You Win Some...You Lose More Than a Couple Dozen

Anyone who has ever gardened knows that not every plant grows as expected. And, certainly, not everything survives. So it is with our San Marzano tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes are flourishing. The heirlooms are doing okay...so far. But, our paste tomatoes seem to be plagued with blossom end rot. That photo is only a small sampling of the ones that we have lost so far. We have only harvested four that were okay. There will be more that don't rot. However, my dreams of having a large harvest of these beauties, that I could can have been dashed for this year. Well, there's always next year.

Spring Planting

Portland's spring weather has really warmed up a bit in the last few weeks, so it was finally time to get around to planting our veggie garden for summer and beyond. We were really fortunate this year to not only get our same raised bed over at Project Grow's North Portland Farm, but they also offered us two more beds. So, with a total of three raised beds, we can grow a lot more produce this summer. And, we even have room to grow some winter squashes for fall harvest. Plus, our two additional beds came with a surprise, a whole bunch of Fava bean plants and some garlic...not a bad surprise at all.

With three beds, we could get a little crazy this season about what to plant. Dan and I ended up spending some quality time over at our local nursery, Garden Fever, buying a lot of starter plants to transplant to the beds. And, yes, we buy starters. We have tried growing our own from seeds but we have had zero luck with that method. So, except for those veggies that we can directly sow from seed (greens, radishes, beets and carrots) with some success, we buy starter plants.

We picked the following to plant for summer harvest:

• Black Cherry Tomato (cherry variety)
• Gold Nugget Tomato (cherry variety)
• San Marzano Tomato (paste variety)
• Vorlon Tomato (heirloom variety)
• Black Krim Tomato (heirloom variety)
• Zucchini
• Black Beauty Egglant
• Rosa Bianco Eggplant
• Blue Lake Beans (bush variety)
• New Queen Watermelon

 And, since we planted 3 San Marzano Tomato plants, we are hoping to have enough to can this year. The watermelon is an experiment since we never had any luck growing them in Los Angeles. They would just grow to the size of a golf ball and then die. May be we will have better success here.

And, then for fall harvest:

• Cinderella Pumpkin (AKA Rouge vif D'Etampes)
• Baby Blue Hubbard Squash
• Lunch Lady Gourds
• Sweet Dumpling Squash

I am very excited about the prospect of growing my own pumpkins since I am overly fond of them. We tried growing pumpkins and gourds in Los Angeles but with zero success. So again, hoping for better luck here in Portland. Of course, there are no guarantees what will grow and thrive and what will not. But, that is the fun of gardening.

Project Grow and Our New Raised Bed

It's springtime and I've been thinking about vegetable gardening for many, many months now. I stopped working in our L.A. vegetable garden over this past winter once Dan and I had decided to move to Portland. It just seemed silly to keep putting in all that effort on something that we were going to have to leave behind. But, know that we are in Portland and the sun is finally starting to make an appearance, I can't help but want to get back out there in the dirt. Our new home will have some areas that are veggie garden friendly but we are not ready yet to start on that project...and it is a project. We needed something that was easier to manage and get started with so we wouldn't miss the whole spring and summer growing season.

What to do? Finding a community garden spot was the answer. And, thanks to my friend, Jana, we did just that. Jana introduced Dan and I to her nephew, James, who just happens to work for Project Grow. Project Grow is a progressive program for adults with developmental disabilities that teaches them skills so that they can develop careers in urban farming as well as the arts. Most of Project Grow's urban farming space is dedicated to growing produce for area restaurants and for a small CSA. But, they have a few raised beds available for members of the community. And, Dan and I were able to score one of those beds. It's not huge but it is definitely large enough to give us some veggies this summer and fall.

We finally got our butts over there yesterday and started pulling out the cover crop of vetch and a few stray leeks and green onions that were in the bed. And, we managed to loosen up the soil a bit as well. Now, I need to go find some northwest hardy vegetable starts and get planting.

Building a Raised Bed Vegetable Garden - Part III

I am already remiss in maintaining this blog. It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. In that time, Dan and I finished building the garden. It was a lot more work than we thought it would be.

Dirt...I mean soil. We had 3 cubic yards of a compost/topsoil mix delivered by SoilDirect.com. Actually, we think they delivered more than that. It was hell to move all of that soil to the beds in the backyard. No wheelbarrow, which made for back breaking work. We were exhausted but we got it done. And, we had leftover soil. We ended up using it for our other garden beds. They desperately needed it.

The next step was acquiring pea gravel for the paths. We decided to shop local like we did for the lumber for the beds. In fact, we shopped at the same place, Eagle Rock Lumber & Hardware. Their customer service was great...helpful and friendly. I was so glad to be able spend money locally rather than at a big box store like Home Depot or Lowes. It took 30 bags of pea gravel to fill the paths. That was 2 trips in my Jetta. All the time I was wishing I had a truck.

Once that was done,Dan and I couldn't wait to go get plants. So, it was off the Burkard's Nursery in Pasadena. Again, we stayed local and avoided the big box stores or the chain nurseries like Armstrong's. Burkard's had an amazing selection of vegetables and herbs to choose from, including a lot of heirloom varieties. So we loaded up and headed home to start planting.


Now, we just have to keep those little babies alive and thriving. And, learn how to properly harvest celery.

Building a Raised Bed Vegetable Garden - Part I

Dan and I have discussed building a raised bed vegetable garden since we moved to our house a little over 3 years ago. And, finally, we are making it happen. I spent most of Saturday in the backyard cleaning things up. Dan, God love him, went to our local lumber yard (no Home Depot for us...if we can help it) and procured the fir boards for the beds. Then he came home and built all four of them. We did have the help though of these amazing raised bed corners from Gardener's Supply Company in Vermont.

Now, we just need to:

• lay the weed cloth
• position the beds
• lay in about 64 cu. ft. of organic soil
• put down pea gravel on the paths
• plant veggies and herbs

Okay, it's a lot more than just that. But, may be...just may be, by the end of next weekend, we might be done. I can dream.