Garden Update (July)

Time for an update, I think. The weather in Portland has been wet. Not wet like most years, but rainy almost every day until the last week or so. Wet as in we already had more rain by June 4 than we usually have in the entire month. Wet as in basil can’t survive but slugs are in heaven. Here it is July, and once again it’s raining. Sigh.

For some reason–I swear there was no tequila involved–my friend and I decided that letting the chickens into the garden would result in an immediate reduction in the slug population. Right. Maybe it worked, because after the chickens had eaten all the slugs’ favorite plants, the slug population appeared to have dropped off a bit. For awhile. Nice little dishes of cheap beer seem to be working better.

We got a few days of sun and most everything decided it would be the only shot at reproducing, so there was a lot of bolting going on. On the positive side, I’ve been eating more salad lately. Giving lettuce a buzz cut seems to be a viable harvesting method, since all the plants put out more leaves.

If you decide to do some veggie gardening, grow lots of different sorts of lettuces and other salad greens. While getting the bolting more or less under control, salads included things like strawberry and garlic leaves. And since the lawn doesn’t get sprayed with any chemicals, the dandelions that showed up have made a nice, bitter addition to the salad bowl. I just wish we had more reds.

The ground garden is struggling a bit with the heavy rains and lack of sun, although there are signs that the tomato plants are trying to produce and I’ve seen the shoulders of a carrot. The container garden, however, is doing quite well. Better light and drainage, rich potting soil, and elevation above most pests makes for good success.

The first round of radishes were quite good, so I’ve got more going. The lettuces are producing nicely. Judging from their tops, the container carrots are very happy.

I’m going to have ginger. I moved it to a nice pot where it’s growing nicely, surrounded by a little crop of radishes. With luck I’ll never buy ginger again.

The San Marzano tomato plant has flowered, so the probability of actually being able to make tomato sauce this Fall is good. I also have a container with basil growing next to it. Had to replace all the basil that drowned, so my friend and I decided it should be containered.

That’s about it. The Ladies of Stumptown Savoury continue to produce two eggs almost every day–the older lady misses a day now and then. There are bags of greens and salad in the refrigerator ready to eat. Oh, I almost forgot, there’s celery.

The celery is really something else entirely from the insipid stuff available in the produce section of your grocery store. It’s not much good for eating right out of the garden because those little strings are more like ropes, so it needs to be peeled before eating raw. And the flavor is almost pungent. I can hardly wait for the first batch of mirepoix entirely from the garden.

Okay, that’s really all for now.