During the weeks after Thanksgiving, I saw numerous trees on top of cars and in pickup trucks — heading home for their two to four weeks of glory, decorated as the family or office Christmas tree. The sadder side of this story is that all of these trees were headed toward their inevitable death and […]
plants
Posted inFeatured, Garden
Get The Dirt — On Home Gardening
Get Ready for Gardening Start looking for seed packets at local nurseries during the months of January and February. The sooner, the better for best selection. If you wait too long to pick up veggie seeds, you may not get the ones desired. For maximum success, it’s best to choose short-season varieties that reach maturity […]
Posted inAround West Sound, Blog, Featured
Five Tips To Make Your Holiday Season More Sustainable and More Peaceful
These days, it seems like the holiday spirit travels in a plane from far away and comes wrapped in an enormous amount of unnecessary plastic. In the middle of finding the perfect gift and trying to hunt down deals, it can be hard to keep our environmental impact in mind. Here are five tips to […]
Posted inFeatured, People & Places
Celebrating the Season with Tom and Donna Torrens
Any time of the year, the home of Tom and Donna Torrens is an eye-catching affair. Sitting on 7 1/2 wooded acres in the Artondale area of Gig Harbor, the house and grounds are liberally sprinkled with Tom’s metal and wood sculptures, including several of the bells and gongs he is perhaps best known for […]
Posted inAt Home, Blog, Featured
Five Tips for a Happy and Healthy Plant-Based Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is such a great holiday. We take time to be with our loved ones and be thankful for our relationships, our health and our opportunities. It’s a time to celebrate the harvest and all of the wonderful flavors and colors and textures of autumnal foods — and the best part? All of the best […]
Posted inFeatured, Garden
Garden Chrysanthemums — Colorful Hardy Flowers
Fall is the time of year when chrysanthemums appear in nurseries and garden centers. Gardeners may see them through the winter months too. Chrysanthemums originated in China and have been the national flower of Japan since 910 A.D. but have only been cultivated relatively recently in Western countries. Known as potted mums, they’re more commonly […]
Posted inFeatured, People & Places
A Home for Communing With Nature
It’s been said that in a well-ordered universe, camping would take place indoors. Now that’s brilliant. Imagine days of relaxation rather than housekeeping. Waves slap the shore as the stars come out. Wildlife is at your doorstep. Best of all, the plumbing is modern and there are no rocks under the mattress. That’s what happens […]
Posted inBlog, Gardeners Corner
Fall Fruit Show a Delicious Showcase of Local Harvest
Fall is harvest time and members of the Peninsula Fruit Club celebrate that in a big way. From Bainbridge Island to Gig Harbor, member growers bring and show the fruits of their orchard labor. The group has two events each that are open to the public at the West Side Improvement Club on E Street […]
Posted inBlog, Gardeners Corner
Pumpkins and Squash: Beyond the Jack-o-lantern!
Cooler temperatures and shorter days evoke the primal instinct in us to walk along leaf-strewn pathways, set in stores for the winter, and look forward to warming soups and luscious baked goods from our ovens. Perhaps no other foodstuff is better suited to long-term storage and usefulness in so many recipes than those of the […]