Spring Projects
- Chris Musser
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Spring is always a busy season for gardeners, but my landmate Emily outdid herself this year. If you have had a chance to visit, you no doubt admired Emily's work. She is an artist and a gardener — a garden artist. She can spot shot weed from 15' away, build garden structures with what's on hand, and has decades of experience growing food in Oregon. We are going to have quite the harvest this year thanks to her efforts this spring.
Frog Pond Installation
One day in February, we were outside and heard the distinct krek krek of a male Pacific chorus frog. I bought a couple of patio ponds, and Emily dug holes for them and then added frog-friendly landscaping, including hollowed logs and hopping stones, and planted soft rush, bleeding heart, fringecups, riverbank lupine, yellow-eyed grass, and maidenhair fern around the ponds. A native umbrella plant, Darmera peltata, went into the smaller pond, rushes and a springbank clover from Sky at Radicles when into the larger one. And now we wait for amphibious friends to find this spot.
Pitcher Plant Bog Revival
In 2021, I added an in-ground bog for pitcher plants at the low end of a rain garden. The soil mix had been drying out for the last couple of years, when it should have held water. The pitchers were hanging in there, but not growing at all. There were two issues: the original soil mix had too much pumice, and the plastic liner had disintegrated. Emily removed the old soil, put in a thicker pond liner, added a 12” base of coarse sand, and topped it with 12” of a mix of peat moss and sand. She replanted the pitcher plants, and they're already looking livelier.
Potato Towers
We plan to grow a lot of potatoes this year, so Emily built several towers with wire fencing to grow them vertically. Here she is planting chitted Magic Molly potatoes in soil amended with bonemeal for tuber development and elemental sulfur to prevent potato scab by lowering soil pH. As the plants grow, we will add straw, soil, and chopped leaves. We are staggering plantings. Early potatoes went in late April, mid-season go in this week — for harvesting and eating in summer. Storage varieties and fingerlings go in late May, for harvest at the end of summer.
Garden Arch
More vertical gardening! A few weeks ago, Courtney Stinck-Stoneburg of Shoveling Stincks delivered two cattle panels, which Emily used for this arch, where we'll grow beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers. This area has not been cultivated in over a decade, and the soil is typical Portland acidic clay. To make it suitable for growing vegetables, she amended the soil with a blend of coarse sand, compost, worm castings, dolomite lime, gypsum, oyster shell, and complete organic fertilizer. This mix improves drainage, feeds soil life, and lowers soil pH.
Asparagus Crown Replacement
In 2002, I planted 25 asparagus crowns in a 50’ bed along the west side of my front yard garden. They were a mix of Jersey Giant, Purple Passion, and Martha Washington varieties and produced abundantly for most of two decades–the usual productive lifespan of asparagus. In the last few years, fewer harvestable spears have grown, so this spring, Emily removed 10 old crowns, along with dozens of small ones, and replaced them with a mix of Millennium and Purple Passion crowns. We'll replace the remaining crowns over the next couple of years.
Seed starting
This year, I experimented with starting seeds in my carport without supplemental lighting. I set up a mini-greenhouse on a rolling shelf unit with a clear plastic cover, placed against the open, west side of the carport. I sowed tomatoes and peppers a bit late in nursery pots on a warming mat. All seeds germinated quickly and grew well without additional lighting. I also sowed cucurbits–cucumbers, squash, melons–in soil blocks on a warming mat, and they have grown sizable in just a couple of weeks. They are a bit leggy, though, so next time I will add lighting.
Compost Tea Brewer
I set up a compost tea brewer, using a 4-gallon bucket with a tap at the bottom. Compost tea is a liquid fertilizer made by steeping compost in water with a small amount of unsulfured molasses. The process causes beneficial microorganisms present in compost (bacteria, fungi, and protozoa) to multiply. Use it to drench the roots of heavy feeders such as broccoli, corn, hops, peppers, potatoes, squash, and tomatoes. It smells fantastic, by the way...like both earth and ocean.
To make compost tea: fill a bucket with water and let that sit for 24 hours to de-chlorinate. Then, add 1 cup of worm castings, 1 cup of compost, and a couple of tablespoons of kelp granules to a large fine-mesh bag. Add the tea bag and a tablespoon of unsulfured molasses, then place an aquarium air pump with an air stone into the bucket as well. Brew for 24-48 hours, then use immediately.
Want to check out our projects? Visit during our next Open Garden Days: May 30, June 13, and June 14, 11 am to 3pm.
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