Get Growing
Craig Sailor is the Arts & Entertainment editor at The News Tribune. Last year he planted his first vegetable garden. Focusing on unusual varieties, “Freak of Nature” returns for 2008 with a new crop of uncommon vegetables and flowers. This year he’ll try yin yang beans, giant pumpkins, blue poppies and mutant sunflowers. He gardens at his North End Tacoma home and sneaks seeds in to his mother’s garden at Willapa Bay when she’s not looking. E-mail him at craig.sailor@thenewstribune.com.

Sue Kidd is the Lifestyle Editor at The News Tribune and the ringleader for the Home&Garden section. She is a decent vegetable gardener, but occasionally a tragic mess at growing other stuff. She’ll blog about gardening events, gadgets, her weird obsession with guerrilla gardening and all her assorted garden disasters. E-mail her with thoughts/rants/questions/bizarre observations. sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com.

More gardening blogs:
Greengirl
"Starting seeds, dreading weeds."

You Grow Girl
"Gardening for the people."

Between Plow and Wood
"Meditations on farming, nature, food, art, sustainability, the environment and rural living."

Downtown Tomatoes
"A gardening club for the rest of us."

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Get Growing
A Gardening Blog
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
Seeds: Where do your starts live?
Posted by Sue Kidd @ 02:58:16 pm

As the person who sits closer to Craig Sailor than anyone in the newsroom (a mere 36 inches away), I can vouch that he does not stink. Usually. But it does bring up an interesting point, his use of his bathtub to grow seed starts (scroll down to read his posts on his current bathtub garden project).

I'm old school and grow my starts in my garage with a grow lamp (my neighbors were very suspicious of me at first). I wonder, where in your home do you keep your seed starts until they're ready to harden off? On a windowsill? In your bathtub? An upstairs bedroom that gets decent light? Tell us. Tell us! We want to know....

Categories: Q & A
Personal hygiene
Posted by Craig Sailor @ 02:50:27 pm

I took much ribbing in the newsroom today over my bathing habits after posting the entry about my bathroom turned greenhouse. We're reverse publishing from our blogs in to the newspaper so that item ran in print as well.

I'm sure some of our readers our concerned about my cleanliness.

For the record: I have three bathrooms in my house and this one has a separate shower and bathtub.

Not that I use any of them.

Ha. I kid. Really.

Here's the latest photo of the little tomatoes shot this morning...just before my shower. Really.

Categories: Tomatoes
Reader question: It's a cruel, crazy weevil world
Posted by Sue Kidd @ 01:17:27 pm

Reaching into the reader question bag this morning... and here is what I yanked out:

Hi Sue,

Thanks for letting us ask questions.

I am looking for an inexpensive, non-toxic, non labor-intensive method of getting rid of root weevils.

I have tried nematodes (expensive and not long-lasting); I have purchased a Bayer product to kill insects (but, I'm afraid, very, very afraid); I have too many rhodies, camellias, and salal to go out at night and try to dispatch them in that manner; I have "Tanglefoot" but that won't work on the salal.

I'm desperate. My leaf notches are getting worse.

My father-in-law says to bury rusty nails around the perimeter of the plant. If the iron oxide is effective, would some sort of other iron product work as well?

Thoughts? Comment here or if our comments field is disabled (yes, we've been having "technical issues" with our commenting, but I have no official comment on that...), e-mail me at sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com.

Categories: Dilemmas, Ahhh, that's adorable, Fix my yard!