Snow in April/ Raingarden Full

Its another cold, snowy day here in the Convergence Zone, and checking the garden I see that the drainage system from rooftop down gutters, downspouts, thru rain garden and to the vegetable patch is working fine. Spinach is sprouting little green shoots, and one spinach plant now with baby leaves is getting ready to grow (of the seeds planted last fall, just this one survived the winter).

Pictures here of drainage and some more plantings. I'm using the garden now as a place for plants like the heuchera I got on sale to grow for a bit. They were from last fall, overgrown, sitting in a corner of the nursery greenhouse. Soon I'll divide them and they will be like new.

No More Buying Cheap Salmon

Economical shopper that I am, I rarely buy salmon if its over 6.00 a lb, and I haven't asked recently where it comes from, but odds are its raised in a crowded pen on the edge of a body of salt water, mixing with the oceans. My daughter tells me what's wrong with farmed salmon. Not only does it lack much of the nutritional value of wild salmon, the farmed salmon & their diseases are moving from the farms to the open waters, directly threatening the wild species. Read more about it at Save Our Wild Salmon and Why Wild Salmon , a very informative site from Trout Unlimited. So far, I've learned: -- Its good to eat wild salmon if its caught responsibly, encouraging that fishing industry -- Not good to eat farmed salmon of any kind, shouldn't support that industry --There is no more salmon farming in Puget Sound, or anywhere in the US. It was outlawed due to disease in the fish and other factors. --Salmon is farmed on Vancouver Island, and in northern European...

After the Heat Wave

Now that we have survived the worst heat wave in Seattle history -- only 4 or 5 days really, but enough to make some of us wish we were anywhere else -- we take another look at the raingarden. Today it is lush and green, although I have barely watered it. We had one day of rain in July, I think, so some drain water was available. I may have turned the hose on it occasionally when I was passing by to water the vegetables planted nearby, but no regular watering in the swale of the rain garden. Yet we have lush croscomia, yellow twig dogwood, pieris, hellebore, solomon's seal, sedums, and not too many weeds. The load of arborist wood chips I had dumped in the nearby parking strip overflowed into the raingarden, so thick layer of the chips covered over everything there. No damage, just a thick blanket (3-4 inches) of protective mulch.

Rain Garden Project

Rain Garden - Modified Dug a hole, not too big, reading thru the Rain Garden Handbook and trying to follow every step. But my space is more of a drainage area on the way to other drainage areas, but still it can be a sort of a rain garden.

The Convergence Zone

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