Garden Wisdom Blog — how-to

Grass is used to fill in an awful lot of public spaces. We think of it as the automatic response to revitalizing just about any building or construction site, and since grasses are so darn tough, they seem to thrive just about anywhere. Grass seeds are cheap to produce, and the plants are durable, so it stands to reason that we have come to depend on it this way. But it isn’t much more than that. We like the idea of supplementing unused grassy spaces with wildflowers, but there are some basic principles to understand for the best success. First...

We love the Queen of Green. Since 2009, environmentalist Lindsay Coulter has been blogging as David Suzuki’s Queen of Green on the website of the David Suzuki Foundation. If you want to take practical steps to reduce your carbon footprint, this blog is the place to start your journey. Coulter focuses on practices and products that we use every day, providing very simple green options. Take her Body Care Recipes for Men, for instance. Or her post on Eco-Friendly Car Wax. These are really basic and easy topics, but there are lots of garden related posts as well, on everything...

At West Coast Seeds we are huge fans of school gardens. Nothing beats seeing a class of happy, engaged kids learning about how soil works, and how to grow food from seed. The match seems so natural, and yet school gardens are a relatively recent development. It’s hard to imagine an elementary school without a school garden these days, despite the ever-present challenge of tight budgets. In a way, the garden itself is a classroom. Even Master Gardeners will admit that the learning curve does not end. As much experience as we can accumulate in a lifetime of gardening, there...

It’s already the middle of March, 2017, and spring seems hesitant to start this year. Despite the rain (and melted snow), we know that fairer weather is coming. So we’re building twenty raised beds in between the big red barn and the blue garage. Once filled with organic soil, these will be used by our staff members to grow some food and share some knowledge. While we have some Master Gardeners on staff, and others with years of farming experience, this gives some newer gardeners on the team a chance to get their hands dirty and grow some food on...

Every fall people ask us how to harvest quinoa. These tall plants produce masses of seeds, each seed resulting from the pollination of a single flower in their beautiful inflorescences (flower clusters). When the seeds are fully ripe and ready for harvest, they will fall out of the seed head easily. If part of the seed head is grasped in hand, the hard little seeds should easily dislodge. There will be seasons when cold, wet weather, threatens the harvest. If such weather is looming, simply cut the seed stalks about 15cm (6″) below the start of the seed head, and...