As The Wheelbarrow Turns-Plantaholicsm-Giving Into the Addiction...

MAY 2017:

As the Wheelbarrow Turns......Ten Best Ways to Recycle A Wheelbarrow

NEwsflash!   Our plantaholicsm is in full swing.   The weather in Western Washington appears to be a full month later than its usual cycle...we are experiencing April weather in May ... so for PAs this means no planting of tomatoes and peppers in the ground until night time temps go above 40 degrees.

I work at a local test nursery and I get to fondle plant material all day.   It makes my addiction less acute and I get super picky.   I pretty much practice permaculture principles and mostly plant edible plants, but occasionally I dabble in landscape plants that are simply delicious.

This past Weekend was the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale, thousands of people showed up to buy organic edible plants of all great kinds...what a hoot...the sale has grown so large you have to pick a time to come in...waves and waves of people!

Northwest weather is fickle these days.  Running cooler at night and a month behind in warmth.  We use hoop houses to protect our seedlings and starts.
We have used plastic milk jugs in the past in a hurry.

http://eartheasy.com/blog/2012/06/how-to-make-an-instant-cloche-to-protect-seedlings/

Lazy (Lasagna Gardening) Or Why I LOVE Patricia Lanza....

About 30 years I was lucky enough to be in Seattle in Wallingford near where my grandmother grew up and meet the Seattle Tilth folks when they were setting up their gardens.  Along with other hippie dips I started on the journey to understand why organic methods are vital to our health and those of the planet.

LAZY GARDENERS LOVE LASAGNA

As a tilth member and volunteer I grew to understand the concepts of "No Till Gardening" As a person who grew up on organic small orchard farms during the 1960's- 1970's I was lucky enough to be around people who exposed me to the ideas of using what was natural and already occurring in the environment. "The No Till" idea started to emerge as we learned about the importance of soil structure and how important it was to plant viability and nutrition. As a "lazy" gardener who wanted to avoid back breaking work like tilling and digging, at first I did not care so much about the concepts of "no Till" related to soil structure and keeping the "organic wholeness" of enivironmental systems within the soil. This has changed has I have witnessed for myself the symbiotic relationship between maintaining soil structure, composting in place and plants. 

LASAGNA GARDENING

However, even if you are not vitally interested in "No Till" organic gardening to understand the mechanism of soil building and other symbiotic relationships, you can as a gardener appreciate the ease of creating a garden quickly and painlessly. My favorite book that exemplifies these concepts is by Patricia Lanza. She wrote one of my favorite books called Lasagna Gardening, because essentially in the no till system you layer the garden amendments like a lasagna.  It is so simple you can create a garden in a few hours.  I have spoken to Patricia and she is a delightful and helpful person.   Her enthusiasm for making gardening simple and virtually toil free is very inspiring!  I have referred so many to this book because it embodies tilth principles with ideas that make you an expert garden with a simple layering method.

Check it out and get back to GOOD.  We would love to hear your opinion and what experimenting you are doing.

Good Gardening!

Sunny!