My outdoor garden beds have been providing me with a steady supply of the usual winter suspects: kale, swiss chard, spinach, collard greens, leeks, and tasty brussel sprouts. Oregon, especially the Willamette Valley, is fortunate to have relatively mild winters and we pretty much live on brassicas from November through February. This is the first winter I have had the pleasure of gardening with a
Canning Tomatoes
Class is in full swing at the Urban Farm, but there is still more produce than 68 students can handle. The first week of class I came home with another, somewhat smaller, bucket of tomatoes. I’m not really hurting for marinara sauce anymore and we are pretty stocked on ketchup. I decided it would be best to just simply can these guys as-is. Canning tomatoes
Stop the Starts
It is time for me to stop visiting plant stores and stop buying starts! My backyard garden is finally looking delicious enough to eat from, yet a magnetic pull continues to lure me into plant stores. I have more vegetable starts than I have room from. All this and I am moving in a week! Bah! On my recent trip to Portland, I drooled over
Grassroots Garden Visit
Last week our Plants class visited Grassroots Garden, a local non-profit here in Eugene that grows food for the needy. We did some volunteer work that morning planting carrots in the morning sunshine and learning some interesting things about soil amendments. The garden itself is humming right now, making my own backyard look a little sleepy. They are situated on a couple acres of land
Shortcuts
Typically this time of year my kitchen table is home to many tiny vegetable seeds under a grow light, but this year I got a late start. I decided to direct sow most of my plants this year instead. Although we have had some sunny days here and there in Eugene, the temperatures have stayed pretty cold and nothing has grown a whole lot. This
Spring Greens
Oh, the wonders of a greenhouse! The Urban Farm has a pretty simple, plastic greenhouse that has been keeping me well-fed for the past month. This lovely photo is an abundant harvest from a couple weeks ago. Today we hauled out about twenty pounds of these fabulous greens. What we are looking at includes, starting at the top left and working clockwise, a) Romaine lettuce,
February Veggies
I am feeling the rush of gardening season as the soil becomes workable again! The Urban Farm has a nice head start on the season inside their greenhouse, which houses some of our latest seed starts and lovely greens that are already reaching maturity. Most of the larger vegetables in the ground are lettuce varieties: red butterleaf, romaine, green leaf, etc. The arugula is getting
When to Plant
There are a few rule-of-thumb planting dates among the gardening community that we enjoy repeating every year. One is to sow your peas on President’s Day. Another is to plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day. These are general rules though which will not apply to you if you happen to live in sunny southern California or frigid Canada. To properly time your planting, it really
Winter Gardening
It is that time of year to start planning the coming season’s garden and get our seeds going indoors. I have to admit that I haven’t started a thing yet and I am already feeling really behind. Hopefully this weekend will allow me a sliver of time to get my seed starting organized. In the mean time, there are still things to do outside in
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