Author: Amy SBG
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Front Yard Makeover — Native Plant Edition: Retaining Wall Building!
Phase 1: Build Retaining wall for vine maple area. Complete! Hoo-yeah. What Project are you Doing? Goal #2 for 2022 was designing a new front yard landscape dedicated to Willamette Valley Native plants. Also managing storm-water and weeds are of paramount concern. Also, it’ll add lots of square footage to “area dedicated to native plants”…
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Weekend Tip: Save the Leaves–and Your Neighbor’s too!
Four ways to use fall leaves to improve the health of your soil and local ecology.
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Weekend Tip – Shopping for New Trees and Shrubs
Let’s go shopping! Fall is a great time for planting trees and shrubs.
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November is Here!
November Garden Calendar 🍂 🫖 It might seem like time to kick back by the fire and sip tea—it is—it so is, but it’s also the perfect time for landscape projects. The soil is soft and workable, and planting in the dormant season gives your new trees and shrubs time to set down roots, connect…
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Weekend Tip: Winterize Your Irrigation System
Now that the rain is here to stay, it’s time to power off and drain your system. Drip systems need to be turned off and drained for winter to prevent damage to the fittings. To do this, open all the valves and slip off the figure 8 end clamps and let the water drain, lifting where necessary…
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Weekend Tip: Cover Crop Time!
Hello Rain! Lovely to see you again. Now that you’re here, I’ll toss around some cover crop that you can get growing for me. Cover crops can feed your soil microbes sugars through their root systems, protect your soil from leaching and erosion, and provide nutrients in the spring when they are composted on the…
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Peppermint Lip Balm
Making your own body products is an excellent way to reduce exposure to toxins, and, TBH, I like them better. I whipped up a batch of lip balm yesterday morning and as my daughters eagerly took a couple tubes, I thought I would share my recipe and tips with you, my friend.
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Six Ways to Water Your Garden & Landscape
Although it sure doesn’t seem like it in the midst of the wettest spring on record, it will stop raining. Now is a great time to get prepared for a lush summer garden and landscape.
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It’s May?
Yeah, really. Despite the exceptionally wet, chilly weather, it really is May. See my May calendar for things to do this month. My cool weather crops are happy—this weather is their jam. Lettuces are giving and giving, herbs are going crazy, peas are reaching upward, carrots are pushing up, beets are a little more hesitant.…
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What to do in April
Wondering what to do in the garden in April? All the things! Well almost. Check out my April calendar to help you get organized. Happy growing, my friends!
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4 Easy Steps for Growing Potatoes🥔
When I asked my oldest daughter what she wanted to grow in her garden this year, she replied, “Potatoes.” She paused or a moment, “And some strawberries, I guess, and catnip for Ollie.”😺 “That’s it?” “Yep.” The one thing I grow that we all love—potatoes. The buttery soft potatoes are wonderful roasted, mashed, steamed or…
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A Dozen Plants for the Lazy Gardener
I am coming to understand what kind of gardener I am. There are the types that lovingly sow seeds in February then care for them until August and in a single week reap a large harvest of tomatoes, basil, onions, egg plant, cucumbers, in one big exciting bonanza. These gardeners will invite friends over for…
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Bed Prep Guide Ready!
Willamette Valley Oregon, Zone 8b Wondering when to get started on your beds? Soon, but we need to wait for a some specific conditions. 🌧 If working outside in the pouring rain doesn’t sound good to you, listen to that! Your garden soil doesn’t want to be worked on when it’s saturated either. It needs…
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Welcome March
Oh March, how happy we are to see you. Thank you so much for coming. Oh, and thank you for bringing the warmer weather and our bird friends back. Are you as ready as I am for spring? Ok, that’s fair… Check out our March calendar to help you prepare for an awesome growing season.
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Seed Starting Guide
Now that you know what you want to plant, and when to plant, let’s cover how to plant. There are two prevailing methods, starting seeds indoors and direct sowing in your beds. This article will take the guess work and get you sowing today!
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2022 Seed Starting Plan
Good Morning! This plan is customized for Second Breakfast Gardens and my hopes for this year. I’ve also added reminders for beginning Slug IPM and bed prep activities. For a full list of things to do, each month is linked to its calendar. USDA Hardiness Zone: 8b Garden Jargon Glossary Annuals: Plants that complete their…
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Slugs
Is there any other five letter word to strike fear and revulsion in to the hearts of gardeners? They are the goblins of the maritime Pacific Northwest. However, they also can be harmless forest dwellers like our banana slug and our native Pacific Sideband Snails are actually slug predators. There’s a lot to think about…
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2022 Goals for SBG
Firstly, I must needs ask, where are our flying cars? And robot maids? I’m sure that by 2022 we were promised such things. I don’t need nor want a gardener though; as I work in the garden, it does its work on me. Goal #1: Upgrade my Basemap I failed to get this done last…
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Leaf Blowers
A startling-yet-not-new-study (2011) done by Edmunds InsideLine.com showed that gas blower (2 stroke and 4 stroke) emissions are incredibly dirty.
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Rainwater Harvesting
Rather than allowing storm-water to runoff your property and carry pollution and garbage into your watershed, lets look at some ways to capture this free resources for use in our homes and gardens.
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Pruning Primer
For my favorite people—that’s you—I have written up a primer on pruning to help you get started with this essential dormant season task. Fruit & Rose Pruning
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7 Common Mistakes Planting Trees
I have to actively work to keep my backyard from becoming a forest. So when I intentionally plant a healthy young tree and it dies or fails to thrive, I tend to take it personally. Then I try to learn from it. Here are the mistakes I have made or seen first hand.
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What to do in October
The October calendar is ready to guide you through storing your fall harvest, collecting seeds, and winterizing your garden. (Save those fall leaves! 🍂🍁)
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Garlic Planting Time!
🍂The leaves are turning —it’s time to get your garlic in the ground.🧄 September through October is ideal, although I have planted in late November with success. Need some instructions or tips? Read: Guide for Growing Garlic in 5 Simple Steps.
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Getting Ready for Winter
Wondering about some good ways to tuck your garden into bed for the winter? Check out my new soil health article Garden Winterization Techniques for best practices and tips.
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Fall is Pretty Much a Second Spring
These past few days I have been harvesting summer crops, tomatillos, onions, beets, makah ozette potatoes, carrots, as well as seeds. In addition I have been removing played out vegetables as well. What do I find myself with? Space! What ever shall I do? Fill it up again! It has been wonderful popping in starts…
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Free Seeds! A Seed Saving Primer
Located conveniently in your backyard. Nothing feels like you’ve leveled up your gardener skills than when you save and sow your own seeds. My reluctance to attempt this was on par with installing a new operating system on my computer. That disappeared as I watched my garden plants do it all by themselves. Tomatoes popped…
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Weekend Tip: Fall Vegetables
(Willamette Valley Zone 8b) Feels weird to think about fall in the middle of another heatwave, but it’s time! If you’re like me, your beds are a huge tangle of feral vegetables and every inch has something growing or shading it. So how are we supposed to sow? Why in pots of course! You can…
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Weekend Garden Tip – Harvesting Garlic
(Willamette Valley Zone – 8b) Around this time of year your garlic should being going dormant. The tops will be mostly brown a few streaks of green. To Harvest: Stop watering for a few days or week and leave in the soil to cure. Lever a trowel under the bulb and pop it out of…
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Mulch Primer
What is mulch? What kind should I use? Which is best? Mulch is such an important benefit to the health of your soil. Read this article for a primer on the different types of mulches, what to use where, and what to avoid.
Second Breakfast Gardens 