Extending the season in zone 7b Pot in pot gardening is a method that’s typically used for propagating slow growing plants or tall plants (trees) that could fall over in the wind. Instead of planting directly into soil, a hole is dug, an empty plastic pot is placed into the soil, and a potted plant…
Author: Stefani Pellinen-Chavez
Silicon valley meets DIY meets too many hobbies and a prototyping mindset.
(Norwegian) Spring Has Sprung!
The earliest green plants in USDA zone 7a Super brief update: I live in Norway now. And it’s mid-march, and I’m soooo ready to see green growth and colorful flowers. Most of the grass here is still dry and brown, and the winter bare trees are only just starting to bud. I’ve got a few…
Recycling weeds
My yard has a quite a bit of bare earth. We haven’t installed irrigation everywhere and have several slopes, so the only thing that grows in many areas are the blown in weed seeds that come up every spring. Mostly these are foxtail grasses, and with two dogs running around, we’ve learned the hard way…
Planting the three sisters, step two.
Planting the three sisters is something I’ve wanted to do since I first learned about them, probably in junior high. It’s such a beautiful ecosystem: corn for the beans to grow on, beans to feed nitrogen to the corn and squash, and squash to defend the corn from critters, and shade the ground to keep…
Preparing the soil. Three sisters garden, step one.
I’ve decided that this is the year I’m trying my hand at planting the three sisters, a historic symbiotic garden featuring corn, beans, and squash. I have a handy patch of ground where I made the murder compost last year that’s pretty sunny, and I think it’ll be good great place to stick my new…
Interplanting Nursery Bought Veggies
Alden Lane, our incredibly beautiful local nursery is built around and under several towering old-growth oak trees. It’s so beautiful it makes it on my local tour for foreign friends, together with our cursed Livermore totem pole (read the story here), and the Guinness Book of word records oldest lightbulb (see it in action here)….
First pea blossoms blooming – the great pea update edition.
True to its’ name, the first of the pea varieties to bloom is “Snowbird.” I planted one square foot of these and I spotted the first bloom 65 days after sowing my sprouted peas. The packet says “sow in …early spring for first crop” harvest in about 58 days.” Technically, spring won’t happen for another…
Pea Inoculant Test: Result!
It’s been a little over a month since I launched multi method pea test and results are coming in! Specifically, I decided to dig up my four indoor planted peas – two of which were inloculated with pea rhizobia, and two others were grown as a contol. These seedlings looked different almost from the start….
An outdoor room for my veggie patch.
I’ve written quite a lot about my struggles defending the veggie patch from plant predators and invaders, and after throwing any amount screens, fences, and DIY cages at the problem, my veggie patch was looking more like a prison than a relaxing place to drink my morning coffee. I didn’t ultimately figure out exactly what…
Back yard irrigation
I’ve been thinking a lot about irrigation, and some of the things that I’ve learned from experience over the last couple months. My veggie patch runs right a long a drip irrigation line that I have set up on a timer, but I haven’t installed drip emitters or tubing in the garden yet – mostly…
Outdoor Hedonist 