A little greener than before

Well, summer is here – we’re enjoying the Portland weather for which we endure the other seasons: sunny skies, not a cloud in sight, highs in the upper 80’s with lovely

cool evenings. (But don’t tell anyone – just talk about the rainy season so people won’t keep moving here…) Ky and I went backpacking last week down in SE Oregon and came back to a garden explosion.

The spaghetti squash has gone crazy. I’ve chopped long stretches off it to slow it down but it keeps going

This thing would be 20 feet long if I let it.

nuts, spilling out of the garden box and covering the  whole garden box. There are at least a dozen squash growing, and the cucumber in front has a few growing as well.

I may be more excited about the jalapenos that are about two inches long in the other box at this point. There are quite a few peppers on all the plants, and more flowers coming along too. I’ve trimmed several cups of cilantro too, just wish there were tomatoes and I’d have salsa! Not too much longer for tomatoes, but still getting them from the store for now. The tomatoes I planted from seed are not doing so hot – I don’t know yet whether they’ll catch up or if I should give up on them and get some tomato starts. Next year I’ll start them early inside, or maybe even a greenhouse of some sort.

A little slower but still coming along

Next up for this summer is putting some boxes together for the front yard. I really want to have some strawberries but I’m afraid the dog will pull them if they are planted in the back yard so that’s a good incentive to get it done.

That’s all for now – cheers!

Gardening Recipe

1 Tecate

1 Wedge of lime

1 Pinch of salt

Squeeze the lime wedge into the Tecate, discard. Add the pinch of salt. Enjoy.

Hey all,

The overgrown yard a couple months before we closed on the house...and before the blackberries took over during vacancy.

So, I’m pretty excited to get the invite to the big show here. I’ve had a garden most places I’ve lived for the past 10 or so years, and since my GF Ky and I bought our house here Thanksgiving 2010, that was one thing I’ve been excited to make happen. We dug up a wildly overgrown flower garden planted who knows how long ago to make a strip about 8 x 20 feet in the backyard. Unfortunately, summer never showed up in PDX last year, so we didn’t get much out of it – actually it was so pathetic that I began to doubt my gardening skills.

So this year, I vowed to improve on that showing – as long as the weather cooperates…

But, there is a complicating factor – I gave Ky a dog for X-mas. And not just any old dog,

The "innocent" pup and 1 of 2 garden boxes post-construction. Don't let him fool you...

but Charlie the rambunctious Aussie/mutt that loves to chew anything he can wrap his chompers around. (Don’t ask about the helmet, shoes, door trim, more shoes, etc…) So I thought this was a perfect excuse to put in some boxes in the backyard to get the garden a bit out of reach.

I mean seriously, what’s more manly than a bunch of cedar, a skill saw, and half-dozen Tecates? I think the boxes turned out pretty sweet, and now they are full of dirt and some plants. My neighbor was also tearing up some sod from his yard, so I packed that in around the boxes for a more pleasant barefoot gardening experience. I even put up a little string fence to try to encourage the pup from digging elsewhere. He’ll find a way if he wants to – hopefully the toys elsewhere in the yard are more fun. Now all we need is summer…

Paul mentioned the “June gloom” thing going on in sunny SoCal – well PDX is in the same boat. After 2+ weeks of awesome summer teaser weather in May, we’ve slipped back into mostly cloudy and rainy skies for the last several weeks. The starts (spaghetti squash, cucumber, 6 different peppers, and a cherry tomato) and seeds (cilantro, basil, beans,

A few weeks in - things are coming up. Slowly. If only the sun would shine for more than 15 minutes at a time.

kale, and beets) came up fine in the sun, but aside from the spaghetti squash haven’t done much since. In fact I think one of the peppers has actually shrunk and may not make it another rainy week. I also saved some heirloom tomato seeds and started them late. Hopefully they catch up.

At any rate, I’ll keep you updated on how things go if summer ever shows up. Hope it does, since I wouldn’t mind getting rid of the mildew from under my fingernails…