Last year I went on the Orchard Tour at One Green World in October. This year I won’t be around for the October 11th tour, so I went on the September tour yesterday instead. I ended up going solo – just my travel mug and some motown music. It was a lovely drive to Molalla, Oregon, and I am glad no one could hear me
Orchard Tour this Weekend
My favorite local nursery, One Green World, will host their first of two orchard tours this weekend! I might bring a travel mug of tea with me, to keep fighting whatever lingering bug I have, but at this point I am just excited to attend. We went last year on their October tour and had a blast! According to their website, the tour this Saturday
Summer Garden Transition
The garden is undergoing the late summer change. I am allowing the lettuce to go to seed, so I can attempt to save them for next Spring. The arugula and spinach were allowed to do the same thing, and I pulled them out to dry about a week ago. I have never tried saving seed from my greens before, so this should be interesting… The
July Harvest
There is a produce bonanza in the backyard, which I happily discovered upon return from vacation. I did a fair job last year of incorporating the harvest into our meals, but I knew I could do better and this summer is off to a great start. I have been picking the greens (lettuces, arugula, collards, spinach) often and either eating, giving away to friends, or
Backyard Permaculture Layers
The design for our urban landscape is based on the food forest concept stemming from permaculture principles. One of the several important aspects of designing a food forest means utilizing “layers” in the garden. Here are those layers: The canopy (large trees) Low tree layer (dwarf fruit trees) Shrubs Herbaceous Rhizosphere (root crops) Soil Surface (cover crops) Vertical Layer (climbers, vines) Last year I focused
Tree Generations
A local arborist said the lilac tree in our backyard was one of the oldest he had ever seen. It’s fun for me to think of that tree as a little sapling in the backyard, back in the day when our neighbor’s new house was an empty lot still attached to our property. The old lady who used to live in our house had her
May Sprouts
April flew by this year and everything seems to be growing along quite well. I took a turn through the garden and my currant shrubs are just covered with berries. This is their second year in my garden and last year I didn’t get a single berry. I remember one bush in particular started getting overrun with ants in the early summer. I am hoping
The Best of Everything
It will be a long time before I top the weekend I just had. My weekend was full of my favorite things: being with my best friend in the whole world, gardening in the sunshine, eating bratwurst at Otto’s, sharing Sunday brunch with friends, taking country drives, playing with ceramics in my studio, tango dancing until my feet are sore… My best friend Erika, who
Highs and Lows
The budding urban food forest has a recent success: the fig tree is alive! In case you missed the earlier post, we transplanted a 15+ foot fig tree into our backyard in early June. Not a great time to transplant a fruit tree, and the fig was none too pleased with us. However, we kept at it by burying a thick layer of mulch on