I'm Back!

Hello fellow gardeners! I'm back to garden blogging after a bit of a hiatus. I now have a camera to visually help inform and inspire you to greater wonders in your own gardening.

We're off to a sloggy start here on the coast after a "false spring" the beginning of May that had some of us (even veteran gardeners) planting way too early. Amazingly, many things I planted: scarlet runner beans, purple fillet beans, tomatoes and squash family plants are hanging in there and starting to grow as long as I keep up the slug patrol. I'm using Sluggo, a safe-for-pets-and-people product to kill the ones that make it into the garden, past the slug-moats of wood chips and vertical barriers. (I could go on about slug remedies but the internet is swimming in remedial recipes to foil the slimy and voracious pests).

I'm a new member of a community garden very close to the last one I was gardening in but with new people and a very different solar aspect and soil. "The Spirit Garden on Coyote Ridge" is situated on a N.E. facing formerly wooded slope surrounded by the requisite 8 foot elk fence that is the only thing that makes it possible to have a garden in this area of large, hungry elk herds.

The garden I left was sandy soil and it's great to be back on "real" soil again. The forest loam is chock full of woody bits, chunks and large parts of departed trees which makes digging anywhere a kind of treasure hunt. You never know what your fork will hit. All that woody debris is great for making the soil more fertile and moisture retentive during the hotter months (coastal readers of this statement are snickering about using the word, "hotter") but this garden actually does get damn hot as it faces away from the prevailing coastal breezes. Maybe we will be able to grow some of those heat-loving vegetables we've nearly given up on. We'll see

I've been to "Don's Waterfall Farm" nursery (see facebook) in Tillamook a couple of times and was easily lured into jump-starting the garden with some unusual plants: purple turnips, parsley root (well-known in Europe), a miniature cuke, yellow beets and a crimson-splashed heirloom lettuce mix. I also bought leeks, scallions, parsley, celery and potatoes. Almost all of these could be started from seed but I am starting over in a new garden and have left behind many plants which would have over-wintered and still be providing food. I don't want to waste any time getting reestablished. There are still a number of herbs and cabbage family members in the new garden that are producing" leaves and tasty sprouts which will keep us in greens until the new crops get going.

I dragged some seaweed home from the beach, washed off the salt in the driveway, then chopped it up and put it in a bucket of water to make a nutritious tea for the new seedling and starts. It's my first time doing it. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Happy spring gardening! We have a saying here: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it'll change".