Bee balm, what a queen you are! Planted as wee baby seeds last year and now towering over my head.

Resist, resist, resist the urge to plant a tree or large shrub directly in front of a window. They will eat your house and all the light trying to get in. This laurel isn’t great ecologically or practically and will be replaced with something suitable. #landscaping #landscapedesign #gardening

2nd year blueberries. Good pruning, low pH soil, NO nitrate-form fertilizer, plenty of wood chips (NO compost), nutrients, and just enough water results in amazing berries. #blueberries #gardening #horticulture #summer #pnwlife

The peas grew. 😳 Last year, I had big issues with nitrogen tie-up with newly established no-dig beds. This year, I added two new beds but only planted them with peas and beans. I made sure they had plenty of micronutrients and let them take care of themselves. They did. #gardening #vegetables #nodig

Say what you will about the lack of rain, it’s been the best berry season of my life. More perfect strawberries coming out of a 4X8 bed than I thought possible. Fresh, jam, freeze dried, in crisps, giving them away…can’t keep up! #gardening #berries #pnwlife

For me, most ornamentals need a stacking function such as ecological or medicinal value. Last time I checked, out of the David Austin Roses collection, only six are listed as able to produce hips. Here are The Lark Ascending and Tottering By Gently. I’m in love. #roses #davidaustinroses

If you struggle repeatedly with growing something, stop and try a really vigorous hybrid. I have been struggling with OP cabbage for a couple years now. Switched to a hybrid and had no problems. 'Tiara' from Territorial Seed is just lovely. (1/2) #gardening #horticulture #cabbage #springgarden

When you turn your irrigation on this spring, check everything, let it run a bit, and check it again. I turned mine on for the first time this spring, checked everything, and had parts spring free after about 20 min. Better now than if I am off-property mid-summer. #gardening #irrigation

A mountain of the last of the winter greens to be steamed, cooled, chopped, and put in the freezer. Eating kale for 6+ months is enough. If I don't harvest another kale leaf until mid-October or later, it'll be OK. #gardening #wintergarden #fallgarden #preserving

Overwintering leeks, rockstars. Other than a bag of storage onions bought off a market gardener friend, coming up on a year of not having to buy anything in the onion family. #wintergarden #hugelkultur #vegetables #resilience

The biggest challenge in a hugelkultur bed is weeds. If you don’t want to weed, don’t build one Whatever seed bank was in the soil you built it with, those are your weeds. Mine are thistle. Pernicious weeds and any running grasses HAVE to go. (1/2) #hugelkultur #permaculture

Hugelkultur garlic. Third year of saved seed. Every year, I worry about it. I worry I won’t have a crop Every year, it’s better than the last. I fertilize in early spring and May, keep it weeded, and harvest. 🧄 🧄🧄🧄🧄 #hugelkultur #gardening #permaculture #drygardening

It's the first year I have enough garden space that I can get all my plants in and let the brassicas just go and go. They are taller than me and abuzz with both insects and birds. Having started balcony gardening on Capitol Hill, the space is a privilege, no doubt. #pollinators #bees #permaculture

I grew up in a community with an intact watershed. Beaver dams, five species of salmon, moose splashing around, birds diving. Over time, I’ve realized a) how unusual that is and b) how much more unusual it should be to break one up. #alaska #watersheds

Spring garden, Year 2. At our last home we were on a shared well. The way it was set up, running drip line could burn out the pump. Using larger volumes of water at a time also wasn't an option. I was always on the back foot getting perennials going. (1/2) #irrigation #perennials #gardening

Sad crabapple Fermented Plant Juice results. Over the last year, I've really upped my micronutrient game. In theory, my plants should already have access to everything they need to thrive. While my brain would love to say they look crazy strong following a first spray, it's hard to know why. (1/?)

Hugelkultur purple sprouting broccoli taking off. This experiment only went OK. If you're in a climate with reliable late-summer and fall rains, this would be a slam dunk. In our mediterranean climate, it just wasn't worth the work. (1/2) #hugelkultur #permaculture #gardening #pnw #fallgarden

After a week of really trying wind and rain, I think we have rounded the bend into true early spring. #gardening #permaculture #pnw #pnwlife

Spring greens on a dark rainy morning. Celebrating a year of having an unbroken stream of food coming in from the garden. Something shifts when the garden becomes the grocery store. Priorities. Health. Time spent. Seasons. What a year means. It's good. #gardening #permaculture #spring

Cold night with a frost. Pulled the row cover off the potatoes in the hot bed and found this fella quite content in the double-layered frog sauna. . #gardening #ecologicalgardening #permaculture #wildlife

Fermented Plant Juice, finished and strained! Full credit to Korean Natural Farming, this is incredibly straightforward. Still importing the brown sugar but it is a major step forward into producing my own fertilizer. (1/2) #koreannaturalfarming #knf #permaculture

I don't like lawns but I do love this. We put in a bee-friendly no-mow lawn at our new house. It's a blend of tall grasses that swoop over, short grasses that block weeds, and clover for the bees. It also infiltrates water like a sponge. #ecologicaldesign #gardening #landscaping #permaculture

Piles of kale raab and purple sprouting broccoli require a little creativity. Borrowing from a Mexican preparation of huazontles, I roasted the kale raab and then made a casserole with it, salsa, and sliced panela. Piled into tortillas for a good dinner. #gardening #wintergarden

The wind rose for today. The NWS scared all of us over a teeny thunderstorm the other night and then completely dropped the ball on an actually-damaging east wind warning today. Ironically, I was out installing the first part of a windbreak when it got too windy to work.....

Farewell, Amazon Prime. I will still buy books for my Kindle because I like buying books but just can't own that many hardcopies. I'm not embarrassed about having appreciated the genuine convenience but am sad about the consequences. Time for new skills. #amazon #badhabits

Fermented Plant Juice, Day 2. Much more pleasant than it looks! The liquid smells and looks like a grassy maple syrup. It's just like making sauerkraut but with sugar instead of salt. If I had know it was this easy, I would have done it years ago. #permaculture #gardening #soil #regenerative

Trying a ferment from Nigel Palmer’s book on homemade amendments. This is a blend of dandelion, nettles, cleavers, plantain, and brown sugar. After fermenting, it’s applied at extremely low concentrations. I would love to be able to cut down on my imported nutrients. #permaculture #gardening

When you’ve got a year’s supply of overwintering onions and a whacko hail storm approaching, you quickly remember you are the queen of janky stuff. You can take my kale and sprouting broccoli but you can’t take my onions. #gardening

So you've grown your first cover crop in a raised bed. What next? I see this question a lot. It's easy! Just dig them up like weeds and gently turn them back into the soil. #covercrops #raisedbeds #gardening #permaculture #soilfertility www.horticultureystuff.com/post/what-to...

The health of my early spring plants has taken a big step forward this year. I made my own compost-biochar-fertilizer mix and let it sit under cover over the winter. A light application of this seems to be supercharging the plants. www.horticultureystuff.com/post/chargin... #biochar #permaculture

A good morning here in the PNW.

It's pouring so I wrote a thing about how to super easy know where all that water goes (when your ground is kind of flat and it's not 100% super obvious). Also, how to not kill trees with all the water. (Which I have done. Not lately, tho.) #permaculture #seasonalflooding #gardening #landscapedesign

Micro-silvohorticulture: Adding columnar apples to a main garden bed.Last year was the first year I could grow fruiting shrubs inside an electric fence and it was just stupid how they could actually grow when the deer and elk couldn't strip them clean. 1/2 #permaculture #gardening

Old owner planted a doug fir 5' off the road. Way too big for the space and had to go. Replaced it with a Norway spruce 'Cupressina' that will grow into the beauty on the right. Miss that tree from our last house! A blend of native and specimen trees to come. 1/2 #gardening #landscaping #trees

Growing degree days! My garlic and overwintering leeks have been lagging and I wasn't sure why. I pulled up the growing degree data for our WSU weather station. Bingo. 5 year average: 396. 2025? 135. Even using the lowest base of 32 degrees, it is about one third the number as usual. 1/2 #gardening

Hot beds Day 7, four days after planting. First radish making its way into the world. Setting these up feels like a lot of work right until we start harvesting in five weeks. With an extra-warm fake spring on the way, maybe sooner. #hotbeds #permaculture #coldframe #sustainablegardening #resilience

A little quality time with a colinear hoe before the deluge starts tomorrow. Gotta get that Vitamin D. Some of the fava beans froze out and some sailed through. I may just save these for seed for a larger hardier crop next year. #seedsaving #gardening #permaculture #resilience

Hot bed Day 3. A little over 100F in the snow. Probably needs water. A smaller and less insulated bed means cooler temps but I think that will actually work in our favor for the cool season vegetables. #permaculture #hotbeds #horticultureystuff #wintergarden #sustainablegardening #seasonextension

Want to start growing food while it is still winter? Hot beds can provide a warm protected place for young seedlings long before the normal growing season has started. I wrote a one-year review of ours here. #hotbeds #permaculture #sustainablegardening #seasonextension #horticultureystuff

If you want to know where your blueberries are going to fruit, now is a great time to look at the fruiting buds. These will flower. The buds further down the stem (not shown) will produce leaves. 1/2 #blueberries #permaculture #sustainablegardening

Bless these girls. Born in 2019, they have laid for four straight years and have started a fifth. Anything we get from them is a gift. I think good genetics from @alchemistfarm.bsky.social, being pastured in the summer, and plenty of garden produce has helped. #permaculture #chickens #eggs

Coyotes 🐺 hunting field 🐭 in the garden while we have the electric fence down and fluff up the place before spring. #permaculture #coyotes #wintergarden

Playing around with onions overwintering through the snow and cold. Plant too soon and they bolt instead of bulb up. Plant too late and they freeze out. #fallgarden #wintergarden #permaculture #resilience

January 31st, harvesting veggies for a PNW sobronade before snow and deeper cold set in. Dried beans, leeks, carrots, rutabagas, garlic, thyme, tomatoes, and potatoes all came from the garden. Sausage from the butcher. #wintergarden #horticultureystuff #permaculture #pnwlife #regenerativegardening

Americans know where their coffee comes from but how about roses? Stem roses are grown in countries like Ecuador and Columbia. They grow stronger, straighter stems thanks to altitude, consistent temperatures, and 12 hours of daylight.🌹/🌹🌹🌹. #horticulture #roses #horticultureystuff #tariffs

Hello, Bluesky. I’m a horticulturist interested in permaculture, sustainable gardening, food production, and figuring out how to make it work in rainy Western Washington. #permaculture #vegetablegardening #regenerativeag #wintergardening #organicgardening #washington