The Reasons

I haven't really talked about the point of this gardening adventure. One of the main reasons people grow their own food is to save money on groceries. I'm not counting on that one. If you asked each of the four of us why we are bothering to do this, you would likely get many different reasons. Here are mine:

1) It is about remembering where food comes from and developing an appreciation and respect for what we eat.

2) I want to buy less from huge agri-businesses which have every incentive to maximize profits but which are turning our farmland into giant, unsustainable "factories." I don't trust what has become a national food system. I don't like the products the agri-businesses use to kill weeds and to feed the plants. I don't like how plants are bred for transportation qualities, or worse.

3) Our vegetables will be fresher, taste better and be more nutritious.

4) It's a good habit to get into; it's a physical activity that will get me away from my blogging, knitting, reading and other sedentary activities.

5) This is the start of being a little more self-sufficient, a little less dependent on what the local grocery store has on its shelves, maybe even a little less dependent on foreign oil and domestic coal, public utilities, the weather in Mexico and New Zealand, and the dangers involved in dramatically reducing the number of species we grow for food.

If you think I sound a little crazy, I'll work on convincing you...more discussion to come in future posts.

By the way, it's below freezing here all week. We're just hoping we can keep our starts alive in the coldframe. Come onnnn, Spring!

Proof of Life

Hey, it's happening. Take a look: broccoli, lettuce and chamomile. Oh boy!

It's not easy in February in the maritime Northwest. The heating pad doesn't generate enough heat to keep the cold frame warm at night. It's been pretty cold. So Grover and Cheryl have been hauling the little babies inside the house in the evenings, back out during the day.

Come onnnnnnn spring!

The Soil

Any vegetable gardener will tell you that it's all about the soil. We talked a lot about soil in that class I'm taking. By the way, the class is excellent, put on by the WSU Kitsap County Extension Master Gardener Program. Everyone should find and take a class like this, particularly if you're new to vegetable gardening. You'll be inspired.

I'm not going to repeat all we learned about soil, but here's what you need to remember: good soil is essential to plants and it's very fragile. I won't even mention how much of the earth's topsoil is being paved over for parking lots and shopping malls and gigantic houses with nary an edible plant in sight. For today, let's just worry about our own yards, gardens and P-Patch plots. Almost for sure, you need to add organic matter to your soil. Plants need air, food and water - just like humans. Organic matter in the soil allows the plant to get these things. It improves permeability and aeration, helps it hold water and nutrients.

Where can you get organic matter to add to your garden? Well, you can buy it at the local nursery. But be aware of where it came from. We can't just always take topsoil from one place and put it in another. We need to work on making more. An easy way to do that is to compost your kitchen scraps and garden waste. Mark made a simple food scraps digester, pictured below. You can find instructions for this on the Seattle Tilth website (or lots of other places if you do a Google search). We compost our garden clippings, etc. differently - this one is just for kitchen scraps. And if you eat a lot of vegetables, like you should, you'll have a lot of compostable kitchen scraps. Don't put them in your garbage can - they won't do the landfill any good at all.

There are other ways to do this. Cheryl tried a worm bin but the little worms died three separate times - they need mild temperatures. I think this buried digester will do the same thing, it will probably just take a bit longer. Do it your way, experiment with different methods, but compost, compost, compost.

Now We Wait

Mostly, what we are doing now is waiting. Waiting for warmer weather, waiting for our seed starts to germinate, waiting for the results of our soils test.

It is still freezing at night. The cold frame was scientifically designed with a particular angle on the glass, specific to our latitude, which maximizes the energy from the sun's rays. It works, we think. We sometimes supplement at night with a blanket and/or an ordinary household heating pad. We usually have to prop it open during the day to keep our little starts from burning. Fortunately, there are four of us in on this venture - we cannot leave these little darlings alone, even for one night (without more automation, which we decided to save for next year). Open it up during the day, close it at night. Watch the thermometer!

Maybe we should start some inside the house, too. You know those plastic containers that you can buy spinach and lettuce in, at the grocery store? Those make excellent covers for seed starts; you can create a little terrarium-like atmosphere. Put them in a warm spot, which in our house is hard to find. Maybe on top of the refrigerator or water heater.

"Damping off" is often a problem, they say, once the seeds germinate. The cute little starts that finally got going suddenly wilt and die. This is usually caused by a fungus. In class, they told us that chamomile tea or cinnamon sprinkled on top of the dirt will prevent this problem. Sounds simple enough....but first we need our starts to start. We wait.

The First Planting in the Cold Frame

It was quite a party today; unfortunately, I was off lunching with friends in Seattle, but the three more diligent gardeners had a good time. Grover has been keeping the seeds inside so they don't get too chilly in the garage. Now we wait to see if the planted seeds germinate, and if the cold frame keeps them warm, but not too warm.

Grover made the seed boards, not only to organize all these packages but to keep their five (5) cats from skiing across them every time we pulled them out. Good thing Ruby stayed home because several of the kitties escaped the house and temporarily joined the planting party.


Two of the three seed boards are shown in the photo below - one is for cold frame seeds and two are for those that will be planted directly into the ground. Remember what I was saying previously about meticulous personality types?

The Seeds

How to decide what to plant? According to Cheryl, who has earned the prestigious Master Gardener designation, it is wise to start with no more than eight different types of vegetables. Eight is a number that is not overwhelming. Or is it? For each vegetable you plant, you need to worry about Succession, Rotation and Companions, remember. Eight seems pretty daunting to this group of exacting, meticulous, Type A personalities.

You also want to plant what you like to eat, of course. There was no disagreement (other than beets) on which vegetables we like to eat, but it didn't help narrow it down, either. We love ALL vegetables. Cheryl and Grover, being from Southern California, took our advice when we suggested that Puget Sound is not the place for peppers, tomatoes, eggplant or melon. In the end, we selected more like 22 types of vegetables, not including multiple varieties of some things (both yellow and green pole beans, for instance).

Thus far, we have spent $132 just on seeds. Have you read the book, "The $64 Tomato"? We may or may not do our own calculations at the end of the season.

The previously completed scheduling matrix indicated that it was time to get some seeds started in the cold frame. Today was the day to start kale, broccoli, bok choy, lettuce, endive and leeks. Okay, done - let's see if they germinate, cross your fingers!

The P-Patch

Our plot is in a P-Patch at Johnson Farm. The City of Bainbridge Island owns approximately 60 acres of “public farmland” with the goals of providing healthy, local food for our families and helping present and future island farmers create viable livelihoods. Johnson Farm is one of several farms owned by the city.

The idea is for these public farmlands to be farmed, collectively and collaboratively, by farmers that not only respect the culture of the place but also cultivate the farmers of the future. Countless hours are dedicated to a variety of community efforts including youth education, farmland improvement projects, mentoring apprentice farmers and participation in monthly work parties and farm walks.



At Johnson Farm, they also have community plots, available for an annual fee to anyone who would like to garden there. In our area, this type of community garden is called a P-Patch. P-Patches allow people in urban areas and apartment dwellers to have the opportunity to grow their own food, and there are many in the Seattle area. Curious about the origination of the term, I found this Wikipedia definition:

A P-Patch is a parcel of property used for gardening allotments; the term is specific to Seattle, Washington. The "P" originally stood for "Picardo", after the family who owned Picardo Farm in Seattle's Wedgwood neighborhood, part of which became the original P-Patch. (A folk etymology attributes it to "pea patch".)

The Plot

Our plot seemed a bit neglected. It was completely covered in a wide assortment of weeds including the dreaded quack grass. Back at home, Internet research indicated that any attempt to get rid of quack grass quickly without using noxious chemicals would result in multiplying the root system and exponentially worsening the problem. Despair nearly overwhelmed the team. What could we do?

Mark developed a plan. We would cover the entire plot with black plastic, which would warm the soil, causing the weeds to germinate. Then we would go in and pull them. A clean and thorough kill.

Consulting one of our many complex scheduling matrices, we noted that this plan had a fatal flaw. You Always Plant Peas on Presidents Day. Turns out, that's in February, just a few short weeks away. Nothing was going to germinate between now and then. Plan B involved pulling back the black plastic, not easy because it was covered in sheets of ice, and pulling, hoeing, digging out the weeds as best we could. Then we pulled the plastic back on, hoping for a few degrees of added soil temperature.


One positive to Plan B was that we got to know our soil a little better. It's pretty gorgeous and full of happy earthworms and nightcrawlers, always an indicator of happy soil filled with organic material. But what kind of soil is it, really? How do we know what amendments are required? Do we operate by the seat of our pants, or do we call in the soil scientists?

The Plan

I have no idea why this is so complicated. My mother always had a vegetable garden when I was growing up, as did everyone else. Mark and I have had raised beds and many edible plantings at previous homes. You just stick stuff in the ground, water it (unless you live around here) and then do a little harvesting when the vegetables and fruit are ready. It's not rocket science.

Or is it? Cheryl and I are taking a class on organic gardening. Several computers have been enlisted to work on The Plan. There is much to worry about: succession planting, rotational strategies, soil testing, nutrient deficiencies, how much nitrogen is too much, which plants should be in proximity to which, and which must be kept far, far away.

What do we do about that quack grass??? Where is that updated planting schedule?! Beans can be planted in May, you idiot! The path is too wide! It's hopeless to pull weeds without dousing the soil with Roundup!

So far, we've proven we can build trellises and cold frames. The plants, on the other hand, have us paralyzed with fear.

The Idea

It started innocently enough. Our friends owned an acre of land mid-island, a couple of miles from the "urban" neighborhood where we both live. They had decided, for a variety of reasons, that it was not the right time or place to build their dream home. Since there was no hope of selling, we decided to "farm" the acre for a few years until the real estate market improved. We would grow our own food! Think what we could do with an entire sunny acre! Our imaginations went wild. Then, suddenly, unbelievably, out of the blue, just before they were going to cancel the listing, someone made an offer, and it was too good to refuse. Dang. What were we going to do now?

Let's buy an even better lot! Maybe with a house on it, so that we have water and a bathroom! So what if it's $400,000? We'll split the cost! We need to grow our own food! A frenzy of real estate shopping was followed by the rental of a 10' x 30' plot for $25/year. We're in business!