Finished Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades by Steve Solomon. Reading this book you can tell that Solomon is something of a personality, but the book is packed full of detailed information about growing vegetables in the Pacific Northwest.

I appreciate how this book takes a scientific approach to gardening. In addition to telling readers what to do, Solomon tells readers why they should do them. He clearly believes that readers should have the background information to adapt their gardening practices to their particular location and problems.

There are many reasons why it is useful to have a book that focuses specifically on growing vegetables west of the Cascades. Because of our climate, we face a combination of gardening challenges that differ from the rest of the country (although any given problem is likely to be experienced elsewhere).

Our frequent rain fall washes nutrients out of our soil, so we need to use different soil amendments and fertilizers than in other parts of the country. Our summers are not as long or as hot as elsewhere, so growing heat loving plants such as egg plants, melons, and tomatoes takes greater care. We do not have long freezes in the winter so pests that are killed by winter in the east survive over winter here. Solomon addresses all of these difficulties.

One way that Solomon's book differs from other gardening books is that he does not advocate intensive gardening practices. He believes that these gardening methods, if used too long, will deplete the nutrients in the soil and effect the growth of vegetables. Solomon instead encourages giving vegetables lots of space to grow so that you harvest fewer vegetables that are larger and healthier. He also strongly recommends rotating between garden plots periodically to allow the land to rest and recover from vegetable gardening.

If you are serious about vegetable gardening in the Pacific Northwest, this book is a must read. It is full of practical advice, educational background material, and some good ol' gardening philosophy. Now I cannot wait until I have enough room to start a real vegetable garden. =)

In exciting garden news, last weekend, I had a successful harvest of carrots! (And a pathetic harvest of onions.)



And apparently Kageneko does not like the vacuum, so my plans to get pictures of him today are shot.

I resolved my compost bin situation. I was not able to get exactly the one I want, but I did discover that if you live in King County, WA, you can get subsidized compost bins through the county (the subsidy is approximately what the shipping cost would be, at least for the one I bought).

Note that if you live in the city of Seattle, you have to use the City of Seattle subsidized compost bins site. It's like the libraries.

Does anyone know where to buy a envirocycle rotating composter (or any other compact rotating composter) in the greater Seattle area? I do not have enough room for a more traditional composting bin. This one is compact and enclosed, but buying them online is impractical because of the price of shipping a ~3'x2'x2' box.

I was tempted by bokashi composting systems. These systems use micro-organisms to ferment the waste instead of decomposing it. They work quickly and have little enough odor that they can be kept in the kitchen. However, since they ferment the waste rather than decomposing it, the waste keeps its form and has to be buried under other dirt (where it will quickly decompose). I have little enough garden space that I do not have room to bury my bokashi compost, so the system will not work for me, as awesome as it sounds otherwise.