Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Gardening

One of my other pastimes besides quilting is flower gardening. I don't' have a green thumb and there are a lot of challenges with growing anything on the high desert of Central Oregon.


Flowering sage needs no help and is pretty effective in the garden.



One of my favorites is the purple coneflower.

This sunflower self seeded from the bird feeder. You can see one of the challenges in my area is keeping the deer from eating everything. Since I took this photo they even ate the flower!!!

Last fall I decided I would try and grow a few vegetables. Because we can only dig about 1" down before hitting hardpan I built the soil up using the lasagna gardening method. Basically it's a layered raised bed. My other plan was to use the square foot gardening method.

Here is my jumble of tomato plants. It looks a bit more like a wild patch of blackberry bushes. I really had no idea tomato plants get this large.


I have a few peppers planted in there too. They aren't getting too much light these days. And I am hoping to find my carrots sometime this fall!!!
I've had fun doing it and I certainly have learned a few things. I call this my "Humble Garden".




5 comments:

  1. Lovely garden. My tomatoes didn't get that big this year. Maybe too much rain.

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  2. Your plants look so nice! I love cone flowers. Enjoy your veggie patch

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  3. Good luck with your garden. It's hard to garden here, too. I love your purple coneflowers!!

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  4. I think your garden looks great! I've just started to get any produce from mine and summer's almost history. Between the deer, raccoons, squirrels and too much shade, I'm amazed I've gotten anything. I'm coddling a few teeny pumpkins in hopes they will still be around at Halloween.

    Do you get really cold in the winter there? Any snow? My gardening efforts have winter to deal with so I'm trying to learn what will survive.

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  5. I've found the lasagna method to work really well. Have you ever heard of growing tomatoes in straw bales? It works. Don't have a link for you, but I'm sure you can google it.

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