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
Typical Spring Evening
I can see how my routines look awfully strange to people sometimes. When I recap my weekend, for example, it’s usually a stark contrast to other people’s weekends. My evenings typically stray this direction as well. So I thought I would recap my evening tonight as an example. First things first – I stopped by New Seasons on the way home from work to pick
May Plantings
A big highlight from this weekend was spending the day with my sweet nephew, Evan, on Saturday. Evan, Jay and I all went to check out Renn Fayre, which is an annual student celebration/party that happens every spring on the Reed College campus. The students build crazy tents, sculptures, etc and spend the weekend hanging out with friends, dressing in costumes, and most likely consuming
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
Farmer’s Market Restraint
I had the pleasure of spending Saturday morning with a good friend at the farmer’s market in downtown Portland. It’s the largest one in town and the earliest to open for the season. The past couple weekends have been too busy, so this is my first market trip for the year. I showed incredible restraint throughout the pleasant morning. Unbelievable restraint in fact. The weather
Mysteries Solved
A couple weeks ago our temperatures in Portland were dropping to unusually freezing temperatures. I wrote about the mysterious happenings, describing how my China Blue vine started turning black on the areas of new growth. I also noticed my beautiful hardy kiwi vines were showing black leaves as well. I decided to write the folks over at One Green World to see if this was
Growing Potatoes in Tires
This is a new venture for me: growing potatoes in tires. I read about this initially on this Ed Hume website and became intrigued. Looking back, I must have meant to just research growing potatoes in general and somehow discovered the concept of using old tires to do it. It intrigues me for a couple reasons. First, it is one step better than recycling. The
First Transplants
When it’s sunny in Portland, it reminds all of us why we endure the 60-some consecutive days of rain in the winter. A sunny, warm day makes it all worth it to live here. The cherry blossoms are blooming around town and we left the windows open all day long. I got so hot working outside that I actually had to come in and change
Newspaper Seed Pots
This is the first year I am starting seeds indoors for my vegetable and herb garden. In the past, I have been willing to take my chances shoving seeds directly in the ground when the weather was warm enough. After my experience last year with my urban chickens digging up and eating so many of my seeds, I thought transplanting small plants might improve the