February is the month we’re in the depths of winter, isn’t it? Cabbage, kale, and cauliflower are seeming kinda old about now for me- how about you? I actually bought sweet peppers a couple times in the last few weeks when the hydroponic ones were on sale. Man, were they sweet! And a few [...]

Ever since reading Steve Solomon’s Growing Vegetables West of The Cascades I’ve had visions of extending the harvest. I even, briefly, flirted with the idea of year-around gardening. But only briefly, as I learned this about myself: I don’t want to be out in the garden when it’s 35 degrees and raining. As much as [...]

OK, I’m going to be honest with you- I spent the first 10 minutes of this post trying to figure out what I meant by the theme “early harvest ideas” that I came up with last fall! In fact, I’ve got half a post written about extending the harvest that I realized is next week’s [...]

Here we are in the deep of the Winter. What are we eating? Come on, ‘fess up- do you buy hothouse tomatoes and peppers? OK, I’ll be the first: yes, I bought a package of grape tomatoes last week. They were only .99 and were organic- how could I pass them up? Oh, and they [...]

In honor of this week’s theme I thought I’d offer up a recap of some of the previous posts I’ve done about starting seeds indoors and what I’m doing different. In my very first post about how I start seeds indoors using inexpensive trays and equipment, I shared all the steps I take when starting [...]