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 […]
City Matching Grant Transforms Community Orchard
February 15, 2016 It’s time to review 13 months of orchard infrastructure work, an extensive effort funded with a Seattle Department of Neighborhood (DON) Matching Grant. We are especially thankful to Allynn Ruth (DON) for securing a four-month extension of time to complete our work. Construction took longer because we did most of the work […]
Garden Bed Potpourri
January 21, 2016 Fruits, welcome vegetables! Garden beds are nearly finished and they are lively. The soil in all of the garden beds is recycled from the soil taken out to make the path. We outlined where garden beds would go and the excavators dumped soil in those spaces. This tactic saved labor but there […]
Adding Art
January 1, 2016 We are pleased to unveil two new art pieces in the orchard, both recently installed and both splendid. Chris Lemmen of Steel Bamboo is the creator of the floating bumble bee (bombus mixtus). The bee is made of metal. Landscape art is a specialty for Chris. The bee is headed north toward […]
Apple and Pear Physiology
November 29, 2015 Apple and Pear Physiology WSU Extension offers a bounty of pertinent information about orchard management on their website . They also host continuing education and I recently attended a two-day workshop focusing on Apple and Pear Physiology. The following information hit me as either useful or interesting or both. Note that different tree […]
The Harvest Is Early And Long
October 14, 2015 Much of the fruit we grow matured about three weeks early this year. We enjoyed honeyberry, blueberry, raspberry, pears, apples, figs, chestnuts. Yes, chestnuts! This is out first year of fully pollinated chestnuts. (When the female flower was receptive, our Maraval was hand pollinated from a tree about a half mile away.) […]
5th Annual Cider Fest This Sunday
October 2, 2015 You are all invited to our fifth annual Cider Fest this Sunday, noon to 3:00pm. Our event coincides with a tour of public orchards put on by CityFruit. We are one of 16 public orchard sites on the CityFruit tour. We will see orchard tour visitors between noon and 4:00pm, all trying […]
Path Project Complete
August 27, 2015 Building our crushed rock path was a sizeable effort with a sizeable payback: an improvement in both the appearance and functionality of the orchard. Path construction was the biggest volunteer effort for FECO to date. Seventeen hard-working volunteers donated a total of 117 hours moving 40 cubic yards of gravel last Saturday […]
State Of The Onion Address
July 18, 2015 On June 15, after four years of lugging water, we turned on a spigot. Wow! The sound of water rushing into a bucket; it actually took some getting used to! What a wonderful resource, especially with this record hot and dry summer. Our cisterns were installed just after the big February storms […]
Control Freaks Wanted
June 14, 2015 Choose your battles. Focus on the invasive plants that damage the environment! That was the advice given us by Karen Peterson, King County Noxious Weed Specialist, who awed us with her excellent presentation on invasive plants last Saturday. Karen explained that some plants are a problem statewide but others are a problem […]
Cisterns Are Doin’ It For Themselves
April 18, 2015 Our two new Premier 1,535 gallon cisterns are installed and ready for a rain dance. The 200 square foot shed roof will channel enough water into those tanks to sustain three times the vegetation that we currently water. Once we chose the cistern size, the design of the shed rebuild followed. The […]