West Coast Seeds recently launched the hashtag #savetherustypatchbumblebee across our social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We have been encouraging our followers to re-share our post and tag a friend in an effort to attract awareness to this...
Continue ReadingGardening instructions can be full of peculiar phrases from British gardening traditions. “Potting on,” “pricking out,” and “hardening off” are all things we do with seedlings to help them prepare for eventual transplanting out into the garden. Hardening off seedlings...
Continue ReadingThe changing seasons, and the longer daylight hours in summer are a result of the angle of the Earth’s axis in relation to the sun. It’s easy to forget how these changes can affect the growth of plants, and in...
Continue ReadingLearn about keeping orchard mason bees. In late winter, hang your mason bee nest against a wall in a sunny location that has morning light. Placing it about eye level is best. That way you can watch them coming and...
Continue ReadingWith Mom’s special day fast approaching, we put together a simple Mother’s Day gift bag you can print at home. Cut it out from the template and follow our instructions for folding and gluing (or taping) into its final shape....
Continue ReadingIn nearly any gardening situation, we have the opportunity to mentor — and to be mentored. Growing food organically is a life-long learning curve. Newbie gardeners sometimes feel shy about asking questions, but this is the way to learn. Master...
Continue ReadingCSAs represent one of the ways that small organic farmers are changing the way we think about food, the way we access food, and how we, as consumers, participate with food production. CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture, and we’ve talked...
Continue ReadingWest Coast Seeds is a proud supporter of the amazing organization, Growing Chefs. These “Chefs for Children’s Urban Agriculture” bring food into the urban classroom in the form of raw ingredients that are completely unfamiliar to the students. Their mission...
Continue ReadingFood miles measure the literal distance in mileage between the producer and the consumer. They’re used to demonstrate the relative carbon footprints of conventionally farmed and imported groceries. This isn’t an effort to make consumers feel guilty. It’s about better...
Continue ReadingAs we continue this Twenty-one Days of Green, planting trees seemed like an obvious choice. There are several fruit trees already growing on the farm at West Coast Seeds, so the idea came to expand the orchard area and expand...
Continue ReadingOne of the amazing opportunities facing all gardeners and farmers is planting for wildlife — or, at least, growing food with biodiversity in mind. Organic gardeners understand that soil health is inherently dependent on robust biodiversity in the soil. Earthworms,...
Continue ReadingGrass is used to fill in an awful lot of public spaces. We think of it as the automatic response to revitalizing just about any building or construction site, and since grasses are so darn tough, they seem to thrive...
Continue ReadingOkay – now for the fun stuff. Seed balls (sometimes called seed bombs), are simple balls of clay and soil that contain seeds. They can be placed or tossed into their growing spot, and the clay/soil mix provides the seeds...
Continue ReadingWe love the Queen of Green. Since 2009, environmentalist Lindsay Coulter has been blogging as David Suzuki’s Queen of Green on the website of the David Suzuki Foundation. If you want to take practical steps to reduce your carbon footprint,...
Continue ReadingAt West Coast Seeds we are huge fans of school gardens. Nothing beats seeing a class of happy, engaged kids learning about how soil works, and how to grow food from seed. The match seems so natural, and yet school...
Continue ReadingIt’s pronounced “zee-re-scape-ing.” And it’s a key concept for landscapers as we look to a future of water conservation and climate change. It’s worth mentioning again in this series of Twenty-one Days of Green leading up to Earth Day, because...
Continue ReadingFor the 21 days leading up to Earth Day, we are asking you to Commit to Grow with us. We appreciate that some of you might not even have outdoor gardening space, so today we’re going to talk about Sprouts!...
Continue ReadingIn this installment of Commit to Grow for Earth Day, we take the chance to explain why we choose to maintain our status as certified organic handlers of seeds. What does it mean to be certified organic? Organic certification has...
Continue ReadingWhile recreational field turf has its uses, most urban and suburban lawn leaves the Earth with a net loss. Space that could be used for growing food or feeding pollinators is dedicated instead to demanding, non-native grasses. Lawn grass is...
Continue ReadingWe continue our Twenty-One Days of Green with a look at an amazing community group. One of our favourite of all gardening organizations is Plant a Row Grow a Row. Quite simply, they encourage gardeners to plant one extra row...
Continue ReadingThe theme of this Twenty-one Days of Green campaign is to encourage everyone to Commit to Grow just one item that might otherwise be purchased at a grocery store. We love using chives as a place to start. To produce...
Continue ReadingCommit to Grow for Earth Day. It’s already April, and Earth Day on April 22nd is fast approaching. We love to see people celebrating this important day, but we were wondering what we could do this year to inject some...
Continue ReadingSpring and summer, 2015… Hot and dry! The whole west coast of North America has been deprived of our spring rainfall and exposed to really unusual heat. From California’s record breaking drought right up to Haida Gwaii, there has been...
Continue ReadingMost fertilizers (and many soil amendments) show this formula somewhere prominently on the package: N-P-K. This shows the ratio of the three most important plant nutrients, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. Potassium gets a ‘K’ because of its name on the...
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