Our end of summer sale kicks off tomorrow, Thursday September 4th at noon Pacific time! Don't want to hear about the sale? That's ok. Click here to turn off all emails about the sale. You'll stay on the regular email list. Because of the sale, Seedurday's regular newsletter is coming out today, and it's a big topic. Here goes . . . I’ve heard and read it many times this summer: Vegetable gardening is a waste of money. “The only thing that’s cost effective to grow is zucchini! Lolz.” “The...
14 days ago • 8 min read
From the heaviest duty to the very most minimal, Labor Day weekend can be whatever you want in the garden. I happened to hit two extremes of gardening this last week and thought I'd share them as inspiration for your maximum, or dainty, or somewhere in between projects. Chipper day madness: Living in a high fire danger neighborhood, we have a wonderful service called chipper day. To encourage residents to clear out excess vegetation, you can put as many branches as you want out in the street,...
18 days ago • 3 min read
When I was in design school 20 (!) years ago, the Liu lecture series ran under the headline “Rule Breakers.” The series, going back to 1997, brings established names in design, art and architecture to talk about their careers and show us behind the scenes of their work. “Rule Breakers” was the theme for the ‘04 - ‘05 school year, and was such a cool name at the time! In one catchy title, it summed up innovation, and outsider-ness, and some of that Gen X counter cultural feeling that Spyke...
21 days ago • 3 min read
A few evenings ago I went outside and heard . . . crickets. I don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense of hearing nothing, which is what I’ve been hearing for pretty much all of the 10 years we’ve lived here. I heard actual crickets in our actual back yard for the first time. The neighbors across the street who live in a big house on a very big double lot have always had crickets. Arriving home on a summer evening I would hear them, but by the time I got into my own house? Crickets...
23 days ago • 3 min read
I just received a newsletter from a writer I admire explaining that she would be taking a month away because she's "thoroughly sick of [her] own writing voice. It's not writers' block. It's writers' cringe." I admire her for recognizing that sensation ahead of time and warning everyone of the forthcoming silence. I, on the other hand, have been privately suffering writers' cringe and taking more breaks than usual. 😬 In the spirit of getting back into things, while also continuing a break from...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Before leaving the studio on Friday, I went around to my neighbors with a big tray of lettuces. "I'm afraid you're going to have to take some lettuce," I told them. These gorgeous lettuces were on the verge of bolting, and needed to get eaten before turning bitter. You can see it here in this one below, where the lettuce is starting to elongate in the middle: That's how you can tell a lettuce is just about to go bitter. It gets sort of cone shaped, taller in the middle. Some varieties start...
2 months ago • 2 min read
We're just home after a trip to see family in Southern California. Lots of gardens, and lots of thoughts to share with you once I've had a minute to process it all. In the meantime, a quick note about greetings and easy seed saving. One of my cousins told me that she and her friend Sue are both avid readers of this newsletter, and often discuss what they read. So fun! Hello to you Sue! And hello you all of you who, like Sue, open and read this newsletter weekly. Thank you. It means the world...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Did you hear about that freak storm on Lake Tahoe last week? We were in it! Hiking in Yosemite, just reaching the top of Mt Hoffman, my daughter and her friend started shouting, “It’s snowing!” Sure enough, white flakes began to swirl around us. We thought it was just a weird little flurry as a cloud passed over. After all, there had been zero precipitation in the forecast. At the very top of the mountain, as my feet tingled from peering down the sheer drop over the other side, thunder...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Such a backlog of gardening news! My husband and I are both recovering from illness. It hit our daughter first like a regular cold, albeit one with copious, copious mucus and corresponding quantities of tissues all over the house. We grownups had light congestion and severe exhaustion. Walking the 15 minutes home after dropping my daughter at school felt like a monster hike and I needed to lie down afterwards. Normally I get kind of itchy if I don’t get out and move around for an hour or two...
3 months ago • 4 min read