On July 4^th, 2008, while their neighbors barbecued hot dogs and snacked on watermelon, Ashley and Chris Saleeba worked on a slightly more subversive Independence Day project: they dug out their front lawn and planted an edible garden.

In just one weekend, Ashley and Chris completely transformed their landscape. Gone was the weedy patch of grass, the lame shrubs, and the narrow, cracked sidewalk. In its place they planted an appealing edible garden that matched their modern aesthetic, fit their slow food values, and didn’t require spraying chemicals, spreading fertilizer pellets, or spending time behind a sputtering gas-powered mower.

What I love most about this garden is that even though it is full of edible plants, it doesn’t look like they have a farm in their front yard. The area to the left of the sidewalk features a keyhole design, with designated edible beds in the center. A mix of ornamental grasses, herbs, beneficial-insect attracting perennials like lavender and echinachea, strawberries and blueberries form a border around the vegetables. A gravel pathway divides the keyhole in half, neatly connecting the driveway with the sidewalk and the front porch. This smart addition makes it easy to cart groceries and baby gear (Ashley and Chris have an adorable baby, Lola) between the house and the car without trampling on plants or having to walk around the whole garden.

Ashley and Chris wanted their new garden to be more welcoming than their old landscape, so they remodeled the front porch and widened the sidewalk. On the north side of the yard Chris designed and built offset wooden panels lined with wire that peas, beans, squash, and tomatoes can scramble up in summer. These attractive trellises nicely delineate the yard’s boundary without seeming like a barrier. To help minimize water usage, Chris installed a drip irrigation system that runs off a timer.

When I visited this garden in December I was impressed with how nice it looked in the dead of winter. Alpine strawberries formed a pretty evergreen groundcover. Kale, bok choi and other greens filled the annual vegetable beds, crimson clover was germinating underneath the trellis panels, and neatly clipped lavender, ferns, and ornamental grasses added color and texture.

As you may have guessed, Chris and Ashley have some serious design chops. He has a Masters in Landscape Architecture and she is a graphic designer, and they just launched Fresh Digs: Edible Gardens with a Modern Attitude. They offer DIY kits for modern raised beds as well as the trellis panels, plus they create custom garden designs and sell cute garden accessories, including plant stakes. I can’t wait to see how their business unfolds, because if their own yard is any indication, they can help people reclaim their front yards and turn otherwise wasted space into a welcoming, productive extension of their homes.

I have a simple request. I would like garden centers and hardware stores to stop selling plastic tools. Sure, they’re inexpensive, but they are also cheap. The tools are too lightweight to be useful. Plastic becomes brittle when left out in the sunlight. It breaks, cracks, and chips easily. It’s ugly. And it’s made out of petroleum.

I’m staging my own personal rebellion by slowly filling my tool shed with high quality tools. My favorite new tool is a 2 gallon, galvanized metal watering can. It has a very nice rain nozzle that delivers a gentle stream of water. It’s perfect for watering in newly planted seeds and fertilizing mid-season, and I think it will last for decades.

Some other tools on my shopping list, include:

5” stirrup hoe from Johnny’s Select Seeds. This is my all-time, favorite tool. The blade slices right under the soil’s surface, cutting off the roots of young weeds without disturbing the soil. This version has a solid ash handle and comes with replaceable blades.

3-Tine Hand Cultivator from Red Pig Tools: Hand cultivators simplify weeding between rows and make digging evenly spaced furrows easy. This particular cultivator is from a line of gorgeous, hand-forged tools made in Oregon by Rita and Bob Denman. All of their tools are simple, handsome, and heirloom quality.

Felco hand pruners. The gold standard for pruners. You only need to buy this tool once because pretty much everything on it is replaceable, including blades, springs, and handles.

Lee Valley Stainless Steel Digging Fork. Stainless steel won’t rust, is sturdy, and looks pretty, too. I use a digging fork for weeding, gently loosening soil, and dividing plants.

I’m going to add these tools into my collection over the fall and winter so I’m ready to roll next spring. What about you? What are your favorite tools and tool companies?

I’m growing a fall crop of peas for the first time this year. Most people only grow peas in spring, but at my community garden, I’ve observed that peas do very well, if not better, when planted in late summer for a fall crop. So I thought I’d try it (and encourage you to do the same)!

Before I plant peas, I always soak them for about 8 hours in a jar of water. I find this helps the peas germinate faster because the big, fat seeds have already absorbed enough water to sprout when you plant them. Pre-soaking the seeds also allows you to remove seeds that aren’t viable, as they tend to float and viable seeds tend to sink.

Before planting I also cover my seeds in rhizobia bacteria inoculant. Rhizobia bacteria have a symbiotic relationship with peas (and other members of the legume family). The bacteria act like little nitrogen factories for the peas. They form nodes on the plants’ roots and convert nitrogen from the air into a form that the plants can use. In return, the peas provide the bacteria carbohydrates and minerals. You can buy pea inoculant from most seed companies (including Johnny’s Select Seeds and Territorial Seed Company). To apply the inoculant, simply pour some into a baggie, put in the presoaked seeds, and shake until the peas are coated. Then you’re ready to plant!

Sow peas about an inch deep in a sunny, well-drained spot in the garden. I seed my peas less than an inch apart, because I like to thin them out when they are a couple of inches tall and use the shoots in salads. Vine and bush varieties of peas grow best with support. I usually grow peas up a bamboo tripod, but Jon and I built an A-Frame trellis out of cedar 1×1 boards and hardware cloth this spring and it works great (and looks nice, too!).

I paid a visit to the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City in April and vendors were selling huge, garden-ready tomatoes, big pepper plants, and tons of basil. The entire scene gave me an intense case of envy, because the we have to wait until late May to plant tomatoes in Seattle and it’s best not to even think about basil until mid-June.

In the Maritime Pacific Northwest (and in places that have short summer seasons or cool nights), growing tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and melons is a huge challenge. Tomatoes grow best when temperatures stay above 60 degrees F and below about 85 degrees F. But in Seattle, our average nighttime temperatures never get above 57 degrees and our average daytime highs, even in the height of summer, barely nudge past 75.

Over the last few years I’ve discovered a few strategies to help out my tomatoes, and I thought I’d share them with you. Even if you’re lucky and live in the Midwest or Mid-Atlantic states (aka Tomato Heaven), these tips can help you get started earlier and grow bigger, better, healthier plants:

1. Choose the right variety. I avoid varieties that take longer than 85 days to mature and mainly grow ones that were bred to thrive in cooler climates or shorter seasons. I like ‘Oregon Spring’ and ‘Legend’, which were both bred at Oregon State University to set fruit at cool temperatures. I also like a few heirlooms that were bred in Siberia (I figure if they grow in Siberia, they’ll grow in my garden!), including ‘Odessa’ and ‘Moskovitch’. I also always plant ‘Green Zebra’ and  several cherry tomatoes, especially ‘Black Cherry’, ‘Matt’s Wild Cherry’, and ‘Yellow Pear’. If you like big, beefsteak tomatoes try ‘Chianti Rose’, I’ve had great luck with it! 

2. Heat up the soil. Tomatoes and other warm season crops like to sink their roots into soil that is at least 60 degrees F (but 65 or 70 is even better). Rather than wait for my soil to heat up, I use plastic to help things along. Start by weeding your bed and raking it smooth. Then water it until the soil is soaked down to at least 8 inches. Stretch clear plastic across the soil as tightly as you can and weigh down the edges with soil or rocks. The plastic acts like a greenhouse and heats up the soil. I usually leave it on for two or three weeks before planting.

Trench Tomato Planting Technique

2. Plant in a trench. It pays to bury as much of a tomato stem as possible because the little hairs on the stem develop into roots when they come into contact with soil. When I’m ready to plant my tomatoes, I pull the plastic  off the soil (you can leave it on all summer, but I don’t like the way it looks). I then plant my tomatoes in a shallow trench that is about four inches deep and as long as my tomato plant is tall. Before planting, pinch off any flowers and the bottom leaves on your tomato plant. Then, lay it sideways in the trench and bury the root ball and bottom portion of the stem in soil. Gently bend the top of the tomato up so the leaves are above the soil line. Don’t worry, the plant looks crooked at first, but it straightens up as it grows. I space my plants about 3 feet apart to ensure plenty of air circulation.

3. Mulch. A lot. After planting, I water the plant in really well and then pour 1 cup each of diluted fish emulsion fertilizer and liquid seaweed onto the root zone. Then I apply about ½ inch of compost around the base of the plants and a 3 inch deep layer of grass clippings or straw on top of that. The compost slowly releases nutrients every time you water and the mulch insulates the soil, which helps it stay warm. This mulch system also prevents moisture from evaporating out of the soil quickly and keeps down weeds, which means I have to spend less time watering and weeding. After mulching I install super sturdy tomato cages made from wire mesh around each plant. 

Cozy, Warm Tomatoes

4. Keep the plants warm. This year I’ve placed Wall-O-Waters around each of my tomatoes. The Wall-O-Waters look like water filled teepees and they act like mini solar greenhouses. The water absorbs energy from the sun during the day and then releases heat at night, which helps keep the tomatoes warm and growing fast. 

5. Water at the base. The best way to prevent fungal diseases like late and early blight is to keep your tomato foliage dry. I do this by watering my plants at their base. This year I’m investing in soaker hoses, but in the past I’ve always hand watered. The trick to hand watering is to get a water wand with a long neck and a toggle that turns off the stream of water at the handle. That way you can bring the hose over to the garden and nestle the wand in at the base of the plant. Then, simply turn the water on to a slow stream and water the plant deeply. Before moving on to the next plant, turn off the stream of water. This saves water and prevents you from unnecessarily spraying your tomatoes and other plants with water. I try to soak the soil about 6 to 8 inches deep every time I water, and I wait until the soil dries down to my second knuckle before I water again.

My Favorite Organic Fertilizers

6. Fertilize, but not too much. I’m still working on building really healthy soil in my P-Patch and the new soil in our raised beds needs more organic matter. This means I have to fertilize a bit during the growing season. Typically, I spray my plants once a month with a half and half mixture of diluted liquid fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. I spray the entire plant, including the undersides of the leaves, until it is dripping. 

This system has helped me grow great tomatoes, but I’m super curious to find out what tricks you guys use on your tomatoes.