Every December I tell myself I’m going to plan the garden properly this year. This time I’m actually doing it. Here’s how I map out the 2026 vegetable garden for zone 8b Redmond, WA, including real timing numbers and a seed budget I will almost certainly blow.
Planted garlic in spring my first year and harvested marbles. Turns out it goes in the ground in October and spends the winter doing its thing. Here’s how to do it right in the Pacific Northwest.
Most people shut their garden down in October. In Redmond, that’s leaving a lot of free food on the table. Here’s what’s still worth planting this week and what to leave in the ground.
September in Redmond still has 10 to 12 weeks of growing time if you know what to plant. Here’s what’s actually worth putting in the ground right now, what to skip, and why garlic planning can’t wait.
First frost in Redmond usually shows up late October, but that doesn’t mean the garden has to be done. Wire hoops, a roll of row cover fabric, and some old bedsheets can buy you weeks of extra growing season for under $20.
Bare soil in a PNW winter is a slow disaster. Cover crops like winter rye and crimson clover keep your beds productive, fix nitrogen, and cost almost nothing. Here’s what I actually use and what I got wrong the first time.
August feels late to be planting, but beets and beans still have a solid window here in zone 8b. Here’s what to put in the ground now for a real fall harvest before the frost shows up.
If your indeterminate tomatoes are huge, leafy, and not producing much fruit, the suckers are probably to blame. Here’s how to prune them in ten minutes a week with no special tools and actually get tomatoes out of the deal.
One planting of cucumbers or beans gives you a three-week sprint and then nothing. Here’s how I fixed that with three simple sowings and a paper calendar my daughter draws cucumbers on.
I grew tomatoes for four years without ever pruning a sucker. Turns out I was growing a lot of plant and not a lot of tomatoes. Here’s what changed and why it matters right now in July.
I let my cucumbers sprawl on the ground for two years and ended up with hidden yellow softballs and slug damage on a third of them. A simple DIY trellis made from stakes and twine fixed all of that for under four dollars and freed up six square feet of bed space.
Plant everything at once and you get one overwhelming harvest followed by nothing. Here’s how I stagger cucumbers and beans so we’re picking all summer instead of composting in July and buying at the farmers market in August.