Plant a vegetable garden, soonest

siderea has been 100% right so far about the pandemic. Her post today says "Grow Food If You Can."

15 years ago when I moved to Portland and bought this house, I was thinking seriously about apocalypse. Living in an earthquake zone in drought years will do that. I intentionally moved to an area with more water available, and I wanted a yard where I could grow food.

Since then I've had the front lawn replaced with perennials, had two raised beds installed, and experimented with growing various vegetables. I've learned along the way that I can manage to grow herbs, greens, and peas somewhat successfully. In general what you put into it affects what you get out of it. Amend the soil with compost. Water a lot. I had decided in the last couple of years to leave the food growing to the experts and buy my vegetables at the farmers market. But we are living in a changed world.

A couple of days ago I planted leftover greens and pea seeds from last year in the raised beds, why not.

Taking siderea's advice, I went out today and bought more seeds (the co-op is stocked) and compost (the local hardware store is also stocked). Also following siderea's advice, I did some quick online research on growing zucchini and amending soil (5 min video) that should radically improve my results. Broccoli looks relatively straightforward, too, if the aphids don't get it. Perhaps watering more will help.

While I have felt like my food-growing efforts have mostly failed, I am grateful I am not starting from scratch. I have some tools, and I have learned a lot about what doesn't work. I have raspberry and strawberry plants that have been successful, and a blueberry plant that actually made blueberries last year for the first time since I planted it some ten years ago. (I remember asking for advice about it, but I can't find that post. I didn't actually follow any of the advice intentionally, but it produced anyway!) If I water those more when it stops raining, they'll probably bear well this year.

( Pic: Handful of blueberries. )