Welcome to the WCS fundraising site. If you are NOT looking to purchase as part of a fundraiser, please click here to visit westcoastseeds.com
Welcome to the WCS fundraising site. If you are NOT looking to purchase as part of a fundraiser, please click here to visit westcoastseeds.com
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Garden Wisdom Blog — category: Garden Resources

List of Edible Flowers

category: Articles and Instructions category: Garden Resources

List of Edible Flowers

Before you venture out to the garden and harvest a bunch of flowers for the dinner table, it’s important to remember that some flowers are poisonous. Make sure you’ve made a positive identification of each variety you’re using. Obviously, you should avoid flowers that may have been sprayed with pesticides or other chemicals, so either grow your own organic flowers, or harvest them from a location you’re sure about. Organic or not, all flowers should be shaken and washed in cold water prior to use, as they may to be homes for insects. Pick your edible flowers in the morning,...

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Suet Feeders: A Gift for the Birds

category: Articles and Instructions category: Garden Resources category: Winter Gardening

Suet Feeders: A Gift for the Birds

Winter is a gift: it’s nature’s down time, a time when many plants go dormant and many animals have a winter’s rest. However, for those animals that are still active, winter can be a challenge. It’s hard to keep up your energy levels when you’re small, wet, and cold. Add food for the birds into your garden plans, and you’ll give the birds a very precious gift: Suet feeders provide fuel to stay warm in the cold winter season. Suet is one way to help out winter birds. It’s animal fat, and it’s an excellent food for woodpeckers, nuthatches, and...

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Garden Planning 101

category: Articles and Instructions category: Garden Resources category: Garden Wisdom category: How to Grow Vegetables category: Organic Growing category: Vegetable Talk harvest how-to

Garden Planning 101

With over 1,100 seed varieties to choose from, finding a clear path to the checkout can feel overwhelming. There are beginner mistakes to be made - as well as ways for seasoned gardeners to bite off more than they can chew. Here are Mark's top ten pointers to consider when planting a new garden.

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Seeds for a Really Early Start

category: Articles and Instructions category: Garden Resources category: Seed Talk

Seeds for a Really Early Start

The weather outdoors is cold and gloomy. Here on the coast it is altogether wet — the ground is sodden and squishy. Elsewhere, the first blankets of snow are falling, and the ground is freezing hard. Only the most spirited of winter gardeners are still making trips to the greenhouse, low tunnels, or raised beds at this time of year. Winter doesn't officially even start until the third week in December, and then it goes on for three solid months. It's not very intuitive to think about starting seeds this early for the coming spring and summer. Yet some plants...

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Flower Arrangement Inspiration

category: Articles and Instructions category: Flower Talk category: Garden Resources flowers garden-wisdom seeds

Flower Arrangement Inspiration

One day this past summer several of us got together to photograph some of the flowers and produce from the trial fields in a more studio setting. Jill, who normally works in customer service, has some professional experience as a florist, and her arrangements were amazing. Several of our team would cut the flowers and herbs (and vegetables!) and bring them into the farm house where Jill would set them up, and I would light and photograph them. We have tagged the most traditional of our cut flowers on this website so they can be filtered as a group. These...

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