a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

  • Weed Patch Potatoes


    One of my potato beds is so full of other plants, some might call them weeds, that it’s hard to see where the potato plants are. Yet, when I dug up the potatoes this morning, the soft dirt yielded a mountain of spuds.



    Including this monster which weighed in at 585 grams, over 20 ounces. This one is not leaving the house. We’ll feast on it for a few meals.



    I tend to have good luck letting potato beds go feral. There is something about having a diverse set of plants growing with the potatoes. It’s not like the other plants are stealing from the potatoes. It’s more like they are all helping each other, each one contributing something to the soil that the other plants enjoy. It’s how plants evolved, with a large variety of other plants. It may be how they prefer to grow. It could be that potatoes, growing in thousand acre fields, with no other plants in sight, pine for the touch of a different plant’s roots tickling theirs, to feel a different plant’s leaves brushing their leaves.

    Plants pump many exudates in the forms of thousands of complex sugars into the soil through their roots, and in the process, nurture a complex ecosystem of micro-organisms which in return provide the plants with an equally complex variety of nutrients. It may be that plant A nurtures micro-organisms that other plants never dreamed of cultivating, but that makes them say, “Wow!” how did you do that Plant A?

  • Open Poppy – Embrace the Unexpected – Keep the Dream Alive


    Yesterday our skies turned hazy. The Cascade Mountains became wrapped in gray gauze, the snowy peaks barely visible. Smoke from the forest fires in British Columbia drifted south, dulling the sun, blunting our heat wave. The 90ºF heat forecast for tomorrow will just be 85ºF now.


    The garden has taken on its summer look. The ao-shiso 青しそ, Perilla frutescens, is ready to pick. This is a must have condiment for civilized people. If you can find it in a country’s grocery shelves, you know you’ve landed in a civilized land.




    I went out into the garden this morning to plant more cabbage and beets, and was interrupted by the sight of poppy pods opening. When the unexpected happens, you need to embrace it. I set aside my cabbage seed planting to harvest poppy pods. Let them go, and they’ll fall to the ground before you know it, dashing your hopes and dreams of poppy seed jam and Mach Kuchen.



    Few things delight like harvesting poppy pods. What other plant comes with seed chambers with doors that open when they are ready to harvest? To collect the poppy seeds, all you have to do is tip the pods upside down and tap them. The tiny black seeds pour out with ease. My dreams of poppy seed jam and Mach Kuchen live.

  • The Heat Is On


    The red alders on Bow Hill are slowly dying. My first encounters with these beautiful trees were more than three decades ago on hiking trips into the Cascades. They line the riverbeds and streams flowing out of the mountains. You can’t go for a hike in the Cascades without walking through groves of these soothing trees.


    Away from streams and wetlands, red alder don’t do well in long droughts. They drop their leaves like ours are doing in mid summer. And with our longer, dryer summers, they are slowly dying. When I go around the neighborhood, I see their bare, bleaching branches more and more.


    This morning while checking the upcoming forecast, I let out a gasp when I saw how hot this coming week will be. So far this summer, we’ve had one 80ºF day, so to have five in a row with Thursday the 3rd predicted to be above 90ºF, is most unusual.



    The young chicks are fascinated with grapes, the first they’ve ever seen. The one dashing off in the background is making off with a grape and looking for a quiet spot where it can feast on it without being disturbed.


    Madrigal’s chicks hatched during the night. She was sitting on a clutch in the woods, and she’s brought them into the chicken yard. As attentive as she is, showing them what to eat, and breaking apart large seeds and grains for them, she’s a bit clumsy too, stepping on them at times when she’s chasing off the other chicks and hens. Tonight they are sleeping soundly underneath her, safe in the chicken yard.

  • High Summer


    Anemone flowers are a sign that it is high summer. Their swelling buds, covered with white soft felt, are as beautiful as their flowers.



    In the vegetable garden, purple magentaspreen sprouts in a bed of tangy sorrel. Sorrel, do I take it to market? Will anyone enjoy its sour bite? There are a hundred ways to eat it, from raw, to soups, to deep fried, to marinated in olive oil, to mashing with potatoes.


    Blooming mint, another sign of high summer. And a sure sign of high summer, a blushing tomato. These I can take to market no problem.

  • Onion Honey


    Onion blossoms are a favorite of bees. So many blossoms in one huge globe. A bee can gather a flight’s worth of pollen and nectar from just one stop. As sweet smelling as onion blossoms are, I imagine that honey made from the nectar of onion blossoms would be amazing. I’ve read that onion flowers are edible and have a sweet, strong onion taste. I’ll have to try one some day.


    I searched for any place that might carry onion honey. I did find a folk band, Onion Honey, but no honey made from onion blossoms.