Tale of Woe

I have been a sloth for posting.

I have excuses, but those don't mean much. (Vacation, work etc etc)

This weekend I am looking at adding the fruiting bushes and vines to the yard, and we shall see how that goes. My plans are Raspberries, Blueberries and Grapes. While I would love to plant Goji berries, currents and strawberries, I don't think this year it will happen.

The apples are gone (yay), due to a late frost after budding we will have no apples on our apple tree. I am oddly overjoyed. I forgot to spray, and this will help with pest control for next year (no food for the buggers). Not only that, but harvesting would be time-consuming and I don't yet have a way to process them and store them after the harvest. I need to get stuff for canning/drying/cold-storing produce before we have a big harvest.

I lament my inadequate ability to grow tomatoes. Not sure why, but I can get cherry tomatoes to grow too my height from seed, but can't get normal sized ones growing from transplants or seed. And I love tomatoes, and it is one of the things I want to grow the most. Give me a few years and I might finally get the process down.

As for the CSA I have been having trouble as the resident 'chef' to figure out how to use all the veggies. The first part of the CSA season had a managable amount of veggies for just dinners. Now we need to use them for lunches as well, or not use them all in a week. Also my mother is out of town with my grandmother for a month, and my brother is gone for the summer for an internship. So 3 people to handle a medium share as quantities ramp up for the season. Doable, but requires a bunch of work.

I have found that I like Bok Choy, but not to fond of radishes. Perhaps I have not found the right way to use radishes. And I am not sure what to do with beets, given that I try to cook after work and have dinner ready fairly soon after. I have found some oven recipes that would take some time, so only good for a weekend really.

So this afternoon we will get

1. Bok choy - probably the last for the season
2. Radish
3. Lettuce - either Romaine, head or butter
4. Peas - shell peas, snow peas or sugar snap
5. Turnips
6. Kohlrabi
7. Beets
8. Carrots
9. Cabbage
10. Summer squash - assorted varieties
11. Kale
12. Broccoli
13. Onion
14. Spring greens
15. cucumber/spinach/something

Turnips, Beets and Summer squash are the items that may require more thought than the rest of the ingredients.

I hope to do better at posting.

Garden

Ok, so I have found no blogs about gardening in the Mid-Columbia. So I am going to create one.

I live in West Richland and live on a quarter acre plot. We just bought the house, and so I will chronicle my efforts to garden.

What is interesting about the Mid-Columbia is that it is hot, sunny, dry and in the winter cold. So when people talk about gardening in washington state, they tend to refer to the rainy portion of the state, or at least in Spokane.

Over the next few posts I will outline the plans and then the process of gardening that I have gone through.