The Monastery Garden
Day 3: friends do hard labor

Getting down: A lot of the work of making a raised bed has to be done close to the ground. It may not look like it but this gravel is so sharp it's a punishment to sit on or make any skin contact with. You can't tell from my foot's stoic appearance but my whole leg is crying out for help. Is it fitting that to make a monastery style garden I must experience some pain? Will I be more sharply spiritually focused when I'm done?

Making friends work hard: Lisa B is using a circular saw for the first time. It's liberating to be able to saw wood down to size without someone else's help. Lisa also helped to screw some boards together and then she shoveled a shit-load of soil into my raised beds. I'm planning to do the same for her this week-end.

Taking Shape: It doesn't take long for the beds to start looking just like I drew them on the graph paper. This whole garden has strong western exposure so I'm also starting to fear that it's going to be a stupid spot for anything to grow in. However, it also gets late morning sun from the south and it should grow lots of things well. A person's got to try. Otherwise a spot like this can easily become a machine grease-heap or a place to lay down and die when Jeb Bush runs for president.

Filling it up: There are still four raised bed sections to build but the center piece is done! It's ready to plant. One thing I love about raised beds is they impose order on a garden. Even if you let the weeds flourish there is always an underlying order that is tamable. I find it much easier to plan crop rotations and seasonal plantings when I'm working with raised beds. I spent my whole evening surrounded by garden books and graph paper working out what will go in my new garden. I am putting an antique apple tree variety in the very center box- "Calville Blanc" which is a French variety from the 1500's that has a high vitamin C content, unusual for apples.

Planting it out: there is no time to lose getting vegetables in here. It is questionable whether or not I can still plant beet seeds and get any beets to mature in time for a winter harvest. The same story with carrots. From all the local information I have access to it seems that if they are planted by this weekend there is a fighting chance. There's plenty of time for greens: chard, kale, lettuce, spinach, and collards are all on my list. There's still time for turnips and kohlrabi. The end of September is the time to plant overwintering vegetables like fava beans and peas and alliums.

Someone asked what a "monastery garden" is. That is an excellent question because it really doesn't seem any different from a kitchen garden or potager. Monastery gardens of the medieval period (my inspiration) were planned and planted so that the monks who tended them could be self sufficient. They not only needed to be able to feed themselves they also needed to be able to medicate themselves and the communities that they served. So a monastery garden would include medicinal herbs which most kitchen gardens/potagers don't. Another feature quite common with monastery gardens is that they were planted within a protected enclosure such as one with stone walls.

When I imagine the ultimate garden I don't just imagine one that sustains myself and my family. I don't even just think of one that can heal our skin and provide tonics for our livers. What I think of is a place of both beauty and abundance. I think of a place that is quiet and peaceful where you can hear the insects sipping at summer nectar and listen to the plants stretching their roots when the cool water wicks down to the center of the soil. I think of a place that offers room for spiritual contemplation while performing routine tasks; like a church of earth.

The plan of a garden can lend itself to this sort of prayerful contemplation. The layout and the shapes employed can lead the mind into positive channels...or not. I think the formality and order of raised beds arranged in a thoughtful formation clear the mind of clutter and allow the gardener to walk the prescribed pathways as though in meditation while attending to the needs of the garden. Having a central focus creates a bed to walk around. Having a central bed from which the other beds radiate guides you to the center; it invites you to seek the middle.

So the only real difference between a kitchen garden/potager and a monastery style garden is the inclusion of medicinal herbs and its situation in an enclosure.

The Monastery Garden

The plans: I have finally mapped out plans for a monastery garden in my new yard. The yard is big but a lot of it wraps around the house and is long and too narrow to really lend itself neatly to a symmetrical design. You can't force design to fit spaces it doesn't belong in. There is one spot in the yard that is perfect for this style of garden. It gets tons of light, is empty aside from weeds and if I don't put something in it will attract things like broken down rusty buses.

I measured the space and using graph paper I planned raised beds to scale. !! Yes, to scale.* I planned the design to have a focal point in the center- a dwarf fruit tree. Because the soil sucks in this spot I decided to make a 2' raised bed for the tree. This will also give the beds a more formal appearance with the inner beds being taller than the outer beds.

The location: the gravel pit. You can't walk on this ground without making your feet bleed which is unfortunate. But for the purpose to which I'm going to put it, gravel is a good weed suppressant. It can eventually be replaced with pea-gravel or crushed granite* I personally like to be able to walk barefoot in my garden. Wouldn't slate pathways be gorgeous, with creeping thyme growing in the cracks? This is the official before picture.

The materials: all told this project will cost a few hundred dollars. We don't have cash for it so it's a credit transaction. Not our favorite way to finance anything but if we don't get this established now we will regret it. We got the wood yesterday. I have all week to work on this. I have an interview this morning and then I'm free. Provided my back doesn't go out on me (I will stretch!) and it doesn't get overly hot, and I can muster up the energy to work on it...(that's a lot of "ifs") I hope to have this space built and filled by this coming week-end. I want it planted with winter vegetables.

Work in progress: we always have works in progress. This is our pile of dirt. We have access to some more topsoil for free. I don't know if it will be enough but if not we will buy what we need to. Our poor neighbors always have to see our piles and our messes and these new neighbors don't know yet that we really do eventually make good with a pretty yard. Never a tidy yard, but it will be quite pretty in a couple of years. We certainly do take our time.

Alright, I'm off!

*I know, I'm impressed with me too.
**Yeah. In my dreams. Apparently we can't get it here. Dang it!

Garden Planning Starts Now

First of all, for anyone who is planning to have a winter garden, now is the time to get the seeds in the ground. Yes, right now. Plant: kale, spinach, chard, beets, potatoes, carrots, brassicas, and turnips. You need to get the plants well established before the cold season returns.

Secondly, now is the perfect time to plan out what bare root plants you will want to establish this coming winter. Why now? Because you can see where the hottest spots are in your garden, you can see which spots really need filling in. If you know you are going to be buying a bare root fruit tree you can make sure that the spot is prepared now, while the ground isn't soggy. It will make your winter plantings much easier.

I have wood, a lot of dirt, and plenty of space...it's time to build a few more beds and get my winter seeds in the dirt. Why haven't I done it already? Good question. Very valid question indeed. The job hunt and financial stress we've been under has caused a lot of mind muddle which prevents me from doing anything useful at all. Then I went and (with very good intentions) read a book that ground me down for a full three days (all of last weekend). I have once again learned my lesson in triplicate: read only books that will not rip away my fragile shell of denial.

So here we are again. Not feeling bad at all. Excited by the fortune that has given me an interview in the one place I've secretly been wanting to work my whole life. A place I would have studied to work if I wasn't already on a different path by the time I realized it was a career option. This interview may not result in a job, but I am never the less grateful for the opportunity to try for it. I am buoyed by this sweet brush of luck.

The only real mar on my ability to achieve total kick ass results in the garden right now is my need to work on the talk that Nicole and I are giving at the library on food preserving. I'm pretty excited about it. Sharing my passions with others is something I constantly do whether or not anyone wants me to. Public speaking, though, is one of those things I tend to view as an enemy TO MY LIFE. Yes, I shake, I quiver, I sweat, my mind delivers complete emptiness, the palpitations start, and before you know I am passed out on the floor.

OK, I've never actually passed out from speaking to groups. I've only passed out from severe panic attacks or seeing so much blood come out of my son's nose that I'm sure we could float away on his river of blood.

I will keep reminding myself that the purpose of the talk is to get other people excited about doing some food preserving. The more people who preserve their own food the more people I'll get to geek out with over it.

Back to garden planning: I am thinking about what fruit trees to plant. There is a lot of thought that has to go into this. It's not simple. For one thing I have to narrow my choices down to those that do well in my climate. We have some serious issues to consider here when choosing apples- apple scab is a big problem. Another one is leaf curl which plagues stone fruits such as peaches and plums. Cherries are prone to cracking here where it rains so much in the spring. Then there's the question of what you actually want to eat and how you will process the excess. If you plant a fruit tree there will eventually be excess. Maybe not for several years, but if the tree lives and is relatively healthy it will give you fruit.

You also have to consider pollinators. Not all fruit trees require a pollinator but many of them do. Sour cherries don't need any company in the orchard to give you fruit. Many peaches are self fertile as well, though not all of them.

I have a large city lot with no established trees on it so I can plant a couple of trees that I can allow to grow large. What kind of fruit do I most want to be able to pick from my own garden and not have to buy at all in a few years? Oh, that's such a problem because my answer is: I want it all!!!! The OSU extension service has some very good publications about fruit trees for the Willamette Valley. For those who don't live here in my area, be sure to check your own extension office. Most counties have one or there may be one in the next county over from you. They are a great resource for local gardening and pest information. Plus, most of their information is free.

I want a peach tree. I would really like two of them so I have enough to can a lot against the winter. Peaches are often over two dollars a pound at the farmer's market. You can get them much more cheaply at big grocery stores but often they aren't reliably good. I can get good peaches from the u-pick operations in my area but I may not be able to depend on them over time. Their prices will surely (of necessity) rise, and they may not exist in a few more years. I love canned peaches even more than canned pears. Fresh peaches are certainly one of summer's most precious gifts. It is difficult to choose them. So far the only one I'm certain I want is "Suncrest" which may not be easy to find. Honestly, one tree just might be enough.

Sweet cherries. Although my friends Ericka and Jim have a delicious yellow cherry tree in their yard (they don't know what kind it is) I don't generally prefer the yellow ones. So I want "Bing" cherries. Unfortunately "Bing" cherries are especially prone to cracking here in my area. So I need to choose a variety that does well here but is like a "Bing". I have narrowed it down to three choices: "Lambert", "Stella", or "Lapin". If anyone has personal tasting or growing experience with these, would you please step up the the mike and tell me what you think?

Sour Cherries: for me it will have to be "Morello". I know the general vote goes to "Montmorency" but I'm going to have to stick with "Morellos" which have a deeper red color and redder flesh. "Morello" is a favorite old English variety. It is a naturally dwarfing tree.

My mother has just arrived so I will continue this post later.

Monastery Style

This is from the book "Designing The New Kitchen Garden" by Jennifer R. Bartly which I highly recommend for anyone planning a kitchen garden.

Not a lot of my garden has been worked on in the (nearly) two years we've been here. So there is a lot of room for planning and designing. There is a lot of room to create a place of beauty and productivity. Several years ago I fell in love with the formal kitchen garden style, also known as a "potager" and the history of this garden style comes to us from deep in the history of cultivated man. It comes from man's wish to recreate the garden of eden, or paradise as he imagines it, which is an oasis in a harsh world. An inner sanctum of calm and earthly delights such as running water and trees dripping with fruit. Monastery gardens of the middle ages is where most of our more modern interpretation of the kitchen garden comes from.

In the middle ages, monks were the keepers of herbal knowledge. Which I find fascinating since only several hundred years later bible thumpers decided that herbal knowledge was dangerous and burned a whole lotta women for knowing how to make simples. Anyway, in the middle ages the monks were the people who knew herb lore, made medicines, and like all the coolest people on earth: liquor was their other specialty. I like to imagine monks as enlightened benevolent beings but I admit that if I'm really thinking about it realistically I'm not sure that monks were particularly nice about women. I mean, I think they may not have had the best view of my sex.

Monastery gardens appeal to me on many levels. One thing I love about them is the tidy order of raised beds trying to tame the wild habits of plants and vegetables. Monastery gardens are very symmetrical, linear, and geometrical which is meditative to me. It creates the sense that there are boundaries to all wildness, there is order in the chaos, and beauty in the juxtaposition of the two. I love the blend of purpose, the enclosed circle of life that plays out in a monastery garden: within the closed walls of the garden there is everything you need to survive-vegetables, animals, herbs, spirituality, fellowship, fruit, burial, recycling, and alcohol...no, wait, I meant to say- a reverence for knowledge.

The picture above is going to be the reference point for my garden plan. My neighbors just might shit bricks. No one in my town has done a garden based on a monastery model. Certainly not for their front yard. Front yards, (for anyone who was unaware), are meant to have the following elements: lawn, rhododendrons, Japanese maples, a few roses, a very green lawn, Pieris, and a hanging basket by the door.

Frozen in the weird world of our broken old hard drive are pictures of the potager I created in my last garden. It was wonderful and I surrounded the formal potager with amorphous beds of herbs and roses, kidney and tear drop shaped beds edged in rocks. Our garden was a wonderful place of both abundance and color. It had formality blended with a meandering grace. I wish I could access those pictures. Philip likes gardens with curving paths, mounds, and surprises. So there will be two sections in which we'll create the kind of space he enjoys the most and two sections that will be monastic, for me. Which is how our marriage usually plays out- a blending of our two very different styles into one life.

This is not a project that can be accomplished in one season (well, not on our budget anyway) but will take several seasons. I am going to really enjoy creating a living meditation. I'm not a person who can sit down in lotus position and breath slowly and clear my head. For me, the meditation happens when the brain is allowed to play out all it's random thoughts, when it's allowed to empty itself into the compost pile, or focus in on the wormy microcosm of which we are all a part. Meditation happens with the rhythmic pulling of weeds. Or touching all the leaves of all the plants. All the plants. Eventually my mind spills out all it's words. Eventually it has nothing left to say. Eventually it hears not the voices of all the people in the world, but just the soft shushing of the leaves breathing.

Botanists Are Fun People Too

(and how growing food is better than growing plants for cats to pee on)

I'm noticing a trend in teaching methods at my Master Gardening classes. Many activities are prefaced with "This is an activity that we use to teach children...blah...blah...blah" or "This is an activity that has proved very successful with children..."

I look around the room and think to myself: now, I wonder if any one of these senior citizens finds it insulting that most of the activities in the Master Gardening course were designed for children? Then I realize that I'm probably the only real senior citizen in the room. The seventy year old crowd seems to love games.

So we were learning plant parts yesterday by building weird food creatures. I suppose this is to loosen us all up and make us realize that botanists are cool people too. Personally, I thought it was plenty exciting looking at the ova of an alstroemeria at a 10x magnification. I dislike silly activities that are designed to loosen curmudgeons up and help us all shake our social phobias and learn that doing group activities is invigorating.

I do not like group activities or games.

And no, I don't think that makes me cool. And no, I am not proud of it. If you knew how much it makes my innards rearrange themselves with anxiety you would realize that my happy brash way of announcing to everyone in the world how much I hate games is me trying to get it out in the open and out of the way in order to avoid the inevitable heckling and weird arm wrestling people often do to try to get me to "have (their version of) fun".

Did I mention we were supposed to name our food "creatures"? All I could think of was Melvin which was in my head because Elizabeth of The Late Bloomer has a new guinea pig named Melvin which I think is a great name.

Botany doesn't need games and "fun" group activities to keep me from napping in class. I feel like doing that little food activity wasted some valuable time in which I could have been using my pocket lens to look at other cool plant parts and be learning more about how plants do what they do, which, is pretty amazing.

In spite of the fact that almost shouting out loud "Damn, that is SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!" when looking at the alstroemerias sexual organs under magnification proves I am a plant geek of the first order, it will always rankle me when someone gets gushy over ornamental shrubs that don't, for all I can tell, actually do anything cool. Just because I could look at a cross section of that shrub's fleshy matter and get as excited as a kid before Christmas doesn't mean I want to see that shrub 365 days of the year doing nothing interesting in my landscape. When I hear someone say about Pieris "Oooh, that's a wonderful shrub!" I just want to ask "Why? What is so wonderful about this shrub that every cat in the neighborhood comes in my yard to pee on?"

I know that some people in my class (who will remain identity-less, though I have fond pet names for them here at home) have gardens full of almost exclusively ornamental shrubs. Gardens in which no food is being grown. Gardens in which flowers are not prized as highly as shrubs that are green. In my opinion, vegetable gardens are the most ornamental of them all. What riot of color and shape you can arrange with them! I feel that there is room in every garden for some interesting plants that neither feed people nor animals, but I also feel that what Americans really lack is an appreciation for the beauty of food producing plants.

Many Americans see food producing plants and trees as "work", or "messy", or "too much work" or say things like "The fruit falls on the side walk and then I spend all season trying to clean it up. It's too much work."

THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT EATING THE FREE FOOD, YOU FOOL!!!!

Part of the problem is we haven't all tweaked our lives to accept free food. We haven't figured out where it fits into our busy world. Fruit producing trees and plants are an incredible gift to us where ever they grow. I would wager that in most countries, where a plant grows delicious fruits, people do not let it drop to the ground in a heap of waste.

I must admit that we let a lot of fruit molder on the ground around our very old and diseased pear tree. It has a terrible mite problem that we didn't address vigorously enough last winter and most of the fruit was spoiled before it matured. But this year we will attack the problem more intently.

If only I could show people the wonderful kitchen gardens all over the world, the front yards in Britain and France in which vegetables are allowed to be seen by the neighbors ("Good God! Is it true?!"). If only I could show them how even in winter, a potager* can shine because of it's planned structure. If only I could show how artfully herbs can be grown. When flowers for beneficials are integrated with your kitchen garden you have eden in miniature. But most of all? How beautiful the most chaotic vegetable garden is when you just think of the people who are being nourished by it's bounty.

I am left cold by ornamental shrubs. Or anything that can be described as "landscape plants".

I built my last garden into a semi-formal potager and it was really satisfying. I surrounded it with roses and herbs and we had fruit trees and all of it compact, fit into a smaller lot than I have now. I wish I could access my pictures of it but most of them are trapped on our old hard drive (another little bit of fun the universe threw our way after breaking our bones and all the other fun). I have a city lot. It isn't farm sized. It isn't even a quarter of an acre.

But it's bigger than what I had before and I have yet to make it shine like my last one. Something wonderful about this new garden of mine is that I can grow peonies here. I can grow berries here. I can grow rhubarb, which I will learn to love because I've got a gorgeous little patch of it that was already here. I see now that what I need to do is show McMinnville that vegetable gardens can be so much more magical than a yard filled with "low maintenance" plants.

Dare I hope that this year I will have time to dedicate to the cultivation of my own private heaven?






*A more formal kitchen garden in which a kind of symmetry is built into the plan and structures such as arches, pergolas, and boxwood give it a more formal backbone.

Planning The Urban Homestead Spring Garden
(for the new urban homesteader)

When planning your garden for the upcoming spring season you have to make a lot of decisions about what you're going to plant, whether or not you will be starting seeds yourself or buying transplants, and on top of all that you must figure out where you are going to get your seeds from. For a beginner urban homesteader it can be challenging to figure all this stuff out (though usually it's pretty fun too.) Here is a good selection of vegetables to start with:

Beans. Try growing a couple of different kinds of beans. For the urban homesteader, space is often an issue so if you have space restraints, stick with the pole bean varieties. A couple that I have had good luck with are: Kentucky Wonder (OP) and Blue Lake Pole (OP)

Broad Beans (Fava). Fava beans are very easy to grow and are an incredible treat to eat fresh shelled. Fava beans should be planted in early spring (as soon as your ground can be worked). I have mostly grown one variety and it is not being offered in any catalogs right now so I can't give a personal recommendation for this year but I can tell you that in England the standard is Broad Windsor (OP) and there is one variety that looks a lot the one I've been growing called Negreta (OP) which I will be trying in the fall.

cucumbers. Cucumbers are easy to grow and satisfying to pick fresh out of your garden for a salad. What to choose: slicing cucumbers. A couple of kinds that I have grown myself that were really tasty are: Straight Eight (OP), Fountain (F1), and Armenian (OP)

Kale. Kale is a very easy dark leafy green to grow. There is no better source of vitamin C or calcium in the vegetable kingdom. You can plant it fairly early in the spring as it is a cool weather vegetable and it may bolt in the hottest part of summer. You can do a second planting of it at the end of summer for fall and winter eating. I have (strangely) never planted kale before. I am going to be planting Red Russian (OP) and White Russian (OP)

Lettuce. All you need to think about with lettuce is that if you live in a very hot region you will want to look for slow bolting varieties. All lettuce should be planted in spring, earlier than your tomatoes. I have had good luck growing Simpson Black-seeded (OP), Tom Thumb (OP), Red Sails (OP) and lettuce mixes from a couple of different catalogs.

Hot peppers. Everyone who loves peppers wants to grow bell peppers but getting good results is tricky. Hot peppers are easier to grow in my experience. Plus I hate bell peppers. Growing your own cayenne is easy and jalapenoes are also pretty easy for most gardeners to get good results. I have not done these from seeds and have bought organic seedlings that were the "Long Thin Cayenne" variety.

Squash. Summer squash is one of the easiest vegetables to grow. Some I've really enjoyed growing are Black Beauty zucchini (OP), Yellow Crookneck (OP), Eight Ball (F1), Cocozelle Bush Zucchini (OP). There are so many other kinds out there and you can do so much with them so don't be afraid to try out a lot of different kinds!

Tomatoes. If you're new at growing tomatoes I suggest you stick to buying transplants from your local nursery. Most nurseries now have a huge variety of both hybrid and heirloom varieties to choose from. The hybrids tend to produce more fruit but in many cases have less flavor than the heirlooms. Here are some of my absolute favorites: Sungold (F1) (an orange cherry tomato), Black Plum (OP), Aunt Ruby's German Green (OP), Siletz (OP), Marzano (OP).

There are so many other things you can plant, such as the root vegetables. My list above is simply a guideline to the easiest vegetables to start with if you are doing a vegetable garden for the first time. It will give you a taste for the possibilities and your chance of success with all of the vegetables I've mentioned above are extremely good. My only caution to the beginner is to not try to grow absolutely everything the first season.

A couple of things I don't recommend anyone try to grow as a beginner is: celery, melons, or fennel. I've been growing a garden for eight years now and I still can't get any of these to grow well in my garden.

What should you start from seed yourself and what should you buy as transplants? I would start off only starting vegetables from seeds that can be direct sewn (put directly in the ground) which includes: lettuce, cucumbers, kale, beans, and squash. In the beginning I would buy your peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants as transplants because they are harder to start from seed indoors and take a long time to get big enough to put outside. Without the right conditions (proper heat and light) the results can be very disappointing.

I've labeled each variety I've listed with information about whether it is open pollinated (OP) or is a hybrid (F1). Does it really matter? Hybrids are not necessarily a bad thing but they are more limiting because until a hybrid has been stabilized over a long period of time, you cannot save their seeds to plant the next year and be sure of what you're getting. Often hybrids don't grow true from seed. When you plant open pollinated seeds you can be sure that if prevented from randomly crossing with other varieties in the same family of plants you will get the same results again and again. As a general rule I prefer to plant mostly open pollinated varieties. Hybrids are not the same thing as genetically engineered seeds.

Genetically engineered seeds are dangerous and evil.

Yeah, I know, you expected me to say that. How do you avoid growing them? You buy seeds only from seed companies that have taken the safe seed pledge. Is this important? It is if you want to keep the environment safe for pollinating insects, for humans, and for other animals.

There are a ton of great seed companies out there but I am going to provide links only to ones that I have had some personal experience with. All of the companies I buy my seed from have taken the safe seed pledge.

Territorial Seed Co. - they are local to me and so carry a lot of varieties of seeds that do well in the Pacific Northwest. They carry predominantly open pollinated seeds and have a very good reputation amongst consumers.

Seeds Of Change - This was my favorite seed company when I lived in California. Their seeds are very good quality and I love their catalog. I don't use them as much now because they carry a lot of varieties that do better in warmer climates than the one I live in now.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - I've bought seeds from these guys occasionally and was very happy with the results. They carry a lot of weird varieties and the only danger with this company is assuming that "novelty" translates into "tasty". Sometimes there is actually a reason why heirlooms have faded from use. However, for the sake of bio-diversity the work they do to provide unusual and heirloom vegetables is important.

Seed Savers Exchange - seeds aren't just plants we grow, seeds are little capsules of the earth's history. What's magical about heirloom seeds is that in each heirloom seed is the history of someone's family, a history of origin, and a history of human survival and enginuity. A history of life that can be germinated again and again. Seed Savers started as a group of people saving and exchanging family heirlooms and has grown into an organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity and our heritage in seeds. When you buy from them you are supporting their endeavors.

Eating Local Is Changing My Garden

I am a greedy gardener. When I plant a tomato I don't plant a tomato, I plant twenty of them. I couldn't ever possibly have enough tomatoes. Where some is good, more is always supreme. I suppose a part of me would like to think I could grow enough of everything to fill my pantry every year. Some people do that. Either my yields are disappointing, or we eat massive quantities of produce. (Both are somewhat true.) This year I canned approximately five hundred pounds of tomatoes that I bought from Bernard's farm.

Five hundred pounds of tomatoes. (Let that sink into your grey cells for a minute.)

Which isn't even enough to get me safely through to fresh tomato season again. The truth is, I couldn't possibly grow enough tomatoes to provide for my canning needs. I also canned about forty pounds of green beans. Plus at least thirty pounds of pickling cucumbers. (Although I really did get a good yield on the pickles from my garden and the quality was better than what we were able to find from elsewhere- this was not a good year for commercially grown pickling cukes.)

I am not going to be self sufficient in many ways, living on a city lot. I will always be depending on my local farmers to provide me with what they grow. And it works out well that way. I get all my canning produce from Bernard's farm because their prices allow for me to buy huge quantities to can with, and Oakhill Organics for supplementing my daily produce needs as well as my fall and winter produce needs. Needing to depend on local small organic farms is not a bad thing at all, I want to support them, we need them here- prospering. (Having more than one to meet my needs is even better, they do not grow all the same things and it's wonderful being able to buy from them both.)

The realization that I've been coming to in the last few days while I've been perusing seed and nursery catalogs is that my garden needs to shift focus a little bit. I need to see my garden as an opportunity to fill in the blanks that my local farms can't, or to grow things I typically can't afford to buy in quantity from them like potatoes and winter squash. Dried beans for storing are hard to come by with local sources and cost about three times as much as they do in the bulk bins. Can I grow enough dried beans to last me through the winter? It's an experiment worth trying.

Maybe. Maybe if I stopped using so much space for tomatoes. Tomatoes that don't produce as much as they could because they are so crammed in. Tomatoes are one of the most important things I grow in my garden because I love them the best of all summer vegetables (yes, I know it's a fruit) and I wouldn't dream of having a garden without them. I just think I might be able to use half the space I usually use for them for the same yield I'm accustomed to. It's worth trying.

Shelling peas are impossible to find anywhere. Shelling peas fresh from the garden are unbelievably worth the effort. They are tender, sweet, and a different creature from their frozen or canned counterparts. If you've never eaten fresh shelled peas...you really haven't begun to come alive culinarily speaking. I don't know what it's like to eat a heap of them off the plate because I never have enough of them to treat them like anything less than gold. My favorite way to eat them is on pasta with some meatier nuttier fresh shelled fava beans, asparagus, fresh herbs, feta, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and Parmesan.

I plan to dedicate a lot of space to fava beans and shelling peas.

Doing the eat local challenge has got me thinking quite a lot about winter gardens and early spring harvests. Getting through the leaner months has become much more important to me now. I can get a lot of great produce for reasonable prices at the farmer's market during the summer. What I need to focus on is saving more garden space for produce that can be harvested in the winter and early spring when it becomes so much harder to get things like lettuce, chard, leeks, and beets.

We had salad yesterday that consisted of lettuce from Oakhill Organics (not tough either) and pickled beets, two bean home canned marinated salad, some shredded cheddar, grated carrots (also from Oakhill), some of the last of our store of kalamata olives, and a fabulous dressing our friends gave us that they got in Pacific City (it's locally made!!!). Have I mentioned how much I've been craving salad? It's true that the salad had a very vinegary overtone due to all the pickled goods on it, but it really hit the spot.

So looking forward... January is going to be filled with some new and exciting activities: I am going to be doing the Master Gardener program through OSU which starts in January and ends in March (I just found out today that they still have a spot open in the program), and I'm going to make feta. If anyone has any great cheese making books to recommend or knows of any great on-line tutorials for making feta- please share!

For those of you planning your own gardens right now who might be interested in what I'm going to add to mine this year, here is a list:

Evergreen huckleberries (2) (to replace two dead rhododendrons)
gooseberries (1 "Poorman" and 1 "Captivator")
Jersey Knight asparagus (25 crowns)
Fuzzy male kiwi (1)
Saanichton fuzzy female kiwi (1)

Green beans (pole): Blue Lake, Ura, and Violet podded

Runner beans: Scarlett Emperor

Dry beans: Yin Yang, Etna, and Tiger's Eye

Beets: Early Wonder Tall Top (because it did really well last year)

Cucumbers: Wautoma pickling

Summer Squash: Eight Ball, Black Beauty (both zucchini)

Winter Squash: Gold Nugget, Buttercup, Hokkaido Stella Blue

Basil: Mammoth Sweet

Kale: Red Russian

This list reflects only what I'm buying, not everything I'm planting. I still have lots of lettuce, spinach, carrot, some winter squash, and slicing cucumber seeds from last year. I also won't be starting any tomatoes or eggplants from seed myself. I will also be planting seed potatoes that I already ordered from Garden City Seeds.

For my perennial fruits I am really trying to show restraint, not only because of the cost, but also because in my haste to get things established it would be easy to waste money on mistakes. I need to let my garden develop at a comfortable pace. I need plenty of time to track down samples of fruits I'm less sure of to taste and find out what I really think of them. I'm proud of how whittled down my list has become. (It started off at least three times as large as it is now.)

If I get my way, by the end of 2008 I will be a master gardener and a master canner. I would be more proud of that accomplishment than if I actually got myself a bachelor's degree.