Like most of you I watched with amazement Saturday morning as snow fell in Tacoma and many other Puget Sound areas.

I've had it with this weather. By sheer force of will I tried to wish away the cold by sowing the first seeds of my garden yesterday.

OK, I didn't go crazy and start planting corn and sunflowers. But I did sow onions, lettuce, carrots and raddichio. I admit I had pangs of nervousness this morning but then I remembered: they're just seeds. And by the time the really warm weather hits later in the week they should be starting to stir.

I've added some decomposted manure and other organic amendments to my raised beds and mixed up the old soil thoroughly. I haven't paid any attention to crop rotation or what could be living in the soil so it'll be a little bit of an experiment.

The raised bed has already attracted one admirer: this robin was busy looking for worms this morning.

It just better stay away from my seeds.

I spent part of Sunday visiting two gardens as part of my last NPA garden open of the year. (There's at least one more this weekend.) Afterwards, I biked 16 miles (yes, sixteen) on the Foothills Trail. Total bliss. Painful. But blissful.

First up was the stunning one-acre spread of Julia and Ernie Graham of Puyallup.

The house has a magnificent view of Mt. Rainier with the thickly planted, organic garden spreading out around it. It would take me pages to describe the plant palette, focal points, containers and paths.

The garden's fame speaks for itself. It's won second place twice in the Pacific Northest Gardens Competition and has been featured in Sunset, Better Homes and Gardens and Fine Gardening.

The Grahams have brought in truckloads of dirt to build up the soil for their garden.

Black mondo grass edges this water feature.

A pleasant garden cafe setting.

The Graham's garden has many focal points and rest areas.

Julia uses a lot of pots (she buys them from Tacoma Boys http://www.tacomaboys.com/ and Aw Pottery http://www.awpottery.com/) and fills most of them with annuals like coleus and tropicals like taro that she overwinters.

A paperbark maple is one of many maples in the garden but this one definitely has the most interesting bark.

-------------

Next up was the Old Goat Farm down the road in Orting. Owned by Greg Graves and Gary Waller this can be best described as a small nursery with a large demonstration garden. www.oldgoatfarm.com

As Greg and Gary like to point out, they are not the old goats the farm and nursery are named after.

The farm is a great blend of gardens and...well...farm complete with chickens, peafowl and farm dog.

The guys grow an arresting mix of annuals and perennials in their garden.

These two plinths lend a formal air to the garden.

This vine has been trained in to an interesting pattern.

One of my favorite things about living in a house is that I can finally compost food waste. Exciting, I know. But when we moved out of the apartment and started composting and recycling (the apartment didn't have the best recycling system, so we ended up throwing a lot out), we cut down the amount of garbage we produce to just one small bag a week.

One of my least favorite things about composting is finding a way to store all the food scraps for a few days until I go dump it in the bin. We've tried plastic bags and Tupperware-type containers, but it's all gross.

So I'm ordering this:

Bio-bags. The web site says they're fully biodegradable, so I can just toss the whole thing in my composter. Sounds good to me. Apparently they're also good for storing fruits and veggies in the refrigerator -- something I welcome, as it kills me that I'm going to have to toss my $3 bunch of wilted organic kale from the CSA that I never got around to cooking.

Has anyone used these? Any other good methods for storing scraps?

Last year at the community garden, I spoke with a woman who said she and her friend were trying gardening because of the story I wrote about my first garden. It was really touching, but while we spoke, I couldn't stop staring at the gargantuan plants in her garden plot. I asked what she'd done.

"Fish fertilizer." She said it smelled terrible, but credited her Little Shop of Horrors-esque plants to using it.

Fast forward to this year ... We two vegetarians moved into a cute little rental with a greenhouse, where we found a box of marine fertilizer. The box sat there temptingly while we built up the soil with our vegetarian compost ... The box sat there temtingly while we cheered our teeny, tiny sprouts on.

Finally, the box came up in conversation.
"How do you feel about using fish fertilizer?" I asked.
"No."

But it was just sitting there, I said. If no one used it, it's really going to waste, I reasoned ... Finally, he caved. So we spread the fish fertilizer all over part of one garden bed.

That was two days ago. I figure we can experiment with it and, if we don't like it, we won't spread it on the rest of the garden. My question: Has anyone used the stuff? Did you like it? Any vegetarians willing to give me advice?

The other day, I noticed that my corn looked a bit on the yellow side. Being a good farm girl, I remembered that yellow plants sometimes indicate a Nitrogen deficiency.

But it could also be a zillion other things, so I called the expert: Brian Sullivan, also known as my dad.

I described the situation: Yellow corn, miniscule plants that look malnourished and my desire to use only organic material (in other words, Miracle Grow can't come to the rescue).

Diagnosis: Nitrogen deficiency could be the problem. He gently hinted that, had I taken his advice and tested my soil at the beginning of the season, I would know what my soil needed for sure. Yeah, yeah.

So, this weekend I'm in the market for organic Nitrogen, otherwise known as cow manure. Are there any other options? What's your favorite fertilizer?

I found out over the weekend that I am highly vulnerable to plant sales.

I was so excited for the Pierce County Master Gardener's Sale that I insisted Tara (my colleague, gardening accomplice) and Phil (my boyfriend, visiting from Portland) join me for the 9:30 a.m. opening.

We trudged through the mob of plant fanatics to snatch up the best plants -- using my garden map as a guide. But the allure of buying adolescent plants for as cheap as $1 got the best of me, and impulse buying followed.

I came away with Yellow Pear Tomatoes, Romas and an heirloom variety with a name I can't seem to remember. Manitoba? All I know is it looked like it would be perfect on a burger. Peppers times two, zucchini, cucumber, eggplant, chives and basil also made it in the basket.

Sunday, I continued the spree with maybe 1,000 onion starts (oops, who knew there were so many in each little container?), a strawberry plant and far too much organic compost for one small garden. I like onions and strawberries, but they mainly served as a peace offering for Phil, who was a real champ about the whole spending-the-weekend-scouring-the-countryside-for-gardening-supplies-and-missing-live-NFL-draft-coverage deal.

A gardening champ, at least, until we got to a pub for lunch with friends, where he was able to consume the three known antidotes for feeling grown up: beer, pizza and ESPN.

When I bought my first shaker of fertilizer, I didn't think twice.

I pay extra at the store for organic produce and products all the time, but I didn't think of going organic for my own garden.

That's a white lie. I thought about it, but decided that, since I'm such a terrible gardener, I would need extra-strength help in the form of chemical fertilizer.

Now, I'm reconsidering. I still have half a garden left to plant. So ... what are your favorite organic methods of building the soil? Any favorite composts?

Thanks!