I was staking up posts and stringing rope the other day over my mom's blueberry patch. We'll put some netting over the whole thing before the berries ripen. If we don't, the birds will have a feast and we'll be left with empty pie tins.

Here's the dilemma readers. Some of mom's plants aren't producing so well anymore. I know some people cut their blueberries down to the ground to rejuvenate them. What I'd like to know from you folks is: have you tried this? Does it work? When should we do it? Here's a photo of one of her older bushes.

Out at the Willapa garden last weekend I worked on our wind-damaged greenhouse a bit and then decided to build my mom a bean pole frame.

The one she's been using for years was super flimsy and would fall over once the beans got too big.

The top of a cedar tree blew out in the Dec. 1 storm, landing squarely on a fence surrounding some pear trees. After replacing the fence and bucking up the top I set aside some limbs. That's what we do at Willapa: never let good cedar go to waste. For generations my family has been using cedar limbs and saplings to mark our oyster land. All wood rots eventually but cedar lasts longer than most.

Cedar is such an amazing wood. First peoples used them (and still do) for canoes, clothing, housing, masks, chests and hundreds of other purposes.

These limbs were very curving as they are want to be so I made two tripods and then inserted an extra long one across the two tripods. It's all secured with super strong twine. Mom will plant pole beans at the base of each leg and let them twine up and across the horizontal pole.

I'll let you know whether this one falls over or not.

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.

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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.

In this morning's New York Times, I read two things that I thought you'd be interested in.

The first is an article about kudzu vine taking over the South. It was introduced in the early part of the 1900s and farmers were even paid to grow the fast-growing vine at one point. Now, it's taken over, often choking out native plants. In Chatanooga, they've resorted to using goats to mow it all down. Aside from a few laughs, it's working. It made me think of all the noxious weeds I see lining the highways here ... Read more here (registration may be required).

The next is a science piece about Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," the best-seller that explored the environmental and health effects of pesticides. The article's author says the book's flaw is that it doesn't talk about the benefits of pesticides -- like killing malaria-spreading insects. After reading and mulling it over, I'm unsure of what to think, especially since I haven't read "Silent Spring" yet. If you read it (available here), please share your thoughts.

I've been so busy, I put the garden on autopilot last week. But over the weekend, I got a chance to reacquaint myself with it.

First, I planted the cucumbers and squash. I didn't know where I wanted to put them yet, so I planted them in pots. Kind of weird, but it'll do for now. Then, I planted a tomato start and three pepper plants. I hope they survive, because I'm really getting hooked on peppers.

My last gardening act for the weekend was thinning the carrots. Because I didn't want Joseph (who thinks pulling sprouts is a crime) to accuse me of carrot-killing, I gently re-planted each and every one of the thinned carrots. But, as I found out the following day, carrots don't do well after being yanked from the ground and replanted. I think all of them have died. Is there some trick to this I don't know?

In other news, the spinach is doing really well -- we had it in a breakfast burrito this morning. Yummy!

Attention natural (and thrifty) gardeners in Thurston County, here's a discount program just for you.

Several local retailers -- Home Depot, Lowes and Ace Hardware stores in Thurston County -- are offering discounts on natural gardening supplies. Buy now through May 15 and get 25 percent off mulching lawn mowers, compost, watering tools and slow-release/organic fertilizers.

Details: Call a Thurston County Environmental Health educator at 360- 754-3355 or visit www.co.thurston.wa.us/health/ehcsg

A few nights ago, I was driving by the community garden at N. 21st and Proctor, where I had a plot last year. The place was fairly empty, but there were two women there with their shovels and seeds.

I can't be sure, but they looked like the same women who shared that same plot last year. Why do I care? Because last year they told me they had never gardened before, but were starting because they'd read about my first garden in the paper and figured they could do it, too.

And they could -- their plants were gigantic and healthy last year.

It made me so happy to think I had, in some very small way, introduce someone else to gardening ... but it made me wonder how they managed to be way more successful than me! :)

We evicted "Stinky Bob" or whatever its name was. The mysterious weed growing in my garden is a memory – at least until the dormant seeds sitting in the warming ground are inspired to sprout again.

This is the time of year that makes me wish I believed in heavy-duty chemicals that would annihilate all those seedlings that take up so much of my precious gardening time.

This month's issue of Organic Gardening offers tips on getting ahead of the weeds.

Usually I spend most of my time pulling the weeds by hand. But this year, I am going to try spending more time with my hoe. The Organic Gardening article recommends an oscillating or a swan neck hoe for the job.

I've put that on my shopping list for this weekend.

Any one have great tips for keeping away weeds?

I was a little worried the sprouts on the tabletop plastic "greenhouse" might dry out over the weekend (while we were gone to Portland), but we returned to find that they were alive and well. The "small miracle" variety broccoli from Territorial Seed Co. has grown the most -- and it's the one we're most excited about because the catalog said it's perfect for Square Foot Gardening.

Last night, we planted multicolored carrots (I thought about giving the seeds to Craig for his wild garden project, but decided we could really use them) and kale. We were also going to plant peas, but the fine print on the inside of the seed pouch said they needed to be soaked overnight. Question: Can they not take care of this by themselves while in the wet ground overnight?

What else can we plant now? How much kale should we plant?