Heirloom seeds and garden stories from the shore of Saginaw Bay, Zone 6a Michigan.

This is a small raised-bed garden in Bay City, Michigan, tended by someone who gets up before dawn most mornings to check the seedlings before the day begins. The freighters move through the bay channel year-round, slower in winter, more of them in summer, and the garden follows the same unhurried rhythm. Cherokee Purples and shishito peppers, seeds saved in paper envelopes, bread baked from the kitchen that smells like the garden when the basil is still warm from the sun.

New here? Start here. If you want the current spring thread in one place, step into Michigan Spring Garden Notes.

Latest from the Garden

Michigan Spring Garden Notes from Freighter View Farms
The April thread gathered in one place: broccolini, cold soil, seed trays, tomato temptation, and the slow arrival of a Zone 6a spring.

I Planted the Broccolini Out Yesterday
The broccolini left the shelter of the lights and went into the late-April soil, while the bay still had enough chill in it to keep me honest.

Late April Garden Notes at Freighter View Farms
The trays are crowded, the beds are waking, and the garden is beginning to lie in the sweetest possible way.

The Search for a Better Michigan Slicing Tomato
Every winter I promise to behave reasonably about tomatoes. Then the seed catalogs arrive and the old trouble starts again.

Keeping Garden Records That Actually Help
Dates on blue tape, notes in the phone, mistakes written down after I am mature enough to admit them.

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What’s Growing

It is late April. The broccolini has moved into the garden, the onions are steady, and the peppers are still under lights, taking their time in the way peppers do. Outside, the beds are no longer winter beds, but they are not summer beds either. This is the almost-season, when one warm afternoon can make a gardener reckless and one evening off Saginaw Bay can talk him back down.

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Seed Saving
The fermentation method, drying on ceramic plates, shelling beans at the kitchen table while the bay freezes. Complete Seed Saving Guide

Heirloom Tomatoes
Twenty varieties tested in Zone 6a raised beds. The five that earn a permanent place. The one that tastes like nothing else. Heirloom Tomato Guide

Zone 6a Planning
Month by month from onions in February to garlic in October. What to start when, and why the timing matters more than almost anything. Zone 6a Planner

Flowers and Pollinators
Zinnias at every edge, cosmos in the gaps, marigolds that do real work. Flowers at FVF

All Garden Posts
The full archive: seed saving, harvests, reflections, wildlife, bread, the bay. Browse the blog

Start with the Best

New to the site? The Best Of page has the posts that have lasted, the ones worth reading first. The First Tomato Sandwich of Summer is a good introduction to what this place is. So is Early Morning on the Bay.