Hi Emily,

Welcome! I can provide a little information and see if others jump in. For veges, i plant all the normal items, but i look for varieties that harvest the earliest. So, for tomatoes for example, I get any paste tomato like Roma, and many heirlooms as well as different color cherry. Something like the beefsteak will just take too long and you'll get disappointed.

check out the UW extension office/website. Here is oregon's which will have similiar info, and pick up the Seattle Tilth magazine which month by month walks you through what to plant and what varieties work best.

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/pnw/pnw548/

buy your seeds from a company that tests here:
http://www.rainyside.com/resources/seed_sources.html

good luck!

If you belong to CostCo/have a friend who does they now have the annual offering of the Sunset Western Garden Book, you might want to pick up a copy of this popular local gardening guide.

Hello, Emily, and welcome to the mossy side!

I think you will be delighted in the many varieties of plants that grow well here, and I second bboy's recommendation of the Sunset book as a good, all-around guide to what/where/how to plant. If cost is an issue (and in these times, is it ever not?), you can probably find a recent edition of the Sunset book at Half Price books (there are several located in the Puget Sound area) or at garage sales or on Craigslist.org.

As to your specific questions:

1. It is always wise to test your soil prior to planting and especially important when growing food.

2. Raised beds do not eliminate the need for testing (roots like to travel!) but are extremely helpful in getting an early start to the season as the soil warms up faster.

3. The Sunset book provides good advice -- and it really isn't as wet and grey here as you might think!

4. What type of bulbs? Spring bloomers should be planted in the fall/early winter.

Good luck and happy gardening,

Rain

Being a heavy metal, lead does not move through the soil very much. Lead concentrations are likely to be highest in the first 12" around the building foundation and off the immediate shoulder of the roadway. Neither of these areas is an auspicious location for garden beds anyway, so I wouldn't worry. Plants are not known for concentrating lead and the heaviness of the ion makes it unlikely that it will be taken up by plant roots at all.

The greatest danger of lead contamination in soil is not from take-up by the plant, but from settling of lead-laden soil dust on the above-ground portions of the plants during the dry season.

If you are concerned, you can have the soil tested for a small fee. These are the generally recommended practices based on test results:

less than 50 ppm: non-elevated lead level. Grow anything you want.

50-400 ppm: mildly elevated lead level. Grow anything you want, but wash produce thoroughly (especially for young children).

400-1200 ppm: significantly elevated lead level. Do not grow root crops or leafy vegetables. Fruit-bearing crops okay (here again, the concern is incidental ingestion of the dirt itself, not plant take-up of Pb).

above 1200 ppm: critically elevated lead level. Do not plant crops directly in soil. Used elevated beds with clean imported soil.

So many people in the PNW garden with raised beds filled with imported soil anyway, that you can simply use raised beds because of the superior results they produce, and know that you're doing the same thing that you would do under the worst-case scenario of contamination. In that case, there really would be no need for soil testing. Be sure to locate the beds for maximum sun exposure.

Get the book GROWING VEGETABLES WEST OF THE CASCADES..Steve Solomon..You can still plant lots of bulbs,just not ones that need the cold to flower.I use to do soil test all the time...now i think they are a waste of time..Most soil in the north west is low in Nitrogen and phosphorus and heavy in potassium..As far a lead goes???Do you really want to know?What are you going to do if there is lead?All that stuff is all around us every place,i dont think there is any way to get away from it.So i dont want to know,because i wouldnt have the money to do any thing about it any ways!

Falsehoods and discarded recommendations abound among casual and commercial information sources, to avoid some bum steers before getting too involved...

[From one of the articles (Compost Is a Safe, Chemical-free Source of Nutrients for Gardens) linked to on the page linked to below: Heavy metals, such as lead, arsenic, and mercury, are less problematic for plants than they are for
humans. If ingested, these metals disrupt biochemical pathways and cause a number of health problems,
particularly in children. Lead is the most commonly found heavy metal in residential urban soils,
primarily as a remnant of lead-based paints and fuels. There were frighteningly high levels of lead,
chromium, cadmium, manganese, and other EPA-regulated heavy metals reported in a recent, world-wide
study of compost. Sources of toxic heavy metals include sewage sludge, industrially-contaminated soil,
and the previously mentioned lead problem. Its not a bad idea to have your soil tested for lead,
especially if you grow produce for human consumption. The cost is minimal and the information
invaluable]

Bboy it would be a mistake to extrapolate her unsourced opinions as applying to this context: harmfull lead uptake in garden fruits & vegetables. It would first be a big assumption that since Lead is in some compost, then it must have got there from plant uptake in gardens; then also there is no info in her article on what the relevant levels are at all, to get a reasonble perspective.
Here is a quote from a great article by a real soil scientist from the U of Minnesota, Carl Rosen:

"Since plants do not take up large quantities of soil lead, the lead levels in soil considered safe for plants will be much higher than soil lead levels where eating of soil is a concern (pica). Generally, it has been considered safe to use garden produce grown in soils with total lead levels less than 300 ppm. The risk of lead poisoning through the food chain increases as the soil lead level rises above this concentration. Even at soil levels above 300 ppm, most of the risk is from lead contaminated soil or dust deposits on the plants rather than from uptake of lead by the plant."

So you read part(?) of one article on the Washington State University Linda Chalker-Scott pages, and now know all about her background and approach.

Here's some more material (Under The Myth of Absolute Science) from the same pages:

Here are some criteria to keep in mind when separating science from pseudoscience:
If the information is in a magazine or journal, is it a peer-reviewed publication? Peer review
means that independent experts in the field will read and critique the manuscript. By reading the
journals instructions for manuscript submission it is fairly easy to determine if peer review is
part of the process. Lack of peer review in a publication should cause the reader to look
elsewhere for scientific verification of the claims in question.
If the information is contained in a book, who is the publisher? What types of books does the
publisher produce? Acceptable science is usually published by academic or scientific
publishing houses, including university presses. Pseudoscience is commonly published by
companies with no ties to mainstream science or academia, which includes vanity presses (i.e.
self publication).
Has the experiment been repeated elsewhere? When controversial subjects appear in the
scientific literature (e.g. cloning), independent researchers will repeat the experiment to verify the
original research. Lack of subsequent scientific verification is a red flag; it means that no one
else was able to get the same results.
A hypothesis becomes a scientific "truth" if repeated scientific experimentation has failed to
disprove it. The "Laws of Physics" are so termed because they have been exhaustively tested,
and have not yet been shown to be false. The idea must withstand repeated attempts to
disprove it.
Does the author have an ulterior motive? For instance, is the author attempting to sell a product?
Or is the author attempting to sway your thinking on an issue unrelated to science (religious
morality, as in the book cited above)? Scientists attempt to report their results as objectively as
possible

Does this sound like someone who is just putting out opinion pieces, without anything behind them? Someone who is not a "real" scientist?

What would be the difference between taking in lead through working a contaminated plot and through consuming produce grown on it? Either way, you want to find out what you are dealing with and respond accordingly, rather than waving off any possible concerns.

I've read more than a dozen. None of them even came close to that criteria. No references, no controlled experimentation, no verifiable facts, no peer review.

Emily, I think you are really going to enjoy gardening here. There are so many wonderful plants that you probably couldn't grow before, I would also suggest taking a look at some of the fun zone-pushing edibles at Raintree Nursery, most of which will thrive here.
- Tom

They're not research papers. That does not mean they were not based on reliable research. I've read her referring to the research behind some topics, guess you did not read the ones where she mentions this.

For her to only claim it is based on reliable research is irresponsible. She is a PhD writing articles challenging established ideas, challenging "myths". She was trained to include her references and follow those guidelines you posted above, but she has not (not even one of them). She can claim they're based on reliable research, but we can't verify it because she doesn't list them. That is wrong for someone like her to publish articles like those.
Because the articles challenge myths, they are science, not just "research papers". You can't challenge unless you prove, especially if you are a PhD publishing on a university web site. They are junk science.

Perhaps if she spent less time playing Farmville she'd have enough time to properly cite her sources.

If I'm going to post something useless to the OP I should add something of value to this thread. "Mostly wet and gray" is not a very accurate description of our climate, though we do often have long periods of weather like this in late fall and winter. Don't forget that it's very rare to get substantial rain here in the summer. If you are planting large areas of vegetables, you'll have to be prepared to pay a lot to water them. That's my tip. Other than that, all kinds of fruits/veggies with low to moderate heat requirements do great here... choose what you like.

We have extended cool, moist springs. Some plants like that:
Hostas
Peonies
Iris
Cane berries (raspberries, blackberries, etc)
Peas
Cabbage
Rutabagas
Beets

Summer (July, August, September) is dry, dry, dry. Plan on it. But not very hot. Heat loving plants like peppers and melons are a challenge and will be late, if at all.

Nasty bugs:
Root maggots (radish)
Cabbage worm (cabbage, cauliflower)
Leaf miners (beets, chard)
Coddling moth (on apples)
Slugs

The above will be show-stoppers on certain crops if not dealt with. This year my beets go under netting to keep the leaf-miners away.

Bugs we *don't* have:
Plum Curculio
Oriental Fruit Moth
Squash bugs
Squash Vine Borer

Springs here often give peonies problems. Chalker-Scott's book has references after each chapter. Much of the stuff she talks about in her articles etc. was already shown to be myths years ago by Carl E. Whitcomb and others. Whitcomb talked in one of his books about how the horticultural establishment fights new discoveries, is real slow to adopt them. In his 2006 book he says much horticultural research now is mere reiteration of work already having been completed. Anyone thinking Chalker-Scott is some kook trying to shake things up with completely new and radical interpretations has not been keeping up with modern thinking on nursery and gardening practices at all.

What kind of problems do you have with peonies? I have over 20 varieties here in Marysville, and they are probably my most carefree plants, I would highly recommend them here.

Bboy, the truth of her opinions are irrelevent (even though some are dead wrong), because we can't verify them. Publishing through a university using her PhD title carries weight of authority itself, but it also carries specific responsibilities which she has shirked. Look up pseudoscience ; her articles are it's very definition.

Thanks everyone!
It is just going to be trial and error I think. One gardener at City People's said not to worry about soil testing and lead - similar response to Whygarden's. Another at Loew's set me up with some basic seeds and advice on how to see best results.
I found a list (through this site) for soil testers, but I still didn't find anyone who would do it - it was explained to me to be more of a commercial interest rather than an individual one. If someone's got a recommendation I'll take it. But right, I am not sure if I want to know. On that note, I have this wonderful terraced area in the back, but I was told that all sorts of nasty things were found back there, like photo developer. Any way to clean this up and be sure it's not toxic?

I also bought the Seattle Tilth growing guide and have been asking around and reading up. Last week proved that it is not wet and gray all the time in Seattle - even if that was a rare streak. A bad reputation precedes the city.

Any advice/threads on how to avoid those nasty bugs?

So, daunted as I still am, I created a small raised bed, mixed in some compost/manure and popped in my peas the other day. I am just going to make use of the advice I'm receiving, keep records (and a blog) and see what happens this year!

In an established residential garden, I doubt you have any need to test for soil contaminates -- that would be much more of a concern in a more commercial/industrial location. Heavy metals are present in all soils but seldom to the degree in an established residential setting where they would cause issues. Unless you were downwind of the old Asarco Tacoma plant :-) And compost is typically used in all sorts of contaminated soil remediation efforts. It's rather amazing what all those soil organisms manage to consume and convert to harmless substances. Search on some of the clean-up efforts using compost undertaken in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Adding a reasonable quantity of good quality compost to any areas you may have concerns about will certainly not hurt and could go a long ways in improving conditions.

And on a more positive note, beware of all the gloom and doom you may encounter here regarding gardening in the PNW. It is pretty darn easy to grow whatever you like or what is offered in garden centers here with only a few notable exceptions. Maybe that's why virtually everyone has a garden of some fashion, even those restricted to apartment balconies :-) Even most insects pose few problems in a diverse garden setting, although slugs are an exception. For hot season crops, look for ones with a short harvest date that are more suited to our cooler, short summers......most local suppliers will feature these. And avoid preconceptions about NW weather - it is generally pretty benign and offers less annual rainfall than many other places in this country. It just tends to get spread out in dribs and drabs over a longer period. This is a recurring summer drought area and irrigation of annuals, veggies and many other common garden plants will be a requirement generally from May through late October.

For new gardeners here, Seattle Tilth's Maritime Northwest Garden Guide is invaluable, as is Steve Solomon's, and far more appropriate to local conditions than Sunset's Western Garden Book. IME, that only tends to confuse new gardeners with the different and unrelated zone designations. Plus, they are overly conservative.

And most importantly of all, have fun. Gardening should be a happy, rewarding activity and most of us find it to be so.

WHY IS IT EVERY TIME ON EVERY FORUM NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT...ITS GETS HIJACKED BY NET LIFERS?

emilykemily- I like to plant flowers so that there is a succession of bloom starting in early spring. For example, right now. late winter-

Helleborus orientalis blooming, in shades of purple and pink, and it self-sows.
Pulmonaria starting to bloom, variegated foliage, colors from white, pink, rose, cobalt blue/pink, purple/orange, needs some shade and light summer water

P. 'Excalibur'

Early daffodils starting
Muscari
Snowdrops- Galium

Spring-
Daffodils
Species tulips- tougher than hybrid tulips, smaller blooms
Muscari
Hyacinths
Pulmonaria
Anemone nemarosa- delightful patches of low foliage and myriad blooms, goes dormant in the dry season
Hardy geraniums, G. Sanguinum makes clumps that look like bouquets, some trail, low water usage
Bleeding hearts
Perennial forget-me-nots, Brunnera, can self sow a little, need some shade, medium water usage.
Biennials, which do great here since they grow during the rainy season and bloom before things dry out for summer-
Lunaria- silver dollar plant, purple or white flowers, heart-shaped leaves, makes lovely dried arrangements, self-sows
Forget-me-nots, blue/pink flowers, look great initially, but can sow invasively and have to be pulled out, I tolerate them but they look bad at end of season
Columbines- can be grown from seed, self-sow, cute grey-green foliage, tall double I have looks like fairyland when blooming in beds, a chore to cut all the flower spikes off later when dry.
Daphne odora, where drainage is very good, shade
Irises- succession of bloom from dwarf to tall bearded to Siberian and Japanese

Summer-
Hardy Fuchsias- tougher ones have small flowers, like 'David'

F. 'Edith' with some surrounding Columbine foliage

Hardy geraniums

G. 'Anne Thompson'

Roses- check out rose forum, rosesant forum
Phygelius, Cape Fuchsia, tall almost shrubby, tubular flowers that hummingbirds like
Runner beans- have red flowers that hummingbirds like, do better than regular pole beans in our cooler summers, eat when not too big as they get fibrous
Heucheras- many with lovely foliage, some with nice red flowers, low to average water usage.
Hypericum frondosum, kalmianum- yellow flowers, low water usage, nice fall color, shrubby
Hebes- check for hardiness, smaller leaves usually, nice rounded mounding plants

Hebe pinguifolia 'Sutherlandii'

Daphne "Summer Ice", long bloom, nice round shrub, low water, good drainage
Heathers- some bloom in winter, various seasons, low mounds, low water usage
Thyme- great on slopes, low water usage, flowers, culinary
Variegated Marjoram- "
Oregano- " Dwarf Greek Oregano is low, some can 2-3'
Rosemary- " 3-5'
Dahlias- can succeed left in the ground but do better lifted.
Malvaceae- edible leaves, Rose of Sharon, Hollyhocks, Hardy hibiscus, etc.
Sarcococca hookeriana 'Humillis'- very fragrant flowers, I don't quite remember when it blooms

Favorite ground covers-
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, esp Massachusetts
Symphytum grandiflorum- Ground cover comfrey, good in dry shade, banks, under trees in orchard, tougher than grass and weeds
Geranium macrorrhizum- dry shade, banks
Epimedium- choice for shade
Vinca- major can be very invasive, taller; minor is low, variegated forms not as invasive and can light up dry shade, low water usage.
Ceanothus gloriosa 'Point Reyes'- low, spreading, low water usage, blooms
Campanula poscharskyana- trailing, heart-shaped leaves, blue flowers, fills in well in shade

Well, just a smattering of things that have done well for me.

I use tunnels to set out tomatoes, squash and cucumber early, and grow peppers in pots. It's not warm enough for melons, basically, though some try. I've seen large Moon and Stars watermelons at Fort Vancouver. Beans usually do very well, and greens like collards and kale, which can overwinter as well as turnips for early spring greens, if planted by July 15.

check out Digginfood.com
She, Willi, just had a seed starting seminar at Molbak's in Woodinville, over on the eastside. Her blog is quite insiteful!