Vegetables and More from Your Yard
by Joan Heald
Nothing beats ambling around your garden, picking and munching sugar
snap peas, green beans and cherry tomatoes, warm from the sun. Some harvests
never make it to the kitchen or even the back door. Although the warm growing
season here is not as long as one might like, the winters are mild and many
folks garden year-round, as the kale and garlic in our neighbors’ gardens
attest. Earth, air, sun and water are what you need. And seeds or “starts”. The
Territorial Seed Company catalog
is a highly recommended source. The University
District farmers’ market is a good place for starts, as are Seattle Tilth sales.
Raised
gardens - the boxes of plants visible in so many of Roosevelt’s
parking/planting strips - are a good way to go because they help keep out the
grass and make it easier on the back to care for the plants. Also they make it
easy to start with really good soil containing lots of compost and some manure.
Sky Nursery premium planting
mix, and Booster Blend made from yard and kitchen waste and manure, are both
good choices. Compost helps conserve moisture. I’d like to try a large cistern
to save winter rain for summer drought.
Many make their own raised gardens; the Web is full of ideas. “We”, meaning
son-in-law Al and daughter Alison, used six 8-ft Juniper 6x6s at about $20 each for
two beds in front. Labor would run at least $500! Naturally rot-resistant,
Juniper is available at Dunn Lumber.
Our regular-old in-the-ground gardens have been successful too, if more trouble
to keep weed-free.
What to
plant? Advice abounds on the Web. Cherry tomatoes seem to work better than
larger ones because of our short warm season. We’ve had excellent luck with Sungold
and Millionaire (red), enough to share with passers-by. Our neighbor has the
kale, garlic, peas and tomatoes mentioned above, and also strawberries, chard,
arugula, beets, radishes, lettuces, carrots, onions, leeks, chives, and hops.
Many of these are in the seven raised beds. Potatoes and many other crops grow
in containers. A plum tree, raspberries, blueberries and other shrubs grow
along property lines. Our lots are only about 44 x 110 ft, with a fair amount
of shade, so the quantity of produce is impressive. We encourage bees to
fertilize the flowers.
Molbak’s, Swansons, Sky, and Pipers Creek, native plant
specialist, are highly recommended nurseries for shrubs and starts.
Our neighbors have chickens that provide fresh eggs, fertilizer and amusement
as they carefully set each foot down or scratch up a cloud of dust. As well as
a chicken house, Greg and Tara have two large compost bins, and say a third
would be ideal. A household is allowed up to three hens, no noisy roosters.
A wonderful reference, Steve Solomon’s Growing
Vegetables West of the Cascades tells why as well as giving rules and a
zillion hints, and is written especially for our maritime climate. Use Seattle Tilth for good vegetable and
chicken information. Join
it to support a good cause. Our nearby Woodland Park Zoo also has many
courses and lectures about native vegetation and creatures.