Portable planting bags is the term used by my British guests. The bags looked suspiciously like my grocery store recycling bag. Indeed, they are made of the same stuff.

So,always the frugal farmer, I flip the bag and add stenciling on the outside. Currently the stencil says HHOPE>>which stands for help heal our precious earth. I fill the bag with potting soil and Voila, a portable planter for less than two dollars. They can be used anywhere there is a sun beam. If the gardener goes on vacation, the potting bag can be placed in a shallow pan and it will self water. Luxuriously lazy gardening.

Just put in the strawberries. Tried to use rows which runs so against my SFG soul. The little strawberry plants look like embryos. Their leaves are gone; their ruts are brown and furry looking. I planted them in one of the unused urbfarm gardens. We'll see.

OK, so it is not frigid by Alaskan standards. 50's is not below freezing. Still, it is cold enough to run the Earth Boxes into the garage. That is the beauty of having gardens on wheels.

I had 100% germination on the fall seeds. They were so perky with their little cotelydons waving. Then, one by one, their stems thinned and they fell over, burying their little heads in the potting soil. B. says I had a bad case of dampening off. It looks like Hiroshima after the bomb, plant rubble everywhere.

I bought a tray of 25 seed starts from my farmer Brian. The problem is that I do not know what the little sets really are. I think they are red kale and coriander , snowball cauliflower and Georgia collards, but they could be something entirely different. I tried to imagine them grown, but it is like looking at a playgroup of infants and imagining them as adults. I'll call Brian and get an ID.

My own seedlings are leggy and floppy. I moved Goliath brocolli to small pots but the sedlings looked as if something had eaten the main stem. How sad. Goliath was incredibly gorgeous last year and provided over 14 meals, good ones....small and delicious, giant and delicious also.

The petite beach garden . The light is great and my neighbor's irrigation system waters them.