December in Redmond is the best time to plan next year’s vegetable garden, before seed catalogs sell out and February sneaks up on you. Here’s how to map your beds, decide what to start from seed, and actually set yourself up for a better 2026 harvest.
Losing a whole flat of spinach to a surprise freeze will change your priorities fast. Here’s how to protect your greens through a PNW winter without spending much at all, using row cover, scrap-wood cold frames, and old milk jugs.
Leaving garden beds bare over winter is a slow way to wreck the soil you spent all season building. Cover crops fix that for almost nothing. Here’s what works in zone 8b and how to get it in the ground this month.
July in Redmond means bolting lettuce and a garden full of regret. Here’s what’s actually thriving in the heat right now, plus what you can still direct sow this month to get something out of the rest of summer.
Blossom end rot wiped out half my tomato harvest last year. Turns out it’s mostly a watering problem, and fixing it costs almost nothing if you know where to look.
Bought onion starts last year and half of them melted before they hit the ground. This year I started my own from seed for less than the cost of that bundle, using a salad clamshell and a shop light. Here’s the whole cheap setup.
Burying your tomato transplants deep gives them a massive root system boost with zero extra cost. Here’s how to do it right, and why leggy seedlings are actually an advantage.
Empty winter beds aren’t a waste of time, they’re an opportunity. Here’s how to build serious soil health through the wet Redmond winter without spending more than a few bucks.
Onions and leeks need 10 to 12 weeks of indoor growing time before transplant, which means December is exactly when you should start. Here’s a cheap setup that actually works, learned the hard way after killing a few batches.
Seed catalogs show up in December and I’ve been dog-earing pages ever since. Here’s how I actually plan what to order for a zone 8b backyard in Redmond without spending money on things that won’t work or won’t get eaten.
Peppers need 10 to 12 weeks of indoor growing before transplant, which means January in Redmond is the time to start. Here’s how to set up a cheap grow light system that actually works without a sad windowsill and without spending serious money.
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.