The Convergence Zone

Strawberries are getting ripe. Edible pea pods on the vines to eat. Rhubarb making a second showing and raspberries almost ripe. Apples the size of a golf ball and getting larger fast.

This picture from April 2, last week, after a heavy rainfall we had. Taken in the morning. Later in the day the water had all seeped into the ground or had flowed from the channel at the lower end of the garden to areas below. Growing here we see grasses, heuchera, hellebore, sedums, lots other stuff. I use it like a nursery for struggling plants, such as the yellow twig dogwood in left of this picture. Next I need to fix up the drainage channels so that not only the vegetable area below gets watered, but the runoff from that will drain to my new shade raingarden, to be made from my now messy weed pile under the spirea. More on that soon, I hope.

Get ready for fun in downtown Everett with our Garden Party and Plant Sale. Its a fundraiser for the Interfaith Family Shelter in Everett, one of the few places that takes homeless families, mom, dad, & all the kids in one spot. Beautiful shade bowls for our Northwest cloudy days, with spring colors, native plants, and sustainable container plantings. Read more about it on the Interfaith site www.interfaithwa.org, and watch for an article coming up in the Everett Herald. Got to go out now and take the burlap off those planters, tossed on last night with the current cold snap we're having -- such a sight at the Fred Meyer garden shop last evening with all the rows of spring starts covered with black cloth.

Been so warm outside these days, really feels like spring. Grass is starting to grow, daffodils are up a few inches or more in places, primroses blooming and for sale at all the groceries, weeds growing, and we hear they are worried about getting enough snow for the Olympics next month up the road in Vancouver, B.C. And no, this warm winter in the Puget Sound Convergence Zone has nothing to do with Global Warming, or as we should call it, Global Climate Change. What I don't understand at all is why so many people who have learned to read and write and supposedly understand what they read have decided not to use their abilities to discern what scientists keep telling us. The glaciers are melting, that's a fact. But don't take my word for it, or the National Geographic's word for it. Go read for yourself. Ok, so now we just call it Global Change. Not just climate, or maybe not even climate, and certainly nothing to do with the weather. Changes in the global envir...

Creeping Blue Spruce, and light green-yellow barberry, and the camellia with pink blossoms. Pulling up the end of the green tomatoes, not going to fry them. Bouquet in the house today with snowberries, white little blobs, and pink Schizostylus, yellow pot marigold or calendula, red berrries on the cotoneaster, and the dark green leaves of the hellebore. And of course the dark purple of the faded Autumn Joy, and the dark reddish pointed leaves of the purple heucheura. That's it.

AN ORGANIZATION FOR CLOTHESLINE USE While reading an article about a woman who had to get her landlord to change rules to let her use a clothesline, came across this website all about laundry and air drying. http://www.laundrylist.org/ Project Laundry List is making air-drying and cold-water washing laundry acceptable and desirable as simple and effective ways to save energy. I've been using our little wooden clothes hanger all summer and am sorry now to have to start using the dryer some. But I still hang clothes inside on the thing. You can just leave the stuff there for days if you want to, don't have to run to empty the dryer and make sure its on the right cycle, etc. When we were in Haifa a few years ago everyone hung their stuff out to dry everywhere, just on the porches and decks of apartments. Just made it look like a lived-in neighborhood, nothing wrong with that. More friendly feeling, I think.

News from City of Seattle Rainwise Program Starting in 2010, the City of Seattle will offer rebates to property owners to disconnect roof downspouts from the combined sewer system, and direct that runoff into cisterns or rain gardens. The rebates will be targeted to neighborhoods where downspout disconnection can help reduce combined sewer overflows during big rain storms. These two one-day classes will prepare contractors and design/build professionals to work with owners to locate and size rain gardens or cisterns on their property, and to install those systems so they work well and meet the City's requirements for rebates on construction costs. These classes are required for contractors who want to participate in Seattle's new RainWise rebate program. Rain gardens and cisterns are two of the Low Impact Development methods that are coming into local stormwater codes in many towns around Puget Sound, creating a new business opportunity for landscape, irrigation, plumbing, and ...