John Shriver

If you've been gardening for more than a few seasons, you've probably noticed a pattern. Every spring brings another round of compost, amendments, and fertilizer. You apply everything, grow a good garden, and then next March you're back at the garden center loading up the car again. The list might change from year to year, but the total never seems to shrink. That cycle feels like it should be temporary, like at some point the soil ought to be good enough that it doesn't need so much from...

No other crop in the home garden attracts as much advice, as many specialty products, and as much second-guessing as tomatoes. Gardeners buy tomato-specific fertilizers, follow contradictory recommendations from packaging, neighbors, and half a dozen gardening blogs, and still end up wondering in August why their plants are all leaf and no fruit. The organic tomato feeding schedule that actually works is simpler than most of that advice suggests, and it starts with one insight that changes...

Late April in Portland, and the vegetable starts are still hardening off on the porch. The beds are prepped, but planting day for warm-season crops is a few weeks away. Meanwhile, the first bumblebees of the season are already working the neighborhood, visiting whatever happens to be blooming. If your garden doesn't have much to offer them yet, a pollinator flower bed is one of the most rewarding things you can put in the ground this spring. Most Portland gardeners already want to support...