Editor’s note: These tips were adapted with permission from the brochure “Tips for Water and Rural Management for Puget Sound Rural Living” by the Puget Sound Conservation Districts, adapted from “Tips on Land and Water Management for Small Farms and Ranches in Montana,” Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Living in the West Sound, […]
gardening
Posted inGardeners Corner
Know Your Soil Before You Garden
Editor’s note: These tips were adapted with permission from the brochure “Tips for Water and Rural Management for Puget Sound Rural Living” by the Puget Sound Conservation Districts, adapted from “Tips on Land and Water Management for Small Farms and Ranches in Montana,” Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. If you want to have […]
Posted inThe Garden
Gardening Books to Read This Spring
Now that spring is officially here and all the bulbs, annuals and shrubs are planted, perhaps there is time to breathe a little between pulling weeds and watering to do some garden reading. With the Pacific Northwest being a gardener’s paradise, expertise abounds, along with regionally specific gardening and nature books. Here are three in […]
Posted inThe Garden
A Walk Down Primula Lane
“Down by the banks of the sweet prim-e-roses, there I beheld a most lovely fair.” ~ Author unknown What is a primrose? Shakespeare would say in Romeo and Juliet, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Primulas are not roses, although some of the double flowers of these demure perennials are rose-like. […]
Posted inThe Garden
Gardening Made Easy for Boomers
You’re a baby boomer. Your green thumb, and your knees and back, seem to bend with more effort. (Was 1968 really 50 years ago?) Don’t let your interest in gardening wane — gardening is important to physical and mental wellbeing as you get older. One, gardening can help you stay fit. “You use up calories […]
Posted inAround West Sound
Friends of the Manchester Library Plant Sale Motto: “Green is Good!”
The Friends of the Manchester Library Annual Plant Sale has always tried to make good use of our resource of community-donated plants, or what we call recycling them out into the larger community. We want to be stewards for this lovely place we live in, and to encourage others to do the same. “In recent […]
Posted inThe Garden
The Pacific Stonecrops — A Sedum of Our Own
Between the cracks of the dark basalt rocks, sedum’s plump rosettes cascade, a cavalcade wash in waterfall gray. Many succulents in the Sedum genus grow around the world. Gardeners love them because they are fascinating plants. Sedum spathulifolium species evolved to grow in difficult places in the Northwest — their water storage capabilities help them […]
Posted inThe Garden
Cultivating Connections — Family’s Heritage Becomes New Venture to Help Farmers
Newcomers and longtime Kitsap residents alike can overlook some of the most treasured local assets: the hard-working farmers and their land. Tucked in here and there on back roads are families who have been in West Sound for generations farming the land, growing food and figuring out how to make farms survive as times change. […]
Posted inThe Garden
Bremerton City Nursery — A Destination for Urban, Organic Gardening
The Bremerton City Nursery has been part of Bremerton for more than six decades, thanks to two local families. Today, it brands itself as an urban city nursery, and it sells almost exclusively organic products. The Berger family founded the nursery in the early 1950s, originally naming it Berger’s Garden Center. While raising four sons, […]