Gardening is part planning, part serendipitous and 100% rewarding – in a pick yourself up by your boot straps sort of way. I love the reliably unexpected moments of discovery. Volunteers and new comers mixing up a planting plan, traveling pollinators and crops that sometimes fail but often succeed. My best plants, like best friends, best pets and best moments, seem to simply arrive right when I need them most. Even when I didn’t know I needed them.

This particular plant is the one I happened to find on a trail in the Marin Headlands. At the time, it was just a bulb – a soaproot bulb, Chlorogalum pomeridianum. I set it to the side of the trail and I remember thinking if it was still there when I came back through I’d give it a home and see what happens. Well, here it is. All grown up. And, while it’s not my showiest plant, it’s demure nature and panicle of flowers are elegant. It reminds me of the pacing and rhythm of natural landscapes. Not simply for the sake of habitat but for beauty. Creating landscapes requires attention to plantings that punctuate as well as plantings that are the unique fibers that weave together to make a lasting impression.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside but when you walk into the Swanton Berry Farm store it’s a wonderful shock to the system. It’s like a perfectly dreamy flashback full of berries, treats and wish-you-had-it memorabilia. All senses are on from the get-go. The welcome sign invoking the honor system, the pie waiting for you in the case and the jam tasters will get your engines going and make you wonder why the rest of life, shopping, etc. isn’t like this.

We made a bee line for the jam tasting served up on animal cookies (logan berry and olallieberry were our winners) and then wandered around the store before self-paying for our strawbs, et al. (strawberry short cake, chocolate covered strawberries, jam and pie).

We walked away with more than sweet, organic strawberries. This place is a slice of life. It’s the flavor at the heart of the farm. Quirky, fun and honest – confirming what all food should aspire to be. Honest.

Mixing fun with food grown on the honor system is even better.

Read more about the Swanton Berry Farm.

Ron Finley delivers some great one-liners in his Ted Talk presentation. “Plant some sh*t… get gangsta with it” being tops on the list. But his message is bigger than that. His movement of creating a food forest out of the food desert in South Central LA is simple and yet so very powerful — human and global.

What else can we do?

We all have flowers we love for our own particular reasons, many of them pertaining to the remaining f’s. Your grandmother grew it, it’s perfect in salads, the fragrance takes you to another world, igniting memories or you simply love the hummingbirds, honeybees and other critters that visit your garden because of the flowers you grow. Or it may be the interweaving story told by a particular plant and, in turn, the story it tells about you.

Case in point, my grandmother. She was one of my first teachers. She taught me how to be in nature, to wildcraft, to garden and to paint. We went on long walks where she would point out edible mushrooms, berries to pick along with other treasures and these hikes were always punctuated with calling the cows in for the night. She loved me without question and I adored her beyond words and with her came her favorite everything, especially plants, starting with the five f’s. They are now my plants and more. With them comes all of the emotion and personal attachment from her years of working with them now added to my own.

I believe it is nearly impossible to be immune to any of the f’s. We each have our stories, our people and our plants — including the ones we have yet to meet. That’s why, in part, going to the nursery, walking through particular gardens or broader landscapes reach us and speak to us on so many levels.

The five f’s are defining and wonderful but they can also muck up the works and prove confusing when you’re attempting to put together a cohesive planting plan or you’re facing a mound of seed packets — more than can be planted in your budding garden. It’s also important to remember that most plants aren’t generalists but designed to grow in particular soils and climates. My advice: breath, prioritize, assess your location as objectively as possible and relish in the perceived chaos.

My early spring to-plant list always includes pumpkins. A garden without pumpkins must be like committing spring planting heresy. It’s just not right. And of course they have to be accompanied by loads of other squashes.

Lupines are a hardy bunch from seed to flower. Like an independent teenager, they tend to strike out on their own, volunteering in places of their own choosing. (Places that tend to be inhospitable and far from their initial starting point.) Their seeds must be some of the most beautiful, I think in part because of what is waiting inside, the beginnings of eye-catching but humble flowers and foliage.

Pre-treat the seeds with a bit of roughing up.

I think I could convince nearly any child to barter and trade using scarlet runner beans as currency. I know my brother could have swindled me out of my allowance by offering these beans as trade. Sunflower seeds might have been the only other seed to compete with them.

Sunflower seeds, sunflower sprouts, sunflowers. Perfect my design. Simple.

I sometimes think seeds are taken for granted, like these chard seeds for instance. I’ve planted plenty of chard in my life but it wasn’t until I mixed them up with all sorts of other seeds that I was suddenly struck by them. I was teaching in a school garden and planned to introduce seeds and plant life cycles to the children with a seed sorting activity. I took several different varieties of expired seed packets, emptied and mixed them in a mason jar for the coming lesson. When I spread handfuls out in front of the kids in little, mosaic piles on top of black construction paper the students quickly separated the larger beans and corn. Then, all of a sudden here was this seed – a chard seed. It is so prehistoric looking compared to the others. Like the vertebra of a long lost creature.

And, finally, prehistoric #2 – my beloved calendula. Gotta have it.

The thought of weeding conjures up all sorts of reactions from people. There are weeding haters, weeding lovers and an entire range of folks somewhere in between – in the toleration zone. And the basic fact, no matter how you feel about it, if you keep a garden there is weeding to be done.

5 Reasons to Weed:

1. Weeds are messy. And messy is never relaxing.

2. Weeds can be a home to pests such as slugs, snails or other diseases that would be perfectly happy to take advantage of any and all nearby plantings.

3. Weeds compete for resources. Water, nutrients and light being top on the list.

4. Some weeds are alleopathic, exuding chemicals that slow the growth of the plants around them.

5. If ignored, weeds will take over your garden. Plain and simple.

5 Reasons to tolerate Weeds:

1. Weeds can be important to pollinators. You might be ready to attack the dandelions in your lawn but those same flowers may also be some of the first flowers a hungry bee has seen in months.

2. Weeds can be pulled before seeding to make compost, dug in to make green maure or left, pulled and dropped on the soil, as mulch.

3. Some weeds are edible or medicinal. Try dandelion greens in your salad, or better yet, dandelion wine, red clover tea or, one of my favorites, chickweed pesto.

4. Weeds can be left as living mulch, keeping soil temperatures cool, trapping moisture and protecting soil.

5. Ha, I can’t think of a 5th. But maybe the first four will help you prioritize or reduce your weeding boycot guilt.

The contrast of a flowering fruit tree on a winters day is like a chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream. A perfect combination. The simple beauty and cheery enthusiasm of these flowers set against a cool, gray afternoon doubles up as both cozy and enlivening.

Fleeting and irresistible. Bringing these flowers inside is a like a hug to winter and a sneak peaking hello to spring. I put flowers in anything, canning jars being my typical go to, but this vase is pretty smart.

Love it.

How much space do you need to garden? What counts? It’s one of the latest questions buzzing around the garden world since NPR covered a study on urban gardening in Chicago. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign used Google Earth to find over 65 acres dedicated to food production — or at least what looked like food production.  These acres were patched together from abandoned lots, backyard, side yard, and roof top garden spaces.  And in just two short years the acreage has doubled.

But what counts as a garden? How much space do you need or, maybe the question should be, how do you make space for a garden?

I love the idea of creating a garden out of galvanized containers, gutters or troughs. Maybe a bit of room can be maximized with a dash of creativity and possibly the materials on hand? You may not become a self-sustaining homesteader overnight, but supplementing your and your family’s needs is pretty cool. And, as far as I’m concerned every garden of any size can be made to be beautiful.

Sweet, snappy, wake-your-taste-buds-up delicious, these carrots are unreal. A bit of sugary earth wrapped up in one perfect package. Like the tomatoes of winter only, with carrots, it’s a cold spell that defines flavor. However it could also be the challenge of growing them that makes them, each respectively, a hot commodity.

*Growing Carrots: It’s always a good idea to follow the instructions on the seed packet when growing anything for the first time but a few extra tips don’t hurt. Carrots are a hardy, cold-climate crop but can be tricky to germinate. Plant directly in a loose soil. Sandy loam is ideal but not essential. Do not manure the soil within 6 months of planting. Over seed and hope you’re lucky enough to thin your crop. Try pre-germinating your seeds within 2 days of planting by placing them between two wet paper towels but be careful of mold. Follow the seeding dates given for your region (this is very important) and be patient. They can take a long time to come up. A small celebration is never overstated when you’ve gown a successful crop of carrots. Take lots of pictures and record everything you did along with weather conditions so you increase the likeliness of a repeat crop.

Try interplanting rows of carrots with rows of onions. Their scents can mask each other, distracting and redirecting carrot and onion flies.