A beginners guide to sourcing high quality organic seeds for your home vegetable garden.

With the abundance of snow and ice recently here in the Portland area, it is hard to imagine just a month or two forward to the time for planting our Spring vegetable gardens! But that time will come sooner than we know it and our seeds will take to the dark earth and grow into these ever longer days.

Well that just about does it for this year's planting season. Hopefully you had the foresight to plant Fall and Winter vegetables in August and September. Our Fall vegetables are just coming into their prime as we settle in for the rainy season. Arugula, Kale, Lettuce, Broccoli, Cabbage, Radicchio, Carrots, Turnips-- These are just a few of the veggies you can harvest from your home garden in the months ahead.

While you watch your first tomatoes ripen on the vine, and seek out summer swimming holes, the thought of roasted winter roots, or a January kale salad are probably the last things on your mind. But if you want to be feasting from your garden in the dreary dark days of Winter, the time to think about what to plant is now!

It is a glorious time to live in the Willamette Valley. It feels to me like the natural world around us has been at its absolute peak lately. The Dogwood blossoms are erupting in shocks of pink and white and Spring feels like it is finally full-on. This last stretch of sunshine has brought it all together. It feels like there is a palpable sense of sweetness, joy, and a welcome softness everywhere. A fortunate time indeed.

Happy New Year from Portland Edible Gardens! Spring may still feel like a remote island somewhere far away, but take heart and take heed! We are drifting steadily towards that shore! Before we know it, the buds will be breaking and the sun that warms our soil will be nurturing the gardens that we plant (or the weeds that we don't).

Well the Chimney Swifts are beginning to swirl in the September sky, the evenings have a bite that feels rather welcome, and I can't help but feel like summer is getting on. One wouldn't know it, with temperatures climbing back into the 90's (!), but we all know that Fall and Winter will be ours soon enough. Though it is far too late in the season for planting most vegetables, there are a handful of reliable and quick to mature vegetables that I am still planting in my garden and in my clients' gardens!! If you are quick about it, you too can still squeeze a little more out of your garden this season.

The weather of late has had me very much out in the gardens! We have been tilling up our Spring beds, adding loads of compost, turning it in, and preparing the soil for seeds and starts and all that soon will follow. With all the soil warming and sunshine recently, in many of our clients gardens we have already done our first seedings of Arugula, Carrots, Spinach, Snap Peas, Fava Beans, and Lettuces!