Seed Uprising

As a reward for planning my garden out ahead of time this year, I splurged on some unique varieties of flowers, fruits and veggies from Uprising Seeds.  Based in Bellingham, Uprising is an amazing business. They offer only organic and open- pollinated varieties while supporting a strong network of seed growers in the state. They do meticulous research on varietial performance, and they know their seeds extremely well!  They don't carry the variety that some of the larger seed companies do, but each seed description is extremely thoughtful and helpful, and all of their seeds are chosen with our Northwest maritime gardening climate in mind.

The bulk of our garden will grow from seeds on hand from last year- but, I still found an eclectic mix of beauties too add to our garden space. I chose exotic blooms (for the bees, and to feed my love of cutting flowers), some unique greens, and some heirloom veggies which I hope will become jewels of our harvest.

All photos from Uprising Organics online seed catalog.  

Garden Planning with GrowVeg

During these rainy, damp months, when the garden is looking pretty ragged, it's a bit too warm to ski, and I'm not feeling uber excited about being on my bike, I like to curl up under a quilt with my laptop and a cup of tea and plan the spring's garden layout.  This is our second year planting veggies in the raised beds, and we're planning on rotating crops this year.  Crop rotation has a number of benefits for backyard gardeners.  It is easier to stick with organic methods, because pests have a hard time following rotating crops from season to season, and it allows you to balance out the nutrient load from year to year, as different plants deplete and add nutrients to the soil.

There are many, many MANY methods for crop rotation out there, and though I've tried to map a handful of them on paper, I find it quite confusing and tedious to track what should be planted where in order to maximize a rotation scheme.  I spent a little time searching for a good crop rotation app on the internets, and I came across GrowVeg.Com.     I signed up for the free trial and was immediately hooked.  The interface looks like this: