Blog
June 26, 2025 Mulch Madness It’s my goal to cover bare soil at FECO, both in the garden beds and in the tree guilds. You can see a variety of living and non-living mulches at FECO. See photos of of various plants and other materials: Hazelnut shells, early-flowering borage (Trachystemon orientalis), straw, leaves, prunings and […]
Good Bugs Bad Bugs
July 29, 2016 Last month, I attended a class on Beneficial Insects taught by instructors from Xerces (http://www.xerces.org/) and hosted by King Conservation District . Conservation biocontrol is the new catch phrase and the focus is on increasing the numbers and diversity of naturally occurring beneficial insects. The idea is that nature does a good […]
Enjoy National Pollinators Week!
June 20, 2016 The morning was hot and getting hotter, so at a recent pollinator workshop (June 4 at 21 Acres) we took an early field tour, observing various bees, nest holes for ants (flat) v. bees (ringed by excavation “dust”), and some of the experimental plantings underway. We spent the rest of the day […]
The FECO Community
May 22, 2016 Hi! My name’s Lydia and I’m a nursing student at UW and one of your neighbors. I had an assignment for my community health class. The instructions were to take 2 photos from my community that answered the following questions: What is one asset of your community? What is the most significant […]
Ready for a Rest
May 3, 2016 April 30, 2016 was the last day to spend our Seattle Neighborhood Matching Grant funds. We accomplished so much this past 14 months (see prior blog post) but we were still missing a bench. Last year, there was no time to rest but, this year, there is! We made an effort, searching […]
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 […]