Palatino Garden Adventures

A Seattle garden in October needs six questions, not a list of twenty jobs: what to do now, what comes next, and what to plant, feed, protect and harvest. Here are the answers from my own Phinney Ridge beds this week.

What to plant in October in Seattle is a short list: garlic, fava beans, a few winter greens, and the last fall transplants. Here is what still has time, how to plant it, and the crops that already missed the window this year.

The fall equinox in Seattle arrives Tuesday, September 22, just after 5 p.m. Here is what the equinox actually is, why I celebrate it, and the kitchen garden jobs that belong to this week, from the last basil to saving seed, sowing winter greens, and why garlic can still wait.

Cover crops in Seattle come down to two decisions, which seed and how late you can get away with sowing it. Here is the window, the amount per raised bed, and how to cut it down without losing April.

When to fertilize vegetables in Seattle is really two questions, and almost nobody asks the second one. This is the feeding plan I promised: soil temperature, stop signals, and the September window.

Accessible raised bed gardening in Seattle starts with one number, how high the bed sits. Here is the waist-high bed I stood in front of in Germany this summer, why my own eight-inch beds are the reason my back complains most evenings, and the heights, reach distances, and path widths I use when a garden has to fit the body using it.

The Seattle drought tolerant plants in my beds got through a summer with no rain since May, and everything else only survived because I watered it daily. Here is the whole walk through my Phinney Ridge garden this week: bed A2 cleared and replanted on a grid for the first time, the kale that grew three feet and starved the beans behind it, an artichoke blooming for the very first time, nasturtiums buried under aphids, and the apples going to waste on sidewalks all over the ne

It is late June in Phinney Ridge, and the garden has done two things at once. Everything that can climb is climbing, and everything that likes to eat a garden has shown up to do exactly that.

Summer walked into Phinney Ridge after a dry, warm spring. Here is what is actually thriving in my Seattle kitchen garden right now, bed by bed, from the berry beds to the heat lovers.

PNW kitchen garden end of May is the quiet productive week between the tomato push and high summer. A walk through what is actually happening in my Phinney Ridge garden right now: strawberries, the curry plant most people misunderstand, what the bee hotel is doing after the mason bees have finished, eleven herbs in the bed, and the potting soil I keep coming back to.

Mid-May is the real opening of the PNW kitchen garden season. A practical guide to what goes in now, how to feed a mixed berry bed, what to do about slugs, and how to read a fruit tree that looks rough.

Three things are happening at Palatino Garden Adventures this May: a herb planter you can order for Mother's Day, a year-round herb workshop, and a community kitchen garden tour. Here is what each one is, who it is for, and how to sign up.

April in the PNW kitchen garden has about thirty things you could do, and most online lists pile them on without telling you what actually matters this week. Here are the eight tasks that move the needle right now in Seattle: soil temperature, what to direct sow, what to transplant, what to hold off on (yes, that includes tomatoes), and the fastest way to plan your warm-season layout before May hits. Plus a 5-item to-do list for the week of April 27. Zone 9a, real numbers, no

People think a medicinal garden is a summer thing. Big calendula blooms in July, lavender drying in August. The truth is it runs all year. Right now in April my calendula is in full bloom, the mint and lemon balm are ready to cut, and the bergamot is sending up new leaves. Here is what I am already harvesting from my Seattle medicinal garden, what is still waking up, and the one plant I am putting in the ground this week for a summer root harvest: Ashwagandha.

Most kitchen gardens don't fail from neglect. They fail because three decisions got made wrong before anything was planted. Not which seeds to buy or how often to water, but the decisions that determine whether your garden actually fits your kitchen, your schedule, and your climate. Get those right and everything else gets easier. Get them wrong and no amount of effort makes up for it. Here's what they are and how to get them right in the Pacific Northwest.