A coastal garden book, this written by a transplanted Pennsylvania Master Gardener, who took the training again in Oregon. Written to a very specific audience, a fact brought home by the second chapter: “Dune Gardening.” Yes, this is for those with lots of sand in their soil. Carla Albright has designed this as a handbook, with many pages of worksheets for the reader to fill out based on experiences. The tips are very basic, too. “In my tool bucket I keep two trowels, a narrow one and a wide one. The narrow one is good for…” Following a review of native beach plants, there are suggestions for appropriate beach garden aesthetics, and an extensive list of shore tested vegetable varieties.
Excerpted from the Fall 2007 Arboretum Bulletin.
Wondering what’s the best time of year to sow your cilantro seeds or plant onion sets? The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide: Planting Calendar for Year-Round Organic Gardening by Seattle Tilth (and multiple authors over the years)defines a complete time-line for sowing a wide range of edibles and flowers. Also included are a number of excellent articles on organic gardening techniques, like summer cover crops and recipes for preventing powdery mildew.