garden – Page 3 – Out & About

On my way to squash. (If my hopes aren’t squashed.)

Needing something that takes up a lot of space in the garden, I settled on squash. I planted my last five Oregon Sweet Meat seeds (the variety was selected and developed by Carol Deppe, my favorite gardening writer) and also started a few delicata seeds I’d saved from a few years ago. They sprouted! I moved them to the back porch and have been covering them at night with Nancy’s Yogurt containers to keep them warm. Fingers crossed!

Asparagus: The Musical!

I’m keeping up with it this year. Here’s today’s harvest. Every two to three days I get a handful like this. It’s pretty awesome and has been a long time in coming.

If only all gardening was this regimented.

Sometimes the thing that bugs me the most about gardening is that it is messy, with things flopping hither and yon. Not these onions. These are precision, man.

Free things from Burpee

My neighbor alerted me that Burpee was giving away free produce and plant starts near my house, so I stopped by after work.

I got tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a pepper plant (which is going to be very cold, poor thing). I also got a booklet about growing plants.

Thanks, Burpee!

Sprung.

Here’s a bit of hardy kiwi.

And here’s a bit of black current.

Potatoes. Sometimes, they are what’s for dinner.

I remembered that I never finished harvesting the German Butterball potatoes last fall and dug up a pound of them. They were in great shape, just muddier than if I had pulled them out of the ground last September. I roasted them up and, man, were they good. They were so good, I just had a double helping and called that dinner.

Enough already, I feel guilty as it is.

My garden this year is awful and none of these books at Powells will make it any better.

What I did on MLK Day.

Three gallons of milk, a large pot and various small bowls of things. What else could I be doing but:

…making cheese!

I made my first pressed cheese: queso fresco. After it presses for eight hours, I can eat it.

When I wasn’t actively making cheese, I planned this year’s growing season. Sentinel helped.

A salad of my own making

Peas. Grew them.
Radishes. Grew them.
Lettuce. Grew it.
Dandelion Greens: “let” them grow until I harvested them.*

Delicious!

*I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself.

EMSWCD Naturescaping Tour

The MAunts and I attended the East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District Naturescaping Tour which was a tour of several houses that have successfully “naturescaped” as defined here . Some photo highlights:

I liked this cinder block grill and work surface

It utilized the holes in the cinder blocks for herb growing.

I’m guessing they need pretty regular water, but I find this to be a grand idea.

Many people had rain barrels and I took a lot of pictures of the setup. I would like to start saving rainwater in a big way, but have yet to find the how-to reference to get me started.