Tag: Gardening

It has been raining a lot in Portland. For about a week and a half now it’s been rainy and the temperatures have dipped. It’s by no means arctic out there, but for this California girl, it is cold! I’ve been trying to sneak out into the garden to get work done whenever I can, but I draw the line at excessive rainfall. I really dislike being cold and wet. My motivation to do anything dwindles. Unfortunately, this is putting a snare in my One Room Challenge progress! I’ve lost whole weekends and lots of evenings to rain. Though some of my plants are loving the soaking, my hot season veggies and my roses are barely tolerating the dampness. I’m looking forward to the end of next week, when that summer sun returns (hopefully for the long haul!).

In the meantime, on my days I have been able to get in some time in the garden, I’ve been working on tackling the vegetables, getting every last start into the ground and figuring out a trellis system! I’ve been going a little rogue with garden spacing after reading Kitchen Garden Revival by Nicole Johnsey Burke. I’m planting everything close together and hoping to trellis it all upwards. That means a few measly tomato cages probably won’t cut it. The majority of my tomatoes are indeterminate varieties, meaning they will continue to grow and produce until they’re killed off by fall frosts. I only selected one or two determinate varieties (which grow to a certain size and then put out their entire fruit and then die). And I have over ten varieties of tomatoes, y’all. It’s going to be crazy!