Two Green Gardeners

Garden recap

2010-10-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Gardening is not for me.

I'm glad we gave it a try, but I just don't see myself tending gardens year after year. It seems like we invested a lot into the garden, but didn't get a lot out of it. Our lettuce was bitter. Our basil was pungent. Our broccoli and peppers did not grow, the melons we planted were tiny and flavorless, and the cilantro was just ... weird. We did have some success with peas, carrots and tomatoes, but the tomatoes came in so, so late in the season and the carrots were all short and stubby.

I do realize that this was not the best year for any gardener (from the green variety, like us, to long-time gardening enthusiasts, master gardeners and even professional fruit and veggie farmers), thanks to the weather, and I've had a few folks tell me that I should not draw conclusions based on the unusual circumstances of 2010. But I am going to draw conclusions because, well, I know me. And I know that this is not my thing. Even giving it a trial run was a stretch. For me, when it comes to gardening, I've learned that the reward is in the result -- not the process. I do not enjoy digging, planting and watering, so to spend so much time and money on this project only to receive so little in return is quite a disappointment. This is so, so different from how I feel about other activities. For example, running. I like running, so even if I don't finish as a 5K in record time, it isn't a big deal because the training part is actually something I enjoy doing. Same with baking cookies. This year, I entered chocolate chip cookies into the Washington County Fair. I did not receive a ribbon. That's OK, though, because I enjoy baking cookies. The process was fun for me, and my time was not wasted. Gardening, unfortunately, felt just like a big fat waste of time.

Plus, I really don't need to garden. I live right on the edge of farmland (really, right on the edge). In less than an hour, I can drive to several local farms and be back home with a colorful variety of fruits and veggies (grown by people who know what they are doing). I can also join a CSA, and they'll deliver a box of fresh produce to my door each week. There are also tons of farmer's markets around here, as well as stores that specialize in locally-grown fruits and veggies.

And this works out great for me, because I would much rather spend time in the kitchen than in the dirt.

Veggie thieves

2010-07-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that some random person (in other words -- someone who is not a member of our garden community) has been wandering into the garden and taking it upon himself to pick and eat veggies. Apparently, he has been informed him that the garden is not public (it seems he thought that the garden was for everyone to enjoy -- not just the employees who tend the garden and paid for their plots and all their supplies and plants). The person who caught him in the act was not thrilled -- and I'm not thrilled either! Especially knowing that she caught the guy eating peas. They might have been my peas!! Signage informing passers-by that the garden is not a free-for-all has been proposed. I like that idea. I hope they put signs up asap!

New starts

2010-07-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the Hillsboro Tuesday Marketplace, and I was really surprised that none of the vendors were selling starts (maybe they only do that on weekends??). So much for that plan. Instead, I bought a great bottle of wine from Blooming Hill Vineyard -- their 2008 Mingle, which is a blend Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Riesling (I usually prefer reds, but this white wine is going to be great on a warm summer night! Maybe even tonight!).

Anyway, the whole no-starts-at-the-market thing meant I had to revise my plan. So, today I went out to New Leaf Greenhouse in Cornelius. For $7.15 I left with two new tomato plants, two peppers, broccoli, cantaloupe and honeydew. It might be too hot to plant tonight (my car says it is 100!) ... but I hope to get them in the ground soon.

Easy peasy!

2010-07-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

Today I feel like an official gardener! Last night, for the first time, we had home-grown veggies for dinner ... steamed snow peas. Here is the recipe ...

1. Wash and trim your snow peas
2. Place snow peas in steamer basket
3. Fill a medium saucepan about 2/3 with salted water
4. Bring to boil
5. Place steamer basket over saucepan; cover
6. Turn down burner to medium low
7. Steam for about 2 minutes
8. Sprinkle with salt to taste, and enjoy!

We tried installing drip irrigation

2010-07-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

Our garden mission on Monday was to install drip irrigation. This way, all we have to do to water our plants (not that watering has really been necessary up until this week!) is turn on the faucet and wait. No standing around holding a hose! Except it often seems like a project wouldn't be a project without at least one minor problem. Yesterday, it was a defective product. Actually, it was really us -- we should have looked closely at the supplies to make sure they weren't defective (we didn't). So, when Carl attached the little nozzle thing between the hose and this other hose-like-thing-that-surrounds-the-garden-so-plants-can-receive-water (don't go thinking I actually know the name of these items!) all it did was spray water in his face and all around the garden (rather than in the garden). By this time, it was getting cold and the sun was going down so we had to hurry and take it apart. We went back to Home Depot, where we exchanged the defective little nozzle thing. By now, though, it was 9:30 and too dark to go back and finish the job. So much for getting the drip irrigation in before the scorching summer temps arrive (tomorrow)!

The good news?! We have more snow peas and sugar snap peas!!! Lots of them (not that I've even used the ones we harvested last week ... I know, I know, I need to get right on that).

As for our sad little peppers and tomatoes, they are still in the garden. I meant to get some new starts last week at the Tuesday Marketplace, but we ran into some friends and got to chatting about how none of us could be any more disinterested in the movie Twilight Eclipse (or any of the other movies in that series) and I totally forgot. So, that is what I will be doing tonight!

Adorable baby sunflowers

2010-06-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

I love sunflowers, so when I saw these adorable baby sunflowers in another plot at the community garden I just had to take a photo. Aren't they cute?

Sugar snap peas! And snow peas!

2010-06-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

We did it! We actually grew some veggies! We harvested sugar snap peas and snow peas last night. They look and taste a lot better than any peas I've purchased at the store, too. The sugar snap peas are great right of the vine (is that what they call it? a vine), but I'll probably steam the snow peas and throw them in a stir-fry or something.

Carl harvesting snow peas:

The joy of gardening?

2010-06-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

Confession: We are not loving this whole gardening thing. It almost seems like too much of a chore. And isn't this supposed to be fun? Or, at the very least, rewarding? So far, I have had very little fun and have reaped no rewards. I know, I know ... it's only been a little more than a month. And the weather has been awful. I need to give it more time. And I will. Eventually, we'll have fresh organic lettuce, peas, basil, cilantro and carrots (we planted carrots last weekend -- and I was so apathetic about it that I never even got around to mentioning it here on the blog) so perhaps if I just keep focusing on what is to come I'll enjoy gardening a lot more.

Meanwhile, we have a few sad little plants in our garden begging to be taken out of their misery (tomatoes, peppers, lemon cucumber). We should have taken them out this weekend. It was the perfect opportunity. But we didn't. Instead, we looked at starts that were on display outside a grocery store and contemplated buying some so we could start over. Then we went inside the store and spent about $10 on carrots, kiwi, broccoli, mango and peppers instead. The whole process was quick, easy and inexpensive. No waiting. No tending. And no disappointment.

Despite it all, I refuse to give up. I will get new starts this week. We will plant them. We will wait, and we will tend. And, we will hope that it all works out.

First harvest!

2010-06-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we went out to the garden and harvested our very first crop -- cilantro! It was probably overdue, actually, and Carl told me it looked like it was about to bolt. I, of course, didn't really know what he meant by 'bolt' (well, I could kinda guess I suppose) so he explained that it means the plant has grown and spread rapidly. And this is not a good thing. Essentially, the plant is trying to survive by spreading seeds around as quickly as possible. Plants don't taste great after they have bolted, and are pretty much considered inedible. The weird thing is that everything I've read so far says that plants usually bolt in hot weather. We have not had hot weather around here. None. In fact, it was been unseasonably cold and wet.

As for our cilantro, well, even though we did harvest it I'm not so sure about it. Some of the leaves are purple! What does a purple cilantro leaf mean? I've never seen purple cilantro before, and it just doesn't seem right.

Planting peas

2010-05-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, we finally planted our peas! Carl built a trellis first, however, with the help of my Grandpa Herb and Uncle Dennis (who were in town visiting). I haven't been to the garden since, but Carl stopped by last night to water our veggies. He said everything is looking good.

Carl and my grandpa building the trellis:

The pea starts, before planting:

The finished trellis:

Watering tomatoes:

Further evidence that I don't know what I'm doing

2010-05-11T14:05:00.000-07:00

Carl informed me that the struggling plant (in the photo I posted yesterday) isn't a pepper after all. It is a roma tomato. Oops! See, lots to learn.

RIP, Pepper

2010-05-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have (mostly) good news! All but one of our plants made it through last week's cold snap. I am sad about the one little pepper that didn't survive, though.

Frost bite

2010-05-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

We've had record low temps here recently, and that is not good for our garden. Even though we initially decided to just leave things alone and see what happens, we changed our minds (it was hailing and near-freezing part of the week!). Carl gathered up some milk cartons and buckets and headed out to the garden late Monday night to cover the plants up. All but one pepper is now protected. I haven't been there all week, so I'm not sure how things look. I really feel sad for that one pepper, though. I hope she is resilient!

Our first mistake: planting too soon

2010-05-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know what we were thinking, but we planted a bunch of tomatoes, peppers and lemon cucumbers last weekend. On Friday, we learned that this was probably a mistake. Apparently, these plants don't like cold weather -- and it has been really chilly and windy the past several days.

We, of course, don't have any idea what an unhappy tomato plant looks like. But the Intel master gardener does, and after she saw our plants she expressed concern. By concern, I mean she told us (politely) that our plants were looking sickly and we had better do something fast if we wanted to save them.

She made a few suggestions: cover them with a blanket (a special blanket designed for this sort of thing), cover them a milk jugs or cover them with some other plastic device meant to keep frost off plants.

After spending part of the evening wandering around Lowe's looking for solutions -- and the rest of the weekend procrastinating, contemplating and analyzing -- we decided to do ... nothing. Most of the potential solutions were expensive. The plants were not expensive. So we could either spend a bunch of money trying to save the plants, or we could just replace them if and when if comes to that. We decided to go with the replace-if-needed route. I talked to an experienced-gardener friend tonight, and she thought that was a good plan.

Rain ...

2010-04-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we ran out of time and weren't able to plant our sugar snap peas, carrots and lettuce. And for the past two days, the rain has been relentless -- so I haven't had a chance to go back to garden. I am so looking forward to a sunny/warmer day so I can get back out there.

Planting starts and seeds

2010-04-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

After our trip to the nursery on Sunday, we headed over to Intel to get our plants in the ground.

The starts:

The clay:

Tomato:

Lemon cucumber:

Pepper:

Time to get growing:

Deciding what to plant

2010-04-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

Intel only has a few rules regarding what we can and cannot plant. One is no corn. Another is no illegal crops. Since I am not interested in corn or illegal crops, those two rules are fine by me.

Still, that doesn't really narrow it down much for me and Carl. With so many veggies to love, how could we possibly decide? Well, we couldn't. So instead of just guessing, we decided to cruise on down to Larsen Farm Nursery, where our neighbor Destin works, to look at starts and seeds -- and to get some good advice on what to plant.

The choices, to me, were overwhelming. I think I saw 10+ varieties of tomatoes and an equal number of peppers. I even saw eggplant, which I didn't even know would grow here in Oregon. Without Destin's help, I would have been completely lost.

Ultimately, this is what we decided to plant: tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, basil, sugar snap peas, carrots, lettuce and (my all-time favorite summer veggie) lemon cucumbers. We purchased lots of starts, but per Destin's advice we decided to grow the lettuce, carrots and basil from seed.

Here's a little map Carl drew of our planting plan, complete with a few dirt spots and everything:

Boxing Day

2010-04-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

The before pic:

Yep, I am actually kneeling in dirt:

Just about finished:

Ready for veggies:

Wow, this is getting spendy

2010-04-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

OK, so I had this idea in my head that getting this garden started would cost next to nothing. We paid $20 for the plot up front, which seemed like a bargain, and I knew we would have to buy seeds. Intel is furnishing water, tools and soil -- what more could there be?

Well, for some folks, nothing. But Carl happens to be the kind of guy who does things right. He doesn't cut corners, ever. So while we could just throw down some seeds in our designated area and call it good, he had something else in mind -- a box.

"This will allow us plant as close to the edge as we want," he said.

Translation: more tomatoes.

Even though I really just wanted to thrown down some seeds, I knew he was right about the box. So off to Home Depot we went, where we spent about $80 on 2x-somethings (no, I really truly don't recall what they were).

Grand total as of April 18th? $100.

Avant-gardening

2010-04-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

When Carl called me from work a couple of months ago, asking me if I wanted to get in on Intel's brand-new community garden, I was apprehensive. For one thing, I don't like getting dirty. And while I know next-to-nothing about growing my own veggies, I do know that it involves dirt. I also wondered whether we could commit. I mean, you don't just plant some seeds and leave it alone. A successful garden requires a dedicated gardener. Did I really want to make this a priority? I thought about it, and ultimately decided that it was time to try something new.

Plus, if all goes well, we'll have a ton of garden-fresh veggies all summer long.