EarthBox StartUp
Seattle has rubbish weather for vegetable gardening. It’s grey, it rains frequently, and our sunshine quotient slacks off in spring and autumn. I’m doubly unlucky in that, despite the great feng shui...
View ArticleEarthbox Update – Wk02
From the Hoodathunkit Dept: This just in… To the stunned surprise of many–myself included–my vegetable plants are thriving in their Earthboxes. When I first assembled the boxes, I plunked in the starts...
View ArticleEarthbox Update – Wk06
We’re six weeks into this experiment, and things are continuing well above expectations. Due to our suddenly sunny summer, the plants are thriving. I’m astonished at how much water they take in,...
View ArticleEarthbox Update -Wk 07
Damage report: It was hot and windy over the weekend, and one of the zucchini plants–the one with leaves the size of spinnakers–was partially uprooted. This is a danger of container gardening: the low...
View ArticleWatching Ariadne
I am out on the deck when I find her, hanging by a thread of her own making. She swings from a long silver strand attached to the eaves, the tender breeze pushing her left, then right. Eight legs...
View ArticleEarthbox Update – Wk12
It’s official. This is the spideriest year in all of Seattle history. On the way to the compost pile, I count anywhere from five to (last night’s high count) eight spider webs. The back stairs are a...
View ArticleBlack Earth, Grey Sky
I kneel in the dripping ivy. A trowel in one hand, my other is deep in the soil, searching for the dandelion’s root. The root twists and writhes beneath my fingers, wet and tough, unwilling. The rain...
View ArticleThe Long Conversation: Seasonal Shifts
Late winter is my “difficult” season. Maybe it’s Seasonal Affective Disorder. Maybe it’s the combination of allergies and holiday letdown. This year, it’s also the ongoing can’t-look-away train wreck...
View ArticleVignette 06Dec17
reaching upward pruning shears in hand I straddle the ladder feet on the top rungs head in the bare-branched treetop my breath draws clouds and the low golden sunlight melts the dew into mist I look up...
View ArticleMy Cathedral
My cathedral is made of trees, but it has seen the downslope of my attention.
View ArticleThe Long Eve of the New Year
It is that time of year when I take my slouch hat off its peg, step into my old green Wellies, head out into the garden, and contemplate shallow graves. Last week, heavy winds cracked a twenty-foot...
View ArticleAddio Amico Mio
The Princess Gang rolled into the cul-de-sac on the day Mr. B's plum tree decided to bloom.
View ArticleLosing Touch
For six decades, my feet have touched the earth. This did not seem a consequential ting before.
View ArticleThe Touch of Fire
Most of all, he enjoyed pruning the Japanese maples. They stood beneath the canopy of evergreens–spruce, pine, fir, cedar, cypress–the giants of his garden. The tall conifers took the brunt of the...
View ArticleThe Persistence of Music
Walking my garden paths fingers inspecting leaves snips cutting spent blossoms I hum a tune born four centuries past across continents and seas I wonder if the author as he wove his tapestry of notes...
View ArticleGarden Party
sumac, feathered fronds waving, hear it first autumn’s gentle rapping on the garden gate put on parti-colored togs to greet the arrival nearby maples eavesdrop on the reunion catch half the meaning but...
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