Our Vegetable Garden:
The local “slow food” movement spreading throughout the
country has inspired us to ever increase the size of our
vegetable garden and our orchard trees. The taste of fresh
fruits and veggies, eaten raw or cooked just hours after
harvest, is a real taste treat. Each year we (mostly Marion
who is the certified Green Thumb) plant about 10 varieties
of tomatoes, 3 or 4 different peppers, a couple of different
cucumbers, peas, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lots
of varieties of lettuce, squash, three or four varieties of
potatoes (Tom’s job), corn, onions, leeks, garlic, etc. Add
to that two varieties of strawberries, about a dozen
blueberries, a half dozen currants, hardy kiwi fruit,
gooseberries, and a huckleberry, plus lots of raspberries
and you can see we can feed ourselves from our garden.
Marion loves to plant flowers intertwined with all the
vegetables and has more gladiolas, peonies, dahlias,
nasturtiums, etc. than you can count. We have over 120
lavender plants just for the sheer beauty the blooms add to
the landscape. |
To top it off, we have a couple of cherry trees, a peach,
two pears, three plums, three figs, two apples, and two
Chestnuts.
Last year, we also started raising laying
hens. We have five birds and plan to add about five per
year. Our young birds produce about 4 wonderful eggs a day.
We pasture them in the area of the Tuscan Olives. And, yes.
They do have names: Ruby (Rhode Island Red), Babbs (Barred
Rock), Carlene and Henrietta (Araucanas), and Buffy (Buff
Orpinton).
Western Oregon is a wonderful place to
garden as most fruits and vegetables can be grown here quite
successfully. We love to share our harvest with friends and
neighbors, and we freeze much of our bounty for hearty
soups, stews, and sauces throughout the winter.
|
|
