Nearly anyone you ask will tell you: “Sow carrot seeds directly into the garden. You can’t transplant them.” Nearly anyone, but not everyone. For example, in John Jeavons’ book, How to Grow More Vegetables…, he encourages the reader to plant carrot seed indoors and transplant them outdoors some weeks later. He [...]

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I don’t have the heart to do the big pestilence post that I’d planned, so I’ll just say that if this weather does not shape up soon, I’m going to just jackhammer a hole into the floor of my greenhouse and plan on growing everything in there… under artificial lighting…
I could barely feel my fingers [...]

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Today, I happened across an article about how to make aerated compost tea.  You get a bucket, an air pump, some compost, water… blah blah blah, and pretty soon you’ve got this lovely bucket of disease-preventing, nutrient-rich foliar spray!  That’s awesome, I thought!  I’ll do that!
As is my style, though, I thought I’d do a [...]

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I just created a Yahoo group called “Portland Backyard Farmers” as a sister/brother/estranged-step-cousin group to “Portland Backyard Chickens“.  It seemed like a good idea to have a separate place to share sources, tips, questions, etc. about raising fruits and veggies, pollinators (my personal favorite), and preparing and preserving the goodies.
It’s a big topic, but I [...]

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OK, I decided.  I’m going to go with two routes: drilled through blocks and a big, ol’ piece of PVC stuffed with straws.  Why two?  Erm… cuz… three would be too many!
OK, today I’ll show you how my patented drill-through-rolled-liner (DTRL) idea works.  Last year, I tried a similar thing, but for some odd reason [...]

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