Garden Update: May

It’s been a while since the last garden post because, well, there hasn’t been much to say. We waited and waited for the first sprouts from our seeds to shoot up. Just when we’d called the garden program a resounding failure, there they were the next day, small and fragile but unapologetically there.

This scenario played itself out over the next two months; we constantly edited our expectations, coming to the edge of our hope, only to be reaffirmed in the 11th hour by the tenacity and success of our vegetables. Through all of our research we created a rigid timeline of expectations; peas by mid-may, onions by the beginning of June. Without fail, these deadlines would pass without the faintest sign of a pea or onion. These failures and successes continued to stretch our already elastic sense of hope. The lesson we learned that nothing is rigid in farming. You have to be willing to bend with the weather and other unforeseen variables.

On the docket for the next month is waiting. For the (new) Oregon farmer the month of June stretches out before you. Either your anemic looking onions will become robust in the first weeks of warm showers and warmer sun. Or through the month of June they will continue to diminish into chalky sun stroked stalks. We will continue to water, monitor, obsess and fertilize.

However, the good work has begun. The Kale is growing like a weed. Already we have harvested 10.5 lbs of produce. Broken down that is 8 lbs of Kale and 2.5 lbs of spinach. To qualify the success of our garden as a tool in the fight against hunger, we are keeping a running tab on pounds harvested and their market worth. As an informal guide to organic produce prices in Portland we are using New Seasons as our rubric.

Sorry no new pictures this week, they would be too discouraging.