Over the years I’ve learned a lot about gardening, and one of the more important things I’ve learned is about improving the soil in my garden. We live on a glacial river bed, so our soil is mostly rocks. For that reason, all of my garden beds are raised beds that have been created with soil that has been trucked in. My big flower bed isn’t raised, but we had the area dug out and then trucked in soil. The only problem with bringing in soil is that you don’t really know what you’re getting. What tends to be available Continue Reading →

I learned something new in my garden this year. All of my zucchini plants (11 of them!) had several zucchini at a time that were half-grown with one end (the blossom end) rotting off. When two other people mentioned to me that they had the same thing happening, I immediately got on the computer to look it up. It turns out that Blossom End Rot is caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil. So, once the plants are growing and the ends of the zucchini are rotting, it’s too late to add calcium to the soil. At that point, Continue Reading →