One of the difficulties of gardening in a fickle year is trying to intuit what plants will shine no matter what.
In our case, here on the north coast of Oregon, we receive an inordinate amount of rainfall, winds have been higher and later than usual and we have at times, very little actual sun. With high overcast skies the norm, most of our plants wilt when the sun finally does appear and the temperatures rise from 45-55 degrees to the "70's or higher.
Wherever you are, you may be laughing about us thinking those temps are hot, but we tend to wilt a bit, both humans and plants when the sun finally shows it's pretty face. We can plan for such vicissitudes and vagaries by planting a wide range of vegetables and planting more of what we know can take the middle road, which in our case is the cabbage family including, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, mustard and Asian greens like Bok Choy. Most of this family are very adaptable and comfortable in our climate. Many also over-winter and are a major source of green food for the "other six months" of gardening.
In a fickle year, kale is the "Queen of survival gardening". I've grown White Russian, Winter Red, a nameless lacy heirloom variety (let's call it "Victorian Secret"), Nero Di Toscana (also called "dino" or "palm" kale), Peacock kale and Dwarf Siberian.There is a kale for everyone and for every purpose from raw in salads to kale chips and soup.
Other plants grooving on the damp and cool gloom are: peas, radishes, beets, lettuce, most of the herbs, potatoes, Swiss chard, French sorrel and Purple Sprouting Broccoli (an overwintering/sprouts-the-following-spring brassica).
Major "pouters" include: tomatoes, cilantro, beans (except Runner bean and some purple beans), carrots (slooow), onions, cauliflower and amaranth. These plants need higher soil temperatures to go forth and multiply. Some plants, like tomatoes, can vacation in a greenhouse while waiting for the weather to become tolerably warm enough for them to venture outdoors. I like to buy mine from a nursery greenhouse with fruits already setting. I always get ripe tomatoes that way.
It may be challenging to garden here at times, but we are the champions of kale-culture.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
If You Are New To My Blog...
If you're just popping in for the first time to my gardening blog, I'd like to encourage you to check out my previous postings of 2011 which have no expiration date on the usefulness of the information.
In that banner year I did a series called, "My Favorite Vegetables" in five installments: "Salad Veggies", "Peas and Beans", "Eat Your Greens", "Rooting for Roots"and "Harbingers of Spring: Purple Sprouting Broccoli & Chives". If you are new to gardening, gardening on the coast or new to eating freshly grown vegetables you will find these posts to be a fun review of what's possible to grow here and some particular varieties that (in my opinion) stand above the rest in flavor, suitability to our climate and ease of growing.
I also did a review of the many edible fruits that were growing in the garden I last participated in: "And the Winners Are". This posting will introduce you to a list of common and rare fruiting plants and how well they adapted to our climate. All of these plants were donated to the farm by "One Green World", an online plant catalog. The coast is particularly suited to growing many types of berries and fruits.
You will also find a posting about watering, which looking out the window today you may think unnecessary, but come summer you may want to refer back to if you are gardening on sand (most gardeners in Manzanita).
One of my favorite postings is about the sort of plants that some gardeners welcome and others scrupulously remove: self-seeding, self-sowing, happy interlopers. You choose which ones to befriend and which to demonize.
That should keep you busy reading until my next posting. Happy gardening!
In that banner year I did a series called, "My Favorite Vegetables" in five installments: "Salad Veggies", "Peas and Beans", "Eat Your Greens", "Rooting for Roots"and "Harbingers of Spring: Purple Sprouting Broccoli & Chives". If you are new to gardening, gardening on the coast or new to eating freshly grown vegetables you will find these posts to be a fun review of what's possible to grow here and some particular varieties that (in my opinion) stand above the rest in flavor, suitability to our climate and ease of growing.
I also did a review of the many edible fruits that were growing in the garden I last participated in: "And the Winners Are". This posting will introduce you to a list of common and rare fruiting plants and how well they adapted to our climate. All of these plants were donated to the farm by "One Green World", an online plant catalog. The coast is particularly suited to growing many types of berries and fruits.
You will also find a posting about watering, which looking out the window today you may think unnecessary, but come summer you may want to refer back to if you are gardening on sand (most gardeners in Manzanita).
One of my favorite postings is about the sort of plants that some gardeners welcome and others scrupulously remove: self-seeding, self-sowing, happy interlopers. You choose which ones to befriend and which to demonize.
That should keep you busy reading until my next posting. Happy gardening!
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
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".
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".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)