To garden, or not to garden. That is the question...

It feels like there is way too much going on in my life right now, and to be honest, I was totally planning to cop out on the veggie garden. Nevermind that it's smack-dab in the middle of the front yard, and people might notice a big blank muddy spot. Well, at least in summer it could well become a big blank dry spot. Right now it feels like the rain is never going to stop. So, I was thinking flowers. Snapdragons. Sunflowers. Zinnia. Cosmos. Love-in-a-mist. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Then my oldest came home with a cabbage start the other day. And she gave me the big, sad puppy dogs eyes after I avoided planting it for a good solid week. So it begins. Now I'm thinking about peas again. Even thought we almost never eat them! Yet there is something so beautiful about pea tendrils, and how they climb. Planting in the spring is an act of faith. A sign of hope. Plus I have really high hopes for Heather's gardening endeavors this year. She needs to make that hot, humid Midwestern summer work for her!


As for us, maybe some peas and that cabbage. The rest will be flowers. And eggshells, to keep the danged slugs at bay.

Time for some green new year's resolutions!

I'm a pretty goal oriented person, so I've got nothing against new year's resolutions. Some years I focus on one big resolution. Other years, smaller or private ones. This year I'm noodling over a few medium sized goals:

1. Actually grow fruit on my fruit trees instead of just keeping them on life support. Here's what has happened so far... We bought some fruit trees in the past few years. We planted them following the helpful suggestions from the tree grower. After that. Hmm. Well. Um. Did you ever notice that trees don't come with owner's manuals? And I'm pretty much clueless. I did have a chat with a master gardener at our farmers' market back in summer, and they said fruit trees should be sprayed twice a year in November and February, which I confess, I have already blown as far as November was concerned because it was just too darned cold and rainy. However, I did go to the library this weekend and now have a book about growing citrus. I will try to get my little potted lemon and lime trees off life support this year, and into fruit production mode. And I will do that February spraying if it kills me!

2. I need to get out of my winter produce rut. Maybe you're afflicted with something similar? You go to the store and buy the same darn things, regardless of where they come from or if they are in season or what they cost, simply because you know how to make them and are mostly certain that your family with eat them. Right now, for better or worse, I buy broccoli, apples, pears and carrots. Boring. Lame-o. Now, I know I could really push myself to a higher level by subscribing to a produce delivery box like those offered by Organics to You or Spud. But I'm scared. I keep stalling. I keep sticking to my rut. Help me.

3. Get rid of stuff. Being a Master Recycler and minimal producer of garbage, there's this part of me that hates to throw anything away. I'm not a hoarder. It's not that sick. But there comes a point when enough is enough. I need to be a little more selective. I've got to accept the fact that we can no longer recycle mylar here in Portland and either find a really fantastic reuse for it (or reuse org), or get rid of it already. Same with a lot of stuff. Clearing out feels so good, especially at this time of year.

4. Remodel our kitchen greenly and affordably. We're in the very early planning stages. Super, SUPER exciting. But, let me remind myself that it's in the EARLY planning stages. So I must contain said excitement and remember to work on the other previously stated goals.

I could probably go on and on. Lots of things to work on this year. And you? Did you have a happy, happy holiday season? Are you super ready to greenify your new year's resolutions? Please share what you are working on. It's great to be back and get the EnviroMom conversation started again.

Obese carrots

I'm pretty sure this is not what a carrot is supposed to look like:

Therefore, I totally get it if I'm fired as the family vegetable gardener. It's a tough economy. We have to expect some cuts. There's no free ride. No golden parachute. Face it, I suck. Probably if I had picked my carrots (that were planted in June), oh, a little bit sooner than November, they might not have gotten so fat.

I will say that the neighbor's chickens thought they were delicious, even though they looked like turnips that had taken a turn in a tanning bed. The chickens didn't even mind the mud.

I've been reading some gardening advice columns. This is typically the time to regroup and plan what you would do differently next year. I think I will give up entirely on veggies (as our CSA provides more than enough, and grows a heck of a lot yummier stuff than me). I will stick to berries. They are the only thing I can grow that don't constitute a firable offense.

Any gardening lessons learned from your neck of the woods to share?

Peter Piper picked a peck of puny pumpkins

We were hoping for something a little bigger, rounder and oranger. Something that would give us a wee bit more carving space to work with. Instead, we have this:


Therefore, I am declaring 2010 the year of the bonsai pumpkin. That is one tiny pumpkin, in case your eyes are failing you. About the size of a clementine. We have another pumpkin that gives us just a little more hope (come on! start growing! turn orange already!) It's about the size of a grapefruit:

I am once again reminded how humbling gardening can be. Thank goodness for the professionals. And school field trips to the pumpkin patch.

Other people's gardens

My garden did not provide the bounty of edibles I'd hoped for this year. Partly due to inattention (my brain was wrapped around the vexing 'to move or not to move to Ohio' question) and partly due to the kee-rappy summer weather. My basil melted in the rain, spinach never really took off, strawberries were gobbled up by slugs, ditto watermelon (though that was a risk anyway). Let's not even mention the three tiny Beefsteaks. Nope. I guess I did grow a ton of kale, so there's that. We are sun-challenged here, and I suspect my soil prep is lacking. So THANK GOODNESS for other people's gardens that allow me to live out my fantasies of 'growing your own.'

Yesterday's Home & Garden section in The Oregonian answered that call for inspiration with a great story by Kimberly A.C. Wilson. Kimberly bought a cottage in North Portland and has spent the past two years learning how to garden by tackling her own space. She's now making pickles and canning preserves and drying basil...from the riches of her garden. She tells an engaging, inspiring story, and part two is coming next week! Here's an excerpt:

Where dying cedars and diseased photinia stood a few years ago, fragrant honeysuckle, clematis, jasmine and akebia now climb. Where dandelion held dominion, artichoke and lavender blossoms today flourish, spurge and sweet woodruff gambol, and sunflowers and lupine nod in late-summer breezes.

Yes. One of my dearest hopes for our new life in Ohio is that we're able to find a house with a sunny yard. A flat yard is a given, but darnit, I want a patch of light and warmth in which to grow a proper tomato. 

You can read Kimberly's story online here. Are there garden sites and blogs that you stalk for inspiration (or simply to live vicariously)? List them in the comments, s'il vous plait.

Plant raspberries

If there's been a bright spot in the dismal, rainy stretch that rotted most of my young veggie starts, it's that my raspberries are healthy and bearing fruit. Planted late last fall in a bed (composted with my own degraded food scraps!) that gets about 3 hours of dappled sunlight each day (well, when we have sun), they are thriving and making us very, very happy. I can't remember what variety I bought (from One Green World) but they are sweet and luscious and will probably never make it into the house -- we just eat them off the stalks. Thank you, raspberries.

Drowning garden

I took this picture of our little front yard garden plot several weeks ago when the sun made a brief appearance:

Since then we've have record breaking rainfall. You remember the opening pages of 'The Cat and the Hat' book where the kids have their noses pressed to the rainy window? That's what it's been like here. Day in. Day out. I keep waiting for that crazy Cat in the Hat to show up and create some chaos. Nothing would surprise me.

Back to my garden. Near the trellis? Those are peas. Weeks later, they still look the same. If you have a microscope, you might see some tiny spinach, lettuce and carrots sprouting. But unless I can find a massive set of the world's tiniest water wings, everything is just gonna drown. Sheesh.

Tomatoes? Pathetic. Still in their little peat pots on the kitchen window sill. Basil and cilantro? Ditto. Inside, annoyingly breeding little flying bugs. Those Lemon Queen sunflowers? Stubbornly refusing to sprout.

I keep reminding myself that we won't starve if nothing in our garden grows this year. But it's frustrating. I've been hearing this from a lot of my gardening pals. I hear ya! I empathize! This rain sucks. 

OK. Pity party is now over. If any experienced and/or level-headed gardeners would like to share any tips for making it through a soggy, boggy, exceedingly long wet spring -- please share.

Durable, comfortable gardening gloves?

Back in the days of yore I used to buy the cheapest $2 gardening gloves, because hey! what a bargain! They'd last a year, and I'd throw them out and get new cheap gloves. Then seven or so years ago I received some 'upscale' $20-something gloves, and I totally changed my thinking. I loved these gloves, and we forged a deep bond in my yard where, frankly, the battle against nature can be really, really brutal. Year after year they've helped me wrangle with fallen Doug Fir limbs, rampant English ivy, heavy pruning, digging, weeding, pulling and hauling debris up and down our big, slopey often soggy yard. These West County Work Gloves are super comfortable, and they've served me well. But they are falling apart big-time and it's time for a new pair.

I'm wondering if leather is a better way to go. Much like I've discovered that wool is a better insulator than Polarfleece, I'm thinking that a natural material like leather might be more durable than synthetic. But I worry about them being too stiff. I've also read good things about these Atlas cotton/latex gloves, but I question how durable they are, particularly since they cost under $10:

Is it unrealistic to think that gardening gloves could last 10-plus years considering how much abuse they take? I'm now a big believer in investing in quality, and I really need a pair of hard-working, comfortable, flexible gloves (with bonus points for water-proof). Any recommendations? What kind of gardening gloves do you use?

Sand as natural slug bait? So far so good!

I tend to be a little, er, impetuous at times, jumping into projects without any advance planning, in search of INSTANT GRATIFICATION. A couple of days ago I just had to plant some spinach, so I swung by our neighborhood nursery, picked up some starts and just planted them. I didn't think about slugs until they were in the ground. I had a little bit of copper tape left over from last year (this stuff worked really well for me, keeping those nasty goo balls off my tender greens) but not enough for all the starts. Not wanting to go back out to the store again, nor wanting to sacrifice my precious Full Sail microbrew for slug bait (nor having any coffee grounds on hand), I tried something new. I'd remembered reading somewhere that slugs don't like to crawl over grainy surfaces, so I sprinkled some sandbox sand around the starts. So far, no slugs! And I just found this article that says sand should work!

I am so excited to get more starts and seeds in the ground! Every year I find more and more places to plant stuff. We don't have a flat, sunny yard, but I'm finding spots scattered around, both front and back, where I just want to grow food. I'm looking forward to the day when gardening in our slope-y, heavily-treed yard doesn't feel like an experiment, but every year there are successes and opportunities to learn. And that's pretty fun.

Happy weekend, everyone! Hope you're able to get out and do a little gardening, too!

Spring, gardening and sunflower project (great for kids!)

Spring and the garden beckon. Here's our planting efforts so far: one green bean and a happy patch of grass (no, not that kind of grass!!) So, it's time to roll up our sleeves, dirty our knees and get outside.

• This time of year, weeding and composting are what's called for outdoors. But hey -- after the long winter, even weeding sounds fun, right?
• Remember that many seeds need warm soil to germinate, so create an indoor greenhouse in a reused cinnamon roll package like I did last year. It worked like a charm!
• Bemoaning your lack of gardening space? Gardener's Supply Company is advertising 'grow bags' made from polypropylene that look mighty similar to the reusable grocery bags that many stores sell for 99 cents. I'm not sure if they're really the same thing, and I doubt they'll win any awards for prettiest container plants on the block -- but hey. Worth a try if you've got an extra bag or two on hand, and want to give this 'grow bag' concept a go on the cheap.
• Got any junior biologists? Enlist their help in the Great Sunflower Project. Pretty much all you need to do is grow a 'Lemon Queen' sunflower (it has to be this variety), and record the number of bees it attracts during 15-minute periods during your growing season. Your junior scientist (or even you!) just needs to register on the web site, and enter your data there. The project, run by San Francisco State University biologists, aims to better document bee populations in urban, suburban and rural area. You are not required to dress up like a sunflower, and no, that is not a 'Lemon Queen' but that is my junior scientist, who is now 8, will be ALL OVER this bee-counting project. Note to self: add 'Lemon Queen' seeds to shopping list!
• OK, this one doesn't have anything to do with gardening but I just have to recommend this fantastic book: Crude World, by Peter Maass. I'll write about it more once I've finished it. But let me just warn you that I have not been this passionate about a non-fiction book since that one about human waste!

Our kids are going to be out of school on spring break all next week, so Heather and I are going to take some vacation time from EnviroMom, get our hands dirty in our gardens and hopefully find a little bit of time to read. We'll be back on March 29.