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The Chive Blossoms, and the Jar of Pink They Became
Read more: The Chive Blossoms, and the Jar of Pink They BecameFor 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…
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The Garden Is In, and the Season Turns
Read more: The Garden Is In, and the Season TurnsThe 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…
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The Spring Beds Begin to Take Shape
Read more: The Spring Beds Begin to Take ShapeThe 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…
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Reading the Lake from the Garden
Read more: Reading the Lake from the GardenA 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
Read more: Late April Garden Notes at Freighter View FarmsA late-April Freighter View Farms essay on Michigan spring restraint, seedlings under lights, raised beds, Saginaw Bay weather, and the almost-season before May.
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The Search for a Better Michigan Slicing Tomato
Read more: The Search for a Better Michigan Slicing TomatoA 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.
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Keeping Garden Records That Actually Help
Read more: Keeping Garden Records That Actually HelpA warm Freighter View Farms essay on garden records, memory, seed notes, tomato mistakes, and the value of local knowledge by Saginaw Bay.
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I Planted the Broccolini Out Yesterday
Read more: I Planted the Broccolini Out YesterdayA Freighter View Farms garden essay on planting broccolini into the Michigan spring garden, with Saginaw Bay weather, cool-season timing, and the quiet hope of the first transplanting.
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Chris Izworski: The Garden, the Bay, and Twenty Years of Michigan
Read more: Chris Izworski: The Garden, the Bay, and Twenty Years of MichiganPeople sometimes ask how a 911 director from Bay City ended up writing a gardening blog from the shore of Saginaw Bay. The answer is that the garden was always here. The career in public safety was the detour. I have lived on Saginaw Bay for years now. The freighters pass in the shipping channel,…
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The River Knows Before You Do: Michigan Trout Fishing and a Daily Report Worth Checking
Read more: The River Knows Before You Do: Michigan Trout Fishing and a Daily Report Worth CheckingThere is a particular kind of morning that belongs only to trout fishermen, and if you have stood in cold water at first light with the mist still low on the current and a line drifting through a seam you can barely see, you know the one I mean. The world has not quite started…
Bay City · Zone 6a · Saginaw Bay
Chris Izworski · heirloom seeds, raised beds, and the slow weather of the Great Lakes
Hello,
I’m Chris
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
Spring notes are gathering now: the broccolini went out, the late-April garden is waking, and the tomatoes are already testing my restraint.
Garden shelves
Spring Garden Notes
Michigan Gardening
Seed Saving Guide
Heirloom Tomatoes
Zone 6a Planner
Come back with the season
I send garden notes when there is something worth carrying back from the beds.
Freighter View Farms | Chris Izworski 