Checkerspot Farm

05/12/2026

This breaks my heart. I don't usually share national news on this page but it is unfortunately information that people should know about.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18skhARaV2/

The U.S. Forest Service isn’t managing forests anymore. It’s running a timber operation and poisoning everything else to do it.

A yearlong investigation by Mother Jones found that the Forest Service and private logging companies are systematically spraying thousands of acres of national forest with glyphosate (Roundup) to kill off native shrubs and wildflowers that compete with commercially valuable trees like Douglas firs and sugar pines.

After wildfires, forests naturally rebound with diverse vegetation and wildlife. What’s replacing that recovery is rows of industrial saplings surrounded by silence. No insects, birds, or flowers. It’s just dead zones.

Glyphosate application in California’s forests has quintupled over the last two decades in one year 266,000 pounds were sprayed a record. The World Health Organization classifies glyphosate as a carcinogen. The Forest Service is using it at industrial scale, on public land, to benefit private timber interests.

This is what “multiple use management” looks like when timber wins every time. Ecological health, wildlife habitat, native plant communities all of it gets written off as competition.

05/01/2026

Two signs of spring- bluebells are blooming and the eight-spotted tiger beetle has fallen into a germination bucket. These tiny metallic green predators show up every year at this time. We are opening Saturday May 9th from 10-5pm. The website has been updated with the new plants available- Lots of desirable native bushes for Spring! Check it out: www.checkerspotfarm.com

04/19/2026

Spring freeze alert! - Sunday night and Monday night. Put your sandals away and take out your wool socks and boots. Your native plants are fine even the ones with buds, even the ones emerging from the ground. They have lived in this climate longer than we have. Its why despite all the pressure of the commercial gardening season, they refuse grow very much, if at all during the month of April. Being wet helps in a freeze but nature seems to providing that already so, we good here. Say a prayer for our peach and fruit farmers, its a lot more worrying for them. Here's some emerging Virginia Mt Mint. It's adorable.

03/10/2026

Welp, we are now in that season known as "false spring." People are already asking for plants which warms my heart. However, we are realistically just under 2 months away from having plants that can be put in the ground. Most of the 2nd year plants are still buried under snow and the 1st year plants are stratifying in bins which are also full of snow. This year, we will open for the season on Mother's Day weekend - May 9th and 10th and then be open Friday, Saturday, Sunday every weekend after that through September. Available first will be 2nd year plants. First year plants and plugs will be available mid-June. I know. It feels very late. We grow plants naturally here - outside. Natives are very suspicious of spring. Non natives can be convinced to bud in April but natives know better - bud in April and you might get your new growth lopped off by frost. Our plants start putting forth new growth in May. Seeds germinate about the same time. It will be glorious but right now, we wait. Picture is of Big bluestem in the meadow. Yup, its still winter.

02/17/2026

This Saturday (February 21st from 12-4pm, we will be winter sowing many different seeds in containers in my kitchen. If you would like to help with this venture, please send a pm through facebook. Everyone will get a gift certificate for 3 free plants as well as some leftover seeds (not sure which ones we will have extra of) and a hands-on crash course on how to plant a variety of different seeds. Its important to send a pm if you want to attend since space in my kitchen is limited and if you rsvp, we will be counting on your help. Stiff goldenrod pictured below - one of many different seeds we will be sowing.

01/25/2026

Well, its been a while since I posted anything. Honestly, I have been fighting both depression and horror at the events unfolding around us. Despite everything birds still need food, we are still in an insect apocalypse and the work to mend the earth must continue. And so slowly, I have been building my planting list and making bird, bat and owl houses - pictures below. These will be for sale when the store opens on May 1stish (which feels to be about 10 months away but actually isn't)

10/28/2025

Despite the increasing cold and hightime frost, these little beauties continue to flower.

10/08/2025

FYI

If you trickled water on a dry sponge and on a brick, which would have a puddle around it sooner?

Turf Grass has a place and a purpose ... Sports fields, movie-night-in-the-park, a place for dogsh*t .... But making mowed turfgrass the norm for both private residences as well as commercial properties and the margins of strip malls, retention ponds, highway embankments and all the other "nether regions" of human infrastructure is absolutely INSANE.

Even if you dislike plants or find them boring, using the native plants that evolved in your region as a "living machine" - to prevent flooding, prevent soil erosion, mitigate the effects of the urban heat island (through both evapotranspiratice cooling and shading the ground from the sun) - is just what makes practical sense.

Using native plants isn't "environmentalism", it is just *infrastructure*. The plants that spent millions of years evolving in your region are naturally going to be best suited to helping the land stay alive and intact, as well as reducing the devastating effects of heat waves and flooding.

If you don't think lawns cause flooding, then Get a penetrometer (which measures soil compaction) Stick it in the ground above turfgrass and see how deep it goes. Then do it to a native prairie planting. It'll stop at a few inches in the turfgrass (which is where the compaction starts since roots aren't breaking up the soil nor creating porosity). It'll go down a foot or two in the native prairie planting.

Encourage your local municipality to install natives along highway strips and around retention ponds and canals. It is just what makes sense.
And also...

Kill Your Lawn and Plant Native.

10/08/2025

This picture that I took in the meadow today illustrates the importance of having a diversity of goldenrods to feed pollinators throughout the fall. There are three different goldenrods here. The fluffy seed heads on the left belong to stiff goldenrod. The closed flowers on the right belong to Showy goldenrod and the one in the center, at the peak of its bloom, is seaside goldenrod. Seaside goldenrods everywhere were busy with bumblebees. A meadow, even one that is much larger, with only one species would have provided only a fraction of the food.

09/23/2025

The meadow now that fall is finally here. Don't forget our Plants and Pie event - this Saturday, September 27th. Help expand meadow and get pie, live music, free plants and a seed tour for your help. Sign up on home page of the website: www.checkerspotfarm.com