The Bemilie Blog

I have to say that two months ago I thought Portland’s growing season would never arrive. Now that it’s here, I’m practically beside myself with glee. I have spent just about every weekend outside either planting or pulling weeds or just admiring my plants’ progress. In fact, I’m so proud of my vegetable babies that I’ve been taking progress pictures of my snow peas (which have been growing something like an inch a day)

Oregon Snow Peas Day 1

Oregon Snow Peas, 2 weeks later

and the planter with the rest of the plants in it. Yesterday morning when I let Cleo out in the back yard I couldn’t help but to wander over to my Oregon Snow Peas and check on their progress, and my heart skipped a beat when I discovered blossoms sprouting from the plant. It feels like I have been waiting forever to see some sign of progress other than physical growth. It’s only been two months, but it can seem like forever when you’re waiting for something good to happen.

Ben has been teasing me lately because every time I go to the nursery, whether it be for plant stands or fertilizer, I always manage to come home with new plants to add to our garden. Two weeks ago, it was more oregano and a lemon verbena plant, and last week it was strawberries. Ben has jokingly placed a ban on me going to the nursery without him.

Strawberry plants in the back pot, sage and oregano in the terra cotta pot.

Last night I proudly plucked a few leaves from our sweet basil and Greek oregano plants to put in olive oil with pasta. I could have used the dried spices in the cabinet next to the stove, but why bother when I’ve got fresh herbs 10ft away? I swear, nothing made me prouder than ripping those leaves up in to the oil. Part of me almost wishes I had taken a picture of it to savor the moment in the future. I can’t imagine what I’ll feel like when we have tomatoes and zucchini coming out of our ears.

Here’s the most recent picture of our raised bed.

Raised garden bed 5-30-09

It’s 7am, Ben is still sleeping, and I am sitting out on our back deck enjoying a cup of coffee and the sounds of a spring morning. The weather forecast predicted a high in the upper 70s today, something for Portlanders to get excited about and cause to start making plans to be outside all day. It’s still fairly chilly for now but I can’t help but think about the things I’ve been planning to do in our yard all week.

I had ordered some tomato starts to be delivered in the beginning of April, and while I received them at their promised date, they have been relegated to living in our garden window until the weather was more appropriate for putting them in their permanent home outside. In the meantime, I have watched them inch ever higher and waiting impatiently for the day when they will start producing. Luckily I’ve had other things in the garden to be focusing my attention on to abate my “limited tomato based thinking”.

Toward the end of March I planted four Oregon snow pea seeds in the hopes that one would sprout and produce snow peas for us to enjoy through the season. Much to my happy surprise all four sprouted and have been growing ever skyward. Noticing that they were starting to climb on one another I improvised a trellis with a tomato cage that wouldn’t come to use for a little while and strung some gardener’s twine diagonally between the bars to give the peas something else for their little tendrils to wrap around.

Back in September of last year I planted some ranunculus bulbs thinking the picture on the package looked nice and that our front yard could use some extra color. I couldn’t help but be surprised when they started sprouting in November! These brave little sprouts had to bare the full brunt of Arctic Blast ’08, the worst snow storm to hit our area in 40 years. Luckily they soldiered on and when April and warmer temperatures rolled around the continued to grow and produce some beautiful blossoms that we’re still enjoying.

Unfortunately for our back yard, we haven’t been as dutiful to its upkeep as we likely should have and the back corner of our yard which last year was just a layer of bark dust is now covered in a profusion of weeds. I hope to remedy that this weekend.

About two months ago a friend of ours sent out an email to all of her friends stating that she was putting together a team for the Susan G. Komen Race for the cure (http://www.komenoregon.org/) in honor of her mother who is a breast cancer survivor. We joined 45,000 people at the Portland waterfront park early Sunday morning for a 5K walk for the cure. What an amazing day. There were moments during the two hours where you would look back down the hill you were walking up and see the thousands of other people walking, and you just think: “Wow.”