Blog
April 24, 2024 “I can do this. I’ll take a seed tray of Western Columbine (Aquilegia formosa) home and watch over it,” I announced to the native plant nursery co-chair at Magnuson Park. It was late November, when we propagate native plants by seed. The nursery leader makes a delicate, moist seed-potting medium. You push […]
Gardening for the Greater Good
March 26, 2024 Geurrilla gardening is an ancient practice that began centuries ago when property became a commodity, versus a community resource. It is practiced all over the world! These days, you can ask permission to plant on a site or you can just do it and hope that you or your plants don’t go […]
WSDOT Has Poor Vision
February 27, 2024 Something is missing at the north end of our orchard. Before December, 2023, when I walked around the north loop, there was vegetation on the north side of the WSDOT fence, including our beautiful Deodar Cedar that we transplanted in 2015. I didn’t realize how that sweeping tree added a peaceful touch […]
FECO Native Plant Mini-nursery Socked by ‘Dry Storm’
January 18, 2024 April 7 is our annual plant sale and we plan to have some fine offerings, that is, if the plants survive the recent dry freeze. These last two weeks of unusual Seattle weather challenged many plants. The air over our area has been extraordinarily dry, due to the frigid low-moisture Arctic air […]
FECO Land Acknowledgment – A Work-In-Progress
November 16, 2023 Thanks to Lee who, in April of 2022, kicked off the conversation about FECO’s relationship to Native American people, whose homes were on this land before European settlers arrived. A six-member FECO Coast Salish Solidarity Group emerged and met monthly to wrestle with steps we could take to better understand the history […]
Getting to the Root of the Matter
October 28, 2023 Today was a perfect day for shoveling! Cool temperatures and a warm sun. Best of all, the soil was moist and loose. Volunteers were willing to follow up on a hunch and dug down to the concrete fence footing next to a poorly performing garden bed. Was the problem too much shade […]
To Net or Not
September 30, 2023 To Net or Not This year I got the hang of netting fruit trees. Not by choice. Our fruit trees were hit by apple maggot fly larvae damage two years ago. The larvae tunnel throughout the apple and ruin the taste (unlike other pest damage that can just be cut off.) City […]
Stop and Stare
August 29, 2023 To stop and stare at the plants and trees in the orchard is not only a connection with nature, it is a pathway for better plant care. In recent years, I walked briskly past the plants, like a race horse with blinders on, to focus on some maintenance task. Now retired, I […]
FECO’s Watershed and its History
July 23, 2023 Eight walkers joined Nancy Helm to learn about the watershed that FECO drains into and to hear about the people who historically used the Ravenna Creek area. Participants added to the history walk with information about native plants and stories of the old landfill in the Union Bay area. Nancy explained that […]
State of the Onion – 2023
June 28, 2023 The State of the Onion – 2023 To offer a quick snapshot of the State of the Onion at FECO, we will get the perspective of a few of our residents. from the voice of the newly hatched Southern Green stink bug ( Nezara viridula), having just crawled out of their egg […]