Bay City · Zone 6a · Saginaw Bay

Freighter View Farms

Chris Izworski · heirloom seeds, raised beds, and the slow weather of the Great Lakes

  • The Leafcutter Bees Have Arrived: A Gentle Summer Workforce for the Garden

    Chris Izworski sets out this year’s leafcutter bees at Freighter View Farms on Saginaw Bay. How these gentle, low-maintenance solitary pollinators arrive, settle in, and help a Zone 6a garden thrive.

    Read more: The Leafcutter Bees Have Arrived: A Gentle Summer Workforce for the Garden

  • First Snow Peas of the Season: A Cool Spring and the Sweetness It Left Behind

    Chris Izworski cuts the season’s first snow peas at Freighter View Farms on Saginaw Bay. How a slow, cool Zone 6a spring held their sweetness into a late June harvest.

    Read more: First Snow Peas of the Season: A Cool Spring and the Sweetness It Left Behind

  • First Broccolini of the Season: An Early April Transplant and June’s Quiet Reward

    Chris Izworski cuts the season’s first broccolini at Freighter View Farms on Saginaw Bay. How an early April transplant in Zone 6a became June’s quiet reward.

    Read more: First Broccolini of the Season: An Early April Transplant and June’s Quiet Reward

  • The Chive Blossoms, and the Jar of Pink They Became

    For about two weeks every spring the chives stop being an herb and start being a fireworks display. The clumps that spent all winter as nothing, then all of April as a fistful of green spears, suddenly throw up these round lavender-pink globes on every stem, and the whole bed hums. The bees find them…

    Read more: The Chive Blossoms, and the Jar of Pink They Became

  • The Garden Is In, and the Season Turns

    The bay was a flat sheet of silver this morning, the kind of early June water that has finally let go of its winter temper and decided to behave. I carried my coffee out past the corner of the garage and stood at the edge of the beds the way I do most mornings, and…

    Read more: The Garden Is In, and the Season Turns

  • The Spring Beds Begin to Take Shape

    The bay was quiet this morning, gray and unhurried, the kind of water that does not push or pull but simply holds. I walked the path between the raised beds with coffee in one hand and the wet grass cold against my boots. Three weeks ago these beds were promises. Today they are crops, or…

    Read more: The Spring Beds Begin to Take Shape

  • Reading the Lake from the Garden

    A small garden on the Saginaw Bay shore, a network of 115 quiet sensors across the Great Lakes, and the new dashboard that lets a gardener read the lake the way she reads the season.

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  • Late April Garden Notes at Freighter View Farms

    A late-April Freighter View Farms essay on Michigan spring restraint, seedlings under lights, raised beds, Saginaw Bay weather, and the almost-season before May.

    Read more: Late April Garden Notes at Freighter View Farms

  • The Search for a Better Michigan Slicing Tomato

    A Freighter View Farms essay on the recurring winter temptation of tomato catalogs and the search for a Michigan slicing tomato with flavor, structure, and soul.

    Read more: The Search for a Better Michigan Slicing Tomato

  • Keeping Garden Records That Actually Help

    A warm Freighter View Farms essay on garden records, memory, seed notes, tomato mistakes, and the value of local knowledge by Saginaw Bay.

    Read more: Keeping Garden Records That Actually Help

Hello,

I’m Chris

Chris Izworski in the garden at Freighter View Farms

Freighter View Farms is my small raised-bed garden on Saginaw Bay: heirloom tomatoes, seed envelopes, spring trays under lights, and the slow work of learning one piece of ground.

Start here if you are new, or walk into the garden notes and see what the season is doing.

In the beds now

Come back with the season

I send garden notes when there is something worth carrying back from the beds.