Don’t know much about gardening . . . but I’m learning.

My mother’s parents had a garden behind their home in Onalaska, Washington, and there was also a damp, dark place just off the back porch called a “root cellar.” Dug into the ground a bit, and with a dirt floor, it was filled with bushel baskets of potatoes and onions, and the shelves were laden with Ball jars filled with many different fruits and vegetables. The light in there wasn’t very good, so it seemed a lot more mysterious to my childish eyes than it probably was, and it made a distinct impression on me. Here was food put away from the harvesting season that would be brought into the house, jar by jar, and potato by potato, for consumption throughout the late fall, winter and spring.

During World War II, people were encouraged to grow “victory gardens” and my parents participated in that effort. We lived in Burlingame, California at that time, and the community college at the end of our street turned over its open space for community garden plots. I remember walking to the garden with my mom to harvest something to include in the evening meal. During that time, we also had a dedicated apricot tree at one of the many orchards in the Santa Clara valley – the Marti family saved one specific tree for my parents to come and harvest the apricots when they were ripe. This may have been an early forerunner of community supported agriculture – my parents paid in advance for the produce from this tree, and were entitled to whatever it bore in a given year. I also remember going to a huge tomato field in that vicinity, to glean tomatoes that had been left after a commercial harvest had ended.

When my family moved to Seattle, my parents planted a vegetable garden in one end of our backyard, right in the heart of Seattle. I remember noticing that most of the neighbors, with one exception, didn’t grow food in their yards. Unfortunately, that garden was the least of my interests at that point in my life, a fact that I have come to regret.

My own early gardening efforts were not successful. Living in Eugene, Oregon, I planted a vegetable garden off the sunny back corner of my house.   I don’t recall that anything worthwhile came from that effort. Then I moved to a house in an oak forest, complete with a herd of resident deer (also right in the heart of the city), and gardening was clearly out of the question for the major part of my middle years. Happily, there was an extensive farmers’ market in Eugene which provided me with wonderful produce. Throughout my years there, it was a regular Wednesday and Saturday ritual to go to the market.

Then I retired and moved to Bainbridge Island -- into a condo. There are lovely gardens where I live, but they are not for growing food. Soon I discovered a pea patch nearby, behind the Eagle Harbor Congregational Church. I inquired about obtaining a patch there, and was put on a waiting list, where my name sat for three years. Finally I was assigned a 7 foot by 3 foot raised box.

Being a person who likes to study up on what I am trying to do, I checked out several books about small vegetable gardens, and was captivated by the “square foot garden” idea – it seemed perfect since I knew I had exactly 21 square feet with which to work. I followed that book to the letter, blissfully unaware that there were dozens of people working the patches around me who could have helped me learn what to do to be a successful gardener in this environment.   Had I asked, I probably would have saved myself a lot of disappointment. My first mistake was to follow the book’s recipe for making the correct soil mixture. I removed some of the weed-filled dirt that covered the top several inches of the plot. I hauled in bags of vermiculite, peat moss, potting soil and manure, laboriously mixed them, and filled my planting box. And then I planted some things. My edible pod peas came up and grew well, but each pod had at least one little worm inside. My four tomato plants yielded a grand total of 3 tomatoes. My filet beans did fairly well, as did the lettuces I planted. The beets and carrots came up, but then they didn’t grow any more – for months they just sat there about an inch tall. The Brussels sprouts made nice tall plants, but the sprouts never got larger than small marbles. I did get a couple of kohlrabi from the 6 plants that I so carefully tended.

I watered and fed that little garden, pulled out every weed that dared to poke up, and watched it all very carefully, removing slugs and snails when they got in over the copper strip I placed all around the top of the box. I tried everything that people suggested to try to make the garden more productive, to no avail. It was a pretty disappointing first attempt.

Over the course of my first year of gardening, I came to know many of the people who share this community pea patch. Some of these people have been gardening all of their lives, and their productive plots show that!   Most of the people live right around the garden, and it is a great outlet for many people who live in the apartments and condos in the area. My fellow gardeners are also great sources of information about gardening, and I have learned much from them. And it is just such a fine thing to sit in the garden in the summer sun and visit about gardening!

The second year, 2008, was somewhat better overall, but still offered a lot of frustration.   The lettuces were splendid, and I ate well from them for many months throughout the spring and summer. The peas did better than the first year, and they didn’t harbor the little worms. The filet beans were not as good as the first year. And the tomatoes were a great and rewarding surprise. In a year of bad tomato weather, I didn’t think that any of my heritage tomatoes would actually ripen, but with the good September weather, ripen they did, and I enjoyed a robust harvest from my three plants. This year, the kohlrabi did less well, never growing much above golf ball size. And the Brussels sprouts never sprouted at all. I didn’t bother to attempt to grow carrots this year, but I did try beets again, and had no better luck than the first year.

In early September, our garden master cleared out a part of the garden that had hosted a compost pile for a number of years. He offered me a part of that plot, which I gratefully accepted.  He suggested that I wait until spring to plant it, but my plot neighbor immediately put some plants and seeds into her half, and they grew like crazy. So I decided to move my remaining lettuce plants from the raised bed to the new plot. The lettuces had not been growing at all in the raised bed, and they took off as soon as they got into the new bed. I planted sprouting broccoli and chard, and I thought I had planted some Brussels sprouts but they were apparently mismarked and are also the broccoli.   And dozens of kale plants emerged from the ground as volunteers, mixing themselves in among the plants I had put into the plot. Mustard greens also sprang up, along with tons of weeds of every possible description.

My original raised bed is now planted in a cover crop of cereal rye and red clover. I am taking an organic gardening class through WSU Extension, and learning more about how to take care of the soil. I still don’t know why the soil in my raised bed doesn’t support plant growth, but perhaps the green cover crop will help amend the soil for the next season. And in the meantime, I am happily harvesting and dining on the bounty that is coming from that land that was underneath the old compost pile – I will be able to enjoy some of the veggies throughout the winter unless it gets too cold for a long spell. And if the deer don’t take too much as they browse through our garden in the heart of Winslow!

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