The Darling Buds of May

April showers do bring May flowers. Even with the wetter and cooler than usual weather this year (or so I am told), the flowers and trees are definitely in bloom here in Portland. It's not that spring isn't and wasn't lovely in Los Angeles but it's different than it is here. And, part of my fascination with it is that I don't, as of yet, have a clue what most of the plants are. I do know that there is a photo of a Wisteria, a Rhododendron, a Lilac, a Dogwood and may be Blue Bells (but I'm not sure of that one). The others, I have not a clue about. And, not knowing is kinda nice since it gives me yet another thing to learn about my new home.

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.

Getting Settled in Puddletown

Well, our move to Portland happened and we have been here now for nine days. The journey from Los Angeles to Portland was not without some adventure when Dan's car brokedown on I-5, mine got a flat and we had to spend a day in Los Banos, CA dealing with our various car repair issues. However, we like to think that our little detour to Los Banos was the universe's way of telling us that we needed some rest from our packing and moving travails. All of this put us a day behind but we still arrived in Portland late last Monday evening in time for the movers on Tuesday morning and we were at least a bit rested.

Unpacking has been lots of fun (she said sarcastically). We don't have a enough room for everything in our small house but fortunately, we have a basement and a garage to store things that we do not use on a regular basis. Looks like Dan and I will need to continue purging more of our possessions on our mission to declutter our lives.

We now have a functional kitchen, which is nice since eating out all the time gets to be a drag... and expensive. We baked a loaf of bread the other day and tonight, I will even attempt a pasta dinner.

So, we are getting our new home set-up little by little. More to today, including another trip to Target and Home Depot. At least, we now know how to get there. Hopefully, we will have a little time this afternoon for some more exploration of our new home town. So much to see and do.