A short growing season doesn’t have to mean a small harvest. With the right strategies, you can extend your growing window, boost yields, and protect your plants from undesirable weather. Here’s how to make...
As the festive energy of the holidays gives way to the quieter days of early winter, it's a prime time for gardeners to engage in contemplative planning and to dream about the upcoming season's...
Envision a holiday gift that sprouts into a beautiful garden. Seed bombs are the answer, blending utility with a touch of whimsy. These small but mighty spheres are a cinch to craft and can...
This is the first year I planted my entire garden with West Coast Seeds. Having a five-acre homestead, we maintain a very large garden with individual beds for each vegetable and 3 greenhouses for...
Unlock The Secrets to Inviting Hummingbirds to Your Garden Let's meet our feathered friends, the Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) and Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna). Typically, the Rufous marks the onset of spring, arriving around...
Composting: The Garden's Gift That Keeps on Giving Imagine a process that transforms your kitchen scraps and garden waste into a nutrient-rich, soil-enhancing marvel. Welcome to the world of composting! This eco-friendly practice, deeply...
Let's face it, traditional lawns can be a real resource hog. They guzzle water, demand constant trimming and generally return very little for your efforts. Plus, they take up space that could be transformed...
Seed varieties on the West Coast Seeds website are marked to indicate whether they are Hybrid Seeds (F1 or F2) or Open Pollinated Seeds (OP). Open Pollinated Seeds (OP) When two plants of the...
Water close to the soil, and avoid overhead watering. Place your irrigation near or beneath the soil surface rather than spraying the top of the plant. The plant’s leaves will act as a sun...
Even in large scale, chemically dependent farm systems, Integrated Pest Management can reduce human and environmental exposure to chemical pesticides, and save a great deal of money. For the organic grower IPM is the...
The Chafer Beetle Resistant Lawn Blend is one lawn solution for home owners challenged by the animals that feed on the European chafer beetle, and dig up lawns in the process of hunting them. Continue...
There are fundamental gardening basics that all new gardeners need to learn for the best success. Understanding the needs of plants — as living organisms — is essential to cultivating their health and productivity....
Predatory nematodes can be applied in the spring to combat chafer beetles, wireworm, and other soil dwelling beetle larvae. Predatory nematodes are effective against over 250 species of insect pests.
This biennial relative of White Dutch clover improves soil structure, fixes nitrogen, provides nutritious pasturage, and feeds honey bees. Its widely branched taproots penetrate the subsoil deeply, drawing up nutrients unavailable to other plants. Continue reading below...
The benefit of winter wheat is its hardiness. It all but eliminates winter soil erosion, and then supplies a source of carbon-rich organic matter to till under before planting vegetable crops. Continue reading below for...
This fast-growing annual produces ample organic matter that can be used as a mulch on the surface, or tilled under to improve soil texture and promote soil health. Continue reading below for tips on...
Are chafer beetles causing your lawn grief in early spring? Consider replacing your lawn with White Dutch clover, or at least inter-planting with your grass seeds. This clover is very hardy, and will stand...
When rye pollen is used to pollinate wheat flowers, the result is the remarkable hybrid known as triticale. It has a similar, albeit weaker, allelopathic effect to Fall Rye, but without the dense root...
The purpose of this cover crop is not to build soil as much as to generally benefit the garden. This is exactly the same seed that we sell for flower gardens, only in bulk sizes...
This fast-growing annual produces ample organic matter that can be used as a mulch on the surface, or tilled under to improve soil texture and promote soil health. Continue reading below for tips on...
This is one of the fastest growing grasses of all, growing from seed to mow-able lawn in just 21 days. It’s a very tough, hardy grass that forms clumps, rather than spreading by rhizomes,...
Oats are not particularly cold hardy, so a summer planted crop will die back, holding the soil in place, and providing ample carbon-rich organic matter to till under before planting spring vegetables. Continue reading...
We love red clover as a cover crop. Its thick, deep roots access nutrients lower in the soil column than many plants can reach and bring them to the surface. It can stand up...
Use Klondike Ladino clover as a nitrogen fixing cover crop, or as a long term ground cover, either on its own, or in combination with grasses. It tolerates wet conditions and foot traffic. It reduces...
