Co-Curricular Community Gardens Project

Weekly Theme(s) – Harvesting, transplanting, compost (revisited), Lettuce (Asteraceae), & Beets (Chenopodioideae)

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

Reading(s) for the week:

• No readings this week – rather, read through your WP posts that I’m sure we all are working hard on!

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

Just in case y’all aren’t aware, it is week 10… congratulations on making here and I wish you the best as we jam through the end!

I want to start by telling everyone that I won’t be able to make it to our field day on Thursday (6/3), and so we can decide whether you all want to still meet on Thursday, or rather use that time to work on your own projects.

Regardless, I am looking forward to our last organized meeting of the Spring 2021 quarter! We all have put so much time, love and effort into the entire Community Garden, let alone our own plot, and I hope that we all feel excited by the result of that work.

Just because the Spring quarter is almost wrapped up doesn’t mean that you all can’t come back anytime and all the time if you can and want to! I will be tending to the space through the Summer and Fall, and I guarantee that there will be great bounties that will be shared with you. Please reach out if you ever have the time and desire to come lend a hand (or just show up).

~Tuesday (6/1)~

Tuesday will be our last organized meeting of this quarter and so I was thinking that it would be fun to sit and reminisce about what it took to get us to where we are now, and what we are excited about for the next chapter of our life, education, etc. Perhaps we could walk around the Demeter’s plot and look at where the nature of our growing area could eventually end up, left rather unattended and wild.

There is also a possibility that we will make a short excursion over to Steve’s house to share some snacks and get out of the sun! Stay tuned for updates but know that, no matter what, I would like to just spend this time with you all before we go on to the Summer and beyond

1:2 Tending and Management (what we did)

Weekly Theme(s) – Harvesting, transplanting, compost (revisited), Lettuce (Asteraceae), & Beets (Chenopodioideae)

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

Reading(s) for the week:

• Beets (Beta vulgaris) pp 262-265 – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) pp 225-228 – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

I am still riding the high of completing the bed prep for the remaining space in our plot! Last week we prepped and planted into the last 3 beds; sweet peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes now dominate those last few beds.

Although these beds are planted into, there is still plenty of space open and ready for some faster crops such as lettuce and beets. As it just so happens, I have two full trays of lettuce AND beets that are at the perfect size for transplanting! Along with these two crops, I will have some miscellaneous transplants to fill in some other spaces in our plot.

These past few weeks have been very productive for our little garden plot and this means that there will inevitably be some more harvesting to do this week. I suspect that the second half of the salad row is ready to go, as well as the radishes that have already begun to split from excess moisture and heat. Aside from these two, the Hakurei turnips are getting quite large and the lettuce may be ready as well.

I love seeing our crops being productive but where there’s smoke, there ought to be fire; with nice productive crops comes nice productive weeds that are in competition for light and food. All this is my creative way of saying: what time we don’t spend harvesting and planting will be spent weeding!

~Tuesday~

I will put it up to all that join us on Tuesday to decide if we want to harvest on Tuesday or Thursday, but I think that we should harvest on Tuesday, solely to pull the radishes before we get anymore rain.

The rest of the time will be spent planting lettuce and beets!

~Thursday~

Depending on what we get done on Thursday, we may have to finish up some planting, and perhaps do a thorough weeding of all the beds. I did spend some time this weekend weeding around our plants but didn’t focus to hard on the space closest to the base of the crops.

If there is excess time, we may be able to pull back some of the tarp on the solarized bed and begin prepping some space for dry beans but we shall see!

Can’t wait to see you out there.

1:2 Tending and Management (what we did).

The work for this week flowed quite nicely, and everyone seemed to appreciate the time in the garden, allowing for an escape from the seemingly endless hours behind a computer screen. Week 9 for me always means that I am mired down with paper writing and putting the final touches on the deliverables that I have been working on; in these times I make a lot of lists reminding me what tasks need to be done, helping me to prioritize.

Regardless of our technological woes, the work that we have been putting into the Community Garden has led to some stunning crops and I am so happy with all that we have done! As we near the end of the quarter, I can feel each of us reminiscing and cherishing the time that we have put into our plot. It is hard not to feel revitalized when we all begin harvesting a veritable bounty and all of a sudden, we are surrounded by beautiful vegetables that we ourselves grew.

On Tuesday we spent the first portion of the morning helping Alegra and Le’Allen finishing weeding the last plot of the Medicinal Herb Garden, before moving over to the Community Garden. Both Alegra and Le’Allen have been working tirelessly on liberating the herb-beds from the Buttercup that had happily taken over the beds, smothering out all the medicinal plants that we are trying to help thrive. While removing all the Buttercup (and not destroying the surviving herbs) seemed like a daunting task but after 9 weeks of continual efforts, all of the medicinal herb beds have been cleared and replanted! So much respect and pride to those two (and everyone else involved) for quite literally saving the Medicinal Herb Garden.

Once the work in the herb garden was finished, we all moved over to the Community Garden and began transplanting red and golden beets alongside the recently transplanted cucumber and tomato plants. Having low-growing crops such as beets planted with trellised crops is just another way to maximize the yield from a given space while adding other benefits to the soil, acting as ‘living-mulch’ and suppressing weeds.

With the beets planted in our plot, all available space that we have access to has been filled with growing crops! For the moment, we can take our minds off of filling space and planted crops, and shift to focusing on tending to the plants that are constantly growing and maturing. I can’t quite express how I feel as I stand amidst a field that I have filled with plants and to feel them lift me up, as they themselves grow and unfurl into a lush jungle of beauty, meaning, and opportunity.

• 

• 

Up until this last Thursday, we had gotten pretty lucky with not having to work too much in heavy rain; although we have been getting a good amount of Spring rains, it always seemed to be clear and beautiful on the days we spent in the garden. This was not the case for this Thursday, while it was still quite beautiful out, the rain would come down in sheets every 5 minutes or so. Yet, rain or shine, we would be out there, working our buns off.

Having a birthday to celebrate, we spent the first half of class gathered near some shelter and shared some donuts and tea, celebrating another year of Ali’s life, as well as some of our own excitement for the coming Summer break! Once we had been good and elevated by sugar and caffeine, we headed out to the Community Garden to continue our celebration through the harvesting of many crops.

The last row of our spicy salad mix was at its prime, the scarlet butter head lettuce was too enticing not to harvest, the radishes needed to go, and the turnips were full and lush (and full of worms). This was our second, and largest, major harvest of the season, and I am hoping that I can get as many of my peers to return to the garden throughout the summer and help me harvest (and eat) the abundance that abounds.

With all of the veggies washed and bagged up, we got each take a good portion of the food, giving 9 mouths another few meals of dense, tasty, local produce.

• 

• 

• 

1:3 Shishito Pepper Variety Trial

I got to meet with the full consortium of individuals involved in the various variety trials that will be taking place on the Evergreen Farm. Through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) grant at Evergreen, I will be growing along side two other awesome Evergreen students that are both currently enrolled in the year-long Practice of Organic Farming program that takes place on the same farm I am working on. Ethan and Adam (I don’t know there last names quite yet) will be conducting variety trials on tomatoes and radicchio in the same field that the peppers are being trialed in. The SURF variety trials are being mentored by professors Dr. Martha Rosemeyer, Dr. Sarah Williams, and Dr. Steve Scheuerell.

We met to all came together to work on a progressive plan to put us all on the same page and boost us into starting the plantings. Because we are sharing a field, and because the crops each have different management techniques, we needed to come together on several different plans: how the spacing would be taking place so that we could ‘Tetris’ the trials together, how the irrigation will be configured, and how we are each planning to amend the beds.

After meeting, we were all able to land on a plan for spacing, and at the very least I am confident that I have the space set aside for my project’s needs. We will also have an irrigation set up that runs off of the same mainline but can be remotely turned on and off at each trial plot so that the irrigation can be manipulated as individually needed. And finally, the tomatoes and radicchio will be amended with Organic Feather Meal, and if there is enough for my plot, I will add some as well.

Knowing what and where various crops have been growing in this field over the last two years, I am intimately aware of what areas have been depleted of nutrients. For the space where the peppers will be planted, compost was added following a measly harvest of radicchio (measly because of weather, not nutrient stress), and then shielded from the rain over much of the winter by an occultation tarp, so I am not overly concerned amount nutrient availability – but adding some feather meal will surely not hurt.

With all this, Ethan, Adam and I made plans to have a work party in which we will be incorporating amendments, setting up irrigation and transplanting our wee babes during the second week of June!

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

This week seemed to come naturally to me, regardless of all the work that I have had looming over me. Through the process of being more accepting of my feelings, moods, situations, etc., and giving myself some grace when I am feeling low, I have slowing begun to become less reactionary with my emotions. There are some aspects of my life that I have always felt that I could only react to, but I have been making some progress towards being proactive, rather than reactive.

Another realization that I had this week is that, by going back and reading my mentorship reflections from weeks past, the majority of what I talk about alludes to my own insecurities with being in a place of power and telling people what to do – is that what mentorship/teaching is like for many educators in the world? I hope that as I become more and more comfortable with the topics that I am teaching and talking about, that I gain more confidence in my ability to delegate tasks.

As I see it, everyone that gets deep into the theories of regenerative agricultural practices always finds the BMPs that work for them, in their setting. In other words, everyone does things slightly differently based on what they have learned and what they are capable of doing with the resources that they have access to; opinions and advice from one grower to another can seem to clash, and as a student/learner, it can get confusing. I often seek multiple opinions from people that I know to be very good, smart, and responsible growers, but when those opinions begin to contradict one another, I am left to critically think through why these opinions might not line up for the two growers – perhaps they have drastically different soils, or they both deal with completely different pests, or they have differing micro-climates, or they have different sized feet – regardless, it is my responsibility to sift through this knowledge and take away what I feel work for my situation.

To turn this around to the mentor’s perspective, I think that focusing the teaching to the basics of soil-ecology, field preparation & maintenance, as well as plant morphology, sets up the ground work that would give an aspiring grower an base-understanding of how these systems interact. With this, and a tool-kit of resources that can provide answers to the inevitable questions that will arise, empowers the aspiring grower. There were plenty of times through this season that I felt like I was bogging someone down with convoluted information that, 1) wasn’t asked for, and 2) left the listener out of context and confused.

Knowing that everyone has their own personal preference in learning styles – some individuals are ‘learners by doing’, some are ‘learners by watching’, some are ‘learners by reading’, and I’m sure there are more – and this is very much the case for agricultural students, as well. Yet, regardless of the preferred learning technique, I think that it is invaluable to get to observe the cycles of work and planning that goes into supporting the cycles of plant growth. The medium of growing vegetables is so visceral that there is only so much that one can learn before they need to get out and submerge their hands in some soil to actually feel the unfathomably intricate universe that lies right under our feet; a universe that, if not for the top 12″ of soil across our globe, life would not exist in the way we know it.

I myself learned so much of what I know by observing my father in our garden and experiencing the thrill of digging up the season’s first potatoes and carrots. I remember thinking as a child: “I can’t believe that all one must do to grow food is to bury half of a potato!” While this is completely true, there was still a lot to learn for that young individual, and little did I know, I would dedicate my college education to learning the sciences and culture of agriculture as we think we know it today. While I had this wealth of inspiration from childhood, it wasn’t until I took the Practice of Organic Farming program at Evergreen that I got to closely observe a full-season of diverse-vegetable production, and the work and resources that are commonly needed to manage even a 5-acre farm. The amount that I learned can’t be quantified! And then to go on to the next growing season and to try and do the whole thing on my own, starting from scratch – the learning I had accrued at the end of that season had grown exponentially from the season prior.

I believe that this must be the way it is for many growers from one season to the next, if we approach each season as students, the amount of learning and growth that we may accrue is infinite. For me, I know that in order to keep things interesting and to progress with the times, I will always be experimenting and researching and trying new things; without these experiences, I fear that life would grow stagnant.

Weekly Theme(s) – Compost, Solanaceae, Cucurbitaceae, & Community Engagement.

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

Reading(s) for the week:

• Tomatoes (pp194-198) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Cucumbers (pp284-286) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Composting (pp57-72) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Making and Using Compost (pp141-148) – Building Soils for Better Crops

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

For me, week 8 always marks the beginning of the end of the quarter – this is when the time comes for me to start visualizing the end and how to wrap everything up with a nice bow. With regards to our garden space, we only have a few planned meeting times left until the quarter ends, and so it is time to start thinking about what we needs to be done by week 10, as well as what will come next (after the end of the quarter).

Not only are we nearing the end of the quarter, we are nearing the end of our planting space; with room for only 3 more beds to be built, we may close out the quarter right as we fill up the entire planting space! I think that this would be a beautifully natural way to go out. Although I hope to have access to more space as the season progresses, I have had to think deeply about what crops I’d like to fill our remaining space with. I have chosen to plant tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in our final 3 beds. As more beds are turned (harvested and then replanted) I will have more space for crops such as dry beans and squash.

For week 8 I hope to focus on building the last of the beds in our space – I think I have been saying this for the last few weeks but I know that it is a arduous and painful job that takes time but we are darn close! Once we have more open and prepped beds, we can begin thinking about transplanting the tomatoes and cucumbers, and maybe even the peppers, by the end of the quarter! My tomato and cucumber starts are ready for transplanting, but the peppers are still a bit of a way out.

~Tuesday~

I have half-way prepped one of the last 3 beds so it would be great to finish that, and then we can begin on another, hopefully having 2 more empty beds by the end of our Tuesday meeting. With that will come the usual amount of weeding, watering, and care-giving that needs to be done every few days. I imagine that building these two beds will take the majority of the time that we have, but if there is any extra time, we may take a moment to talk a bit about the introduction to compost making and compost use.

~Thursday~

With the remaining beds prepped and ready for plants, we can focus our energies on transplanting; this Thursday may mark the beginning of a mass plant-exodus from my green house! All of the cucumber, tomatoes, beets, tat-soi, cabbages, dill, and more are ready to go into the ground! I expect that we will be able to plant nearly all of these on Thursday given the space that we will have prepped on Tuesday. We will talk about how to fit all of these crops into this relatively small amount of space and why certain crops can be crammed together and why certain others cannot. Bring a digging trowel, hori-hori, both right and left hands, or any of your other favorite transplanting tools.

1:2 Tending and Managing (what we did)

It happened; we officially have food growing in every one of the beds that we set out to fill at the beginning of the Spring quarter! Through weeks of hard digging, weed eradication and massive amounts of seeding & transplanting we were able to fill the last three beds of our plot, and now we can hyper focus on the crops that have been growing, giving them the up-close attention that they now require. The runner-beans and the sweet peas are reaching a size where they need to be consistently trellised, the potatoes and the leeks need to be mounded up, and the rest of the beds need a thorough weeding – there is more work to be done!

The community garden was graciously donated 10 metric-yards of Organic compost by one of our community members, and I was asked to receive the delivery on this past Monday. This gardener asked to remain anonymous but I still wanted to shout out to them and pay my respects – thank you so much for supporting fellow community food & medicine growers.

10 yards of compost is A LOT of compost and with the garden’s personal compost piles are out of commission, I am grateful that we have a large amount of organic matter to incorporate back into our soils.

I was so appreciative of all my peers that were able to meet on Tuesday and knock out a huge amount of broad-forking, double digging, and weed-root eradication, so that we could have the rest of our planting space prepped and ready for the incoming transplants! It was a lot of work, but that work made it possible for us to come in on Thursday morning and focus primarily on gently transplanting the sweet peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The tomatoes and cucumbers were planted consciously, knowing that they will eventually need to be trellised, with the hopes of being aware of how that may effect the growth of our other beds. My thoughts were that, with the peppers planted on the eastern side of the soon-to-be trellised tomatoes and cucumbers, they would receive ample amounts of morning and mid-day light, only to be slightly shaded out by the end of the day. Although this is true, the afternoon/evening sun is usually hotter than the morning sun, and the peppers would appreciate all the direct heat that they can receive, so perhaps they would prefer the western side of the tomatoes and cucumbers – but alas – it is too late! I am confident that they will still be very productive.

Aside from the transplanting work that we finished this week, there was plenty of other productivity taking place in the form of good ol’ plant growth. It is the time of the season where, with warmer temps, longer days, and warmer soil temps, the plants put on visible growth on a daily basis. This makes it quite fun to let 1 or 2 days pass without coming to the garden and being struck by the size difference of the plants from the last time they were seen.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

For the last bit of info that I want to share, I wanted to highlight the progress that the flax has been making through this gorgeous weather. To recap, I seeded two 15-foot beds with the idea of having one bed dedicated to eventual seed harvest, and one bed dedicated to harvest for fiber. The thought is that, while both beds will set seed that we will harvest, one bed will be managed so that it produces long, straight stems, making it easier to process for linen, and the other will be given more growing space, encouraging more branch growth, thus more flower heads! This week I thinned out the bed that will be managed for seed, and now there is a nice, side by side visual comparison.

When I began, the left hand bed looked much like the bed on the right, and now you can see that many flax plants were removed to allow for 3″-4″ between plant (recommended for maximum seed production). This is my first time growing flax and I have fallen in love with this versatile species; the flax plants are unbelievably soft and I often find myself kneeling next to the beds, simply washing my hands through the soft, little stands.

1:3 Shishito Pepper Trial

Using Google Earth, I found an aerial image of the Evergreen Organic Farm and added my own edits to show the location of the pepper trial in reference to the farm as a whole. As you can see, there is a visible shade line from the southern tree line that is getting mighty close to the trial plot. While I couldn’t figure out exactly what time of year this image was captured, I can tell that it was taken in the afternoon, not too long after high-noon.

I had the opportunity to chat with Ryan Richardson who, among many many other things, is one of the few people at Evergreen that are certified to fly drones and to capture drown photography. Ever since we had this conversation, I have been pondering and researching how I may utilize this resource that is already making regular passes around the farm area. Even further, the school just bought a brand new infrared lens that could possibly be used to measure leaf area index (LAI), and much more. I need to do more research but I would be remiss to not utilize this incredible resource while it is so accessible. Thank you Ryan!

I have been trying to nail down a time that works for the Evergreen farm manager’s schedule (and with my schedule as well) to get into the farm and prep my portion of the trialing plot. In the image above, the portion of the field that is covered with the plastic tarp is the space that we have allotted to the pepper trial and I am eager to get it all set up so the peppers need only to be tucked in!

While one side of the plot is open field, soon to be tomatoes and radicchio trials, the pepper trial butts up to the raspberry patch that is looking rather threatening as it leafs-out and fills in. Perhaps I am paranoid of shade interactions, I know that shade can greatly influence pepper productivity. With this in mind, I will be attempting to make accommodations to ensure the peppers aren’t left in the dark.

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

To be frank, I have been spending a large amount of my personal energy towards beginning the arduous process of healing some of my deep-set insecurities. I have alluded to them a couple of times through these reflections, but it was rather recently that I made an active decision to address them and begin working through them. In the past, due to shame and embarrassment, I buried my ugly emotions away and was afraid to pay them any attention for fear of them becoming real, tangible issues; the truth is, they are (and have been) real and tangible for quite some time and they will continue to haunt me if I don’t face them head on.

I mention this because, through all the changes that come with mental healing, I have also been putting much thought into how and where I want to land with regards to my healing. The future looms over me as I near the end of my time as an undergrad and I have been imagining myself in possible careers; I think that it is all to likely that I will run my own farm business sooner than later, and I have some anxiety (awareness) surrounding my ability to respectfully/responsibly grow food, and the impact of having people help me through this process.

Due to some of the aforementioned insecurities, I have always struggled with asking others to do something for me as I don’t understand why I should have the right to alter someone’s routine for my own personal gain. This is further complicated when I imagine myself in a place of power, such as a boss or owner of a business – although I know how I would like things to be done to meet my farm plan goals, I am weary of telling others what to do. Another aspect of this comes with my awareness of my status as a white male in a world overrun with power hungry, white males.

Following Jose Gomez Farmworker Justice Day, it was made even more apparent to me that there is nowhere near enough recognition, respect, and legislation given to hold up the integral workers/farmers all over the world, and as an aspiring farm owner, I recognize that I have an opportunity to attempt to be an agent of equitable change. As it stands, I know that I have a lot of healing and learning to do but I imagine that this may always be the case, but equitable change rarely happens over night, and at least I am aware that I have the potential to be better and do better.

Week 7 Theme(s): Alliums, Harvesting & Nutrient Cycling (re-visited)

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

Reading(s) for the week:

• Runner Beans (pp204-206) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Alliums (pp294-305) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

Hello again! Week 7 has arrived, and with it, a forecasted week of beautiful weather.

We have very nearly finished the arduous process of creating planting beds in our space, yet all this shows what impact proper garden management can have for the gardener. If there was a possibility for more continuity from one season to the next, these pervasive species wouldn’t have as much of an opportunity to take hold; it doesn’t help that we came into a space that hadn’t been managed in quite some time… Regardless, we only have 3-4 more beds to prep within the space that we have claimed, and still it doesn’t quite seem like enough.

This week we will not only be building more planting beds, we will also be transplanting leeks and onions that I started from seed nearly 6 weeks ago. Onions are notoriously finnicky to start from seed and it is common for smaller scale gardeners to go out and buy onion starts or onion sets if they choose to grow onions in their space – this is perfectly acceptable but it is also far more expensive. Not only can onions be finnicky, onions also require long periods in the field, some taking nearly 110-120 days to reach maturity. Not only that, but if the goal is to have a bulbous, long-day onion/shallot, then the onions need to be started early in the season to ensure that they have good foliar-growth by the time that the onions are triggered into the ‘bulbing’ process. Onions have a photoperiodic relationship to day length and the formation of the classic onion bulb; it is believed that (for long-day onions), once the days/sunlight have reach 14-16 hours long, the onions can then begin forming the bulb.

~Tuesday (5/11)~

Tuesday will begin with some garden check-ins, to reorient ourselves with what has taken place in our beds over the weekend. Spot weeding, watering and pea-trellising can all be done during this time as well. Once we are ready to really get into it, we can begin building another bed and prepping for transplanting the onions.

By the end of Tuesday, it would be great to have another bed created, the onions transplanted, and the bed’s weeded.

~Thursday (5/13)~

We will begin our Thursday meeting by gathering at the Herb Garden, in the Organic Farm proper. We will get a chance to see and hear from Alegra, and the other herb gardeners, about the progress that they have been making. In addition to all this, Beth – the farm manager – is going to meet with us and talk about some herbs that she would like to have fill in the newly empty spaces (now that the buttercup is gone). Beth always has a surplus of beautiful herbs and spices that fit well into this type of herb garden.

At the beginning of the quarter Alegra and I started an entire tray of Hyssop from seed; I will be bringing these plants to the garden on Thursday so that we can transplant them into some of the open space.

At about 10:30, I am going to move back over to the community garden to spend some time transplanting leeks and weeding any beds that need some help. Anyone that wants to join me is welcome to do so, but anyone that wants to stay in the herb garden is more than welcome to stay!!

1:2 Tending and Management (what we did)

This week was so fast paced and productive that it is hard for me to know where to even begin filling this blog in; I suppose that it makes the most sense to begin in chronological order, and so:

~Monday~

The Evergreen shellfish-gardens had once been used regularly but have since been abandoned for years, with no student interest to keep them alive and tended. Through loads of help and dedication from many students, faculty, staff, and alumni, the shellfish gardens have begun being revamped. Nearly a year ago (2020) I was fortunate enough to get to help with reseeding the oyster garden where we seeded nearly 2500 tiny oyster babies.

This Monday, with a continuation of my fortune, I got to join in on the first harvest and tasting of the very same oysters that we had seeded only a year prior!! I truly believe that oysters are an iconic, integral, and influential part of the Pacific Northwest culture and I feel so honored to have gotten to witness some of my peer’s hard work turn into this incredible opportunity, an opportunity that holds so much importance and beauty.

To keep it brief, it was beyond special getting to sit on a sunny beach of the Eld Inlet, on the Evergreen campus, surrounded by friends and peers, eating the very same delicacy that has been enjoyed by endless generations before me. I must shout out to Emily Wilder (Evergreen Alum) and her guidance and leadership through the shellfish garden revamp, this wouldn’t have been possible without her generosity and knowledge.

• 

• 

~Tuesday~

Tuesday, too, was a very big and productive day.

To start: of all the crops that we will be growing this season, onions are the crop that I am looking forward to the most. I have always struggled with getting a nice, girthy, uniform & round crop of onions, for in the past I have either started the seeds too late in the season, had poor germination in a green house, or lost them at a young age when directly seeded in the field. I feel like I have nailed it this season and I am excited to see how they fare.

This is all to say that we prepared a bed and transplanted the onions into the field on Tuesday, and they are looking strong, virile, and ready for a long/hot summer.

• 

• 

~Wednesday~

I spent an entire day in the garden on Wednesday, working on managing some of the overgrown plots that haven’t been claimed by any other community members to this point. In a effort to continue managing the noxious weeds that have been thriving in the Evergreen Community Garden, I began clearing out beds with the end goal of solarization.

If you look back to week 1, I mention how I tilled a section of our bed and covered it with a black tarp to warm the soil and suppress the weeds – doing this is the process of occultation. Solarization follows in many of the same thoughts behind occultation but rather than using a thick and opaque tarp, a thick clear tarp is used. The goal of solarization is to burn out and suffocate the existing plants and seeds that reside in a planting bed. To do this, it is important that the solarization tarp remains as close to the soil surface as possible, and that the edges are buried or covered so that there is little air escaping/entering the tarped area. When the weather is hot (like it has been), the temperatures under the tarp can skyrocket, and with little-to-no air getting to the plants, they quickly die back and begin to decompose. Temperatures can also get so extreme when solarizing that it can kill seeds that reside close to the soil’s surface.

• 

• 

• 

• 

~Thursday~

Thursday was an exciting and momentous day. It began with an ‘all hands on deck’ weeding session in the Evergreen Herb Garden that Alegra and Le’Allen have been working hard to take back from the clutches of Buttercup.

After putting in some good work, nearly clearing an entire section of the herb garden, we walked over to the community garden to partake in our very first harvest of our 2021 growing season! The salad mix and spinach that we seeded nearly 2 months ago had reached a harvestable size, and so we did just that!

• 

• 

~Friday~

Riding the good feelings of the week up to this point, I arrived at the community garden quite early on Friday morning, looking forward to getting some work done before the heat of the day set in.

The early mornings inside the community garden are always so peaceful and beautiful. I seldom see another human but rather have a chance to commune with the adolescent robins and young song sparrows. I relish in these early morning visits as it is my chance to check in on our plants and make plans for forward movement without much distraction.

As the day progresses, I often run into other community gardeners and we talk about the state of things, as well as ways that we can support each other and make the garden a healthier place. Often I hear what things people would to see change in the garden, but we also sometimes revel in the beauty of the space and in the excitement we share for the coming season.

Once I have finished meditating over the space, I get to work on the odds and ends that go unchecked during the week such as spot weeding, mounding up the potatoes, thinning out the carrots, picking the peas up off of the ground, etc.

This week, following the salad/spinach harvest, I filled in those rows with some more green onion seeds and some bok choy transplants that were perfectly ready to go into the ground. To finish out the day (and the week), I began digging out another bed; I saved the worst section of our field for last and so I spent most of the time digging up comfrey roots that were bigger around than my own forearm. With the space that we have left I can imagine that there is enough room for three more beds, one bed for tomatoes, one for cucumbers and one for peppers. The tomatoes and cucumbers are ready to transplant, and peppers are close behind!

1:3 Shishito Pepper Variety Trial

Slow progress for the pepper trial, waiting for the peppers to reach a transplantable size.

• 

• 

• 

I have made plans to finish the prepping of the planting beds but there is still some time before the peppers will be planted. I will be finishing the experimental design for this trial by the end of the Spring quarter, and I plan to write this much in the style of a materials and methods section of a peer reviewed article so that I can have a jump start on the reporting of the trial. As this becomes more and more complete, I will be posting my deliverables on this blog.

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

Whether it is the act of learning agricultural practices or the act of teaching agricultural practices, the process is one that cannot be rushed. Plants and plant cycles occur on a schedule so opposite of that of humans and this can cause of a lot of concern or worry for prospective growers. The art of plant growth takes time and the changes that occur can seem to move at a snail’s pace; for this reason, it is important for me to remind myself that I am not the master of the plants that I tend, but rather just their steward. The plants themselves are their own master, and masters they are when it comes to soaking up sunlight and water to be used as energy to grow.

With all of this in mind, I was aware that I would be a prolonged journey of fulfillment for my peers and I in this garden, as it takes time for our seeds and plants to reach an edible size. That is why this week was so exciting for me – not only did we get to harvest and eat oysters that we have be tending to, but we also got to harvest and take home the very first batch of vegetables from the garden we have be tending to. For me, the first harvestable crop of the season is such a momentous benchmark and I never want to take it for granted. The work that we have all put into growing these vegetables should be recognized, and what better way to pay our respect than to eat a nice fresh salad made of the very crops we have harvested.

While I do have moments where I am wish that the payoff wasn’t so prolonged, I remind myself that these are designed to grow and reproduce, it is what they want to do and they will do it at their own pace. From this, I feel that there is a lot that we can when it comes to our own learning and teaching. When corners are cut and the pace is rushed, the end product is never as fulfilling; I may grow a plant quicker by drowning it in soluble N fertilizer, but the resulting plant-growth will be lanky, weak and lack a balanced nutritional make up, and I believe that it much the same for our education.

It is easy to say these things, safely sitting behind my laptop screen, and I recognize that life is never so cut and dry but for myself, I am trying to focus on the work that fulfils me. It helps me to attempt biting off more manageable chunks of projects and to prioritize what I know to bring good, clean value to my life.

Week 6 theme: No-till bed prep, nutrient cycling, transplanting, living-green mulch

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

Readings for the Week:

• Chapter 7 – (pp 69-74) – Building Soils for Better Crops

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

We have just entered the glorious month of May and perhaps the time of flash frosts and turbulent weather is nearly an after thought. Checking an online farmer’s almanac will show you that the last frost date, on average, is May 4th, and for growers, this means that we can begin to think about prepping the fields for the crops that don’t enjoy colder temperatures. Since we are planting outside, without any season extension/weather barriers, I have planned on waiting until the middle of May – at the earliest – to consider transplanting crops like tomatoes, eggplant, or peppers.

With Summer around the corner, and all of our prepared beds occupied with growing crops, it is time to prepare more planting space. The open space that is remaining in our garden plot was never tilled, but rather covered with a black plastic tarp, in hopes of knocking back existing foliage. Without having checked on the soil condition in a few weeks, I imagine that we will be following a very similar method for preparing our beds as we have been following since the beginning.

The grass, comfrey, and morning glory that exist underneath the tarp will have been bleached and will be long and scrawny, as it has had nearly no direct sunlight since February. As long as the soil isn’t holding too much moisture, I expect that we will just have to turn the topsoil, remove noxious roots/plants, add some compost, and use the broad-fork to reach to the deeper horizons.

Once we have built a few more beds, there are more transplants that are ready to be thrown in the ground!!

~Tuesday (5/4)~

Once we arrive on Tuesday, we will start by pulling off the tarp and looking at the state of the plants and soil. After we have determined that the soil isn’t too wet, we can begin digging and removing the weeds. Depending on the state of the already-planted beds, we may need to task someone with weeding them clean of that obnoxious kale!!

And lastly, after the great kale slaughter of May 1st, there is also a massive pile of kale trees that will need to be relocated from where it is sitting at this moment.

~Thursday (5/6)~

Thursday will be much of the same, but we will hopefully get to begin by transplanting some frisee and collards. It may be ambitious, but it would be incredible if we could finish building all of the beds by the end of this coming weekend! Here’s to some long hard days of shoveling!

1:2 Tending and Management (what we did)

I think that there was something in the wind, or in the rain this week, that brought on some hard times to everyone that I had talked with. There are just some weeks of the year that seem to be harder than the others, and this was one of those weeks..

That all being said, I was glad to have my peers around, and I am glad that we were able to all step out of our minds for a bit and play outside, in the dirt. After-all, the weather was very agreeable, if not a little turbulent (suits me just right), and the garden space is looking vibrant and alive. Through it all, we were able to get some good progress accomplished in our plot!

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: the frequent shifting from warm rains to cloudless sun is paradise (our weather over the last few weeks) for spring crops. The garden has been thriving, and the growth of the crops is palpable; peas have doubled in size, turnips are starting to enlarge, salad mix is nearly mature, and we haven’t even filled our entire space yet!

On Tuesday we added another bed and did some weeding, as well as spent a good time, quite necessarily catching up and checking in. With several students unable to make it to the meet-up time, we were left with a skeleton crew, and it felt good to move slow and take in the garden more mentally than physically.

Thursday was the truly productive day of the week – we had everyone at class, the morning was mild and beautiful, we had some great looking transplant ready to go into the ground, and I personally felt very ready to get a lot of work done.

By the end of Thursday, we had added 2 more beds, making 3 total for the week. The untilled ground is definitely more difficult to work with, but it just means that we all have to more a little more slowly, breaking up the surface clumps of roots. We also got all of the beds nicely weeded, making the planting rows look clean and tidy, with the carrots receiving a very necessary weeding.

Lastly: into the new beds we prepped, we transplanted collards and curly endive into one, and Kohlrabi, spinach, and arugula into the other. This leaves one more bed that I will transplant onions into either this weekend, or on the next Tuesday with my peers.

• 

• 

And finally, a little parting gift for this week in a photo that I took of some a wedge of soil that I pulled up with my spade; Dock (red root crown) and Buttercup (purple root crown). I find the contrast of colors in this shot to be stunning.

1:3 Shishito Pepper Trial

I have been patting myself on the back this week as I begin making plans to enter the trial field and prep the ground for the peppers. This self-congratulation comes from the fact that I have already done much of the time consuming work that usually preludes planting at the Evergreen Organic Farm. Back in January, following the conclusion of last year’s radicchio field trial, I cleaned up the plot of all existing weeds/crops/supplies/unwanteds, and covered the field with an occultation tarp. Being covered for this extended period of time (especially during some warmer months), once the tarp is removed from the field, I will have a clean, warm, and active soil that will require little work to prep.

As the peppers begin sending out the first of their true leaves, I anticipate the coming field prep , sometime in the next two weeks. My plan is to add some compost to the field and turn the top layer of soil with a power harrow. Since this harrowing will surely bring new weed-seeds to the light, I want to give ample time for these to germinate so that I can eradicate them before transplanting the peppers into the field. If all goes according to plan, I may even have time to sow a living green mulch (white clover??) at the time of transplanting.

With the Seedlinked app up and running, I have been able to start recording the info for the trial up to this point!!

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

This week was ever-so tough and troubling; I seemed to have buckled under the weight of some personal tribulations and thus needed to take some time to break down so that I could stand back up. Although the time spent working with my peers, and working for my credits was miraculously still productive, I had to persevere through some heaviness that I wasn’t expecting.

I know that I am not alone in this. From what I could observe, this week was a tough one for many of the people in my life. I think that isn’t uncommon for hard times to visit many people at similar time, especially in a small community of individuals that surround themselves with similar drives and energies. At the very least, we are able to stand in solidarity through these hard times, supporting each other at some, and giving space at others.

Through it all, I pushed myself to rise and show up at the level that I could allow for, while attempting to give myself some grace towards the pressure that I normally put on myself. What I mean by this is that I normally erect some sort of façade when I am talk to a group of people that are looking to me for explanations. This façade isn’t fully sustainable but I feel like it is my way of keeping myself on my toes when I am put into vulnerable situations such as this. This week, however, I didn’t have the energy to put up these protective barriers, and I didn’t have the confidence that I normally conjure in these moments of public speaking. And yet, without these barriers and confidence, we were still able to accomplish a good amount of work.

As I write this, I am realizing that there must be a middle ground between this idea of carrying on with a façade week by week, and not having the willpower to fill my rolls and responsibilities. I want to get to a more natural rhythm where I am not having to get myself into some unsustainable headspace to get up and talk to a group of people – but as I learn, practice, and get me sea-legs (if you will), I know that there will be times where I don’t entirely feel like my natural self and I am calmed by this thought.

Practice makes habit,

butter and Jam on hot rolls.

Work like a rabbit.

**Reminder that it is week 5 and time for mid-quarter check ins!**

Week 5 theme: Herb Garden, Trellis Construction, & IPM

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

Readings for the Week:

• Pests Chapter (pp 161-180) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Chapter 8 (pp 77-84) – Building Soils for Better Crops

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

Just as it was forecasted, this past weekend was overcast and rainy, and it is looking as though this coming week will be much of the same. For the garden, this means that we won’t be having to irrigate as frequently but it also means that the weeds are going to continue flourishing. Having checked on the gardens a few times over the weekend, I can confirm that both our crops and the weeds are looking quite healthy!

As we move into week 5, we will begin looking forward to what we will need to provide to our crops to support their growth: trellises, trenches, pruning, frequent weeding, etc. For instance, I have always found that sugar-snap peas produce larger, healthier plants if they are lifted off of the ground and trellised, and so we must have a plan for a trellis design. Can it be done with materials that we can scavenge for, or do we need to go out and buy a few materials? Another example of crop support that we can/should start considering is that of the frequent weeding of carrots. We have 3 rows of carrots that have just begun germinating, and even though I weeded them clean at the end of last week, they are already beginning to get crowded out again. Carrot seedlings are often quite small, slow, and fragile, more so than many other directly-seeded crops, and so I try to support their growth in anyway that I can.

In addition to some forward thinking for the future health of our crops, I wanted to start breaking the surface of the never-ending world of Integrated Pest Management. Pests and Diseases are a natural part of farming/gardening and there are a plethora of ways that growers address these issues. No matter whether we are growing in conventional mono-culture systems, using synthetic fertilizers/pesticides, or whether we are growing in a bio-intensive system using only naturally made amendments and remedies – pests and diseases will affect us all in different ways, and at different times. While it may be daunting, I believe that the best place to start is to research and understand the specific pests and diseases that are common to your growing region, and to know their life-cycles, seasonal timing, and habitat preferences. Whether we ever observe the pests or not, we can rest a little easier knowing that we have an entry-level understanding of the pests/diseases (and their signs and symptoms) that we may see.

~Tuesday (4/27)~

The plan for Tuesday is to spend the first portion of our time weeding out the beds that we have prepped, keeping them free and clean of competing weeds. Once we have weeded the beds we can start designing, conceptualizing, or even building a couple trellises; both the runner beans and the snap-peas will need to be trellised and it is easiest to set the trellis up when the plants are small and manageable. Runner beans and peas both have different growth habits but still share some similarities.

Snap peas send out little leafless-tendrils that are designed to twist and rotate, reaching out until they come in contact with something that they can use as a support, then those tendrils twist around that structure, holding the plant in place. Knowing this, we ought to try and give the growing peas something to grab on to and it is nice to do this at every 6 inches of growth (or close to it).

Scarlet Runner Beans, too, need to be trellised but their ‘tendrils’ are slightly different than those that the pea plants use for support. Where a pea’s tendrils are short and many, a runner bean’s tendril can be quite long, wrapping around a support and then continuing to grow, in search for more supporting structures. This means that a well cared-for runner bean plant will continue vining out, filling up as much space that the roots can support. I have seen a single runner bean vine reach up to a Doug-fir bough about 10 feet off the ground, and then it continued growing another 10-15 feet into the tree!

~Thursday (4/29)~

In an effort to try and support our other classmates, we will spend Thursday in the Medicinal Herb Garden, helping Alegra attempt to rid the garden of Buttercup (ranunculus). Knowing that a good amount of Buttercup has begun to grow into the other perennials that we are hoping to keep alive, we will be most likely have to dig out the wanted plants, remove the weeds/roots, and then replant the perennials!

1:2 Tending and Managing (what we did)

With every passing day, our garden plot gets increasingly beautiful and our crops look more and more healthy! This week was a great week for the plants, and we are able to start seeing some truly observable growth! This point in the season is always very important for me as it is my time to remind myself that, although plants and soil-microbes move slowly (relative to our fast-paced human lives), these systems specialize in the constant cycle of growth and decay. It is humbling to know that, while I can try and manipulate the setting of growth, I am only along for the ride.

In our plot, we spent the entirety of Tuesday weeding our beds and building trellises for the peas and the beans. Both the peas and the beans have really started to shoot for the sky and are looking quite healthy. I also added crushed oyster shells to the beds as an attempt to ward off slugs; my thought is that the slugs will stay away from the dry, salty and sharp oyster shells.

Thursday was spent with Alegra in the Medicinal Herb Garden.

On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to meet with some students from the Masters of Environmental Science of Evergreen and spend the day in the community garden, having a work-party. With their help, I was able to remove all of the dastardly kale plants that had all gone to seed, weeded our planting beds and saved some perennial herbs that were being smothered by other weedy plants. It felt so very good to cut down all of the kale trees that had become a real issue in the entire garden; in the end, I ended up with a couple of massive piles of kale plants!

With the kale plants gone we can count on there being far less kale weed-seeds in the coming growing seasons and perhaps there will also be some relief in brassica-family pest pressure. Although there are still many other brassica crops in the gardens that offer a disproportionate amount of habitat for brassica loving pests, having this massive amount of kale out of the fields will undoubtedly have some effect on the insect populations in that area.

It was nice having their help (and Alis!!) and to have a chance to coordinate a work party that went towards bettering the entire community garden as a whole. I always enjoy having the chance to share the story (as I know it) of the entire Evergreen farm space and I think that these MES students enjoyed the opportunity to engage with the campus and to do some low-stakes manual labor.

LASTLY! As I was cutting through some of the kale plants, I noticed that one plant had been acquired as a nice piece of real-estate! I left this one as it was…

1:3 Shishito Pepper Trial

Not much to report on for this week.

I am still shackled by the progression of growth that, for spring pepper starts, is a slooooow process. However, I have set up my Seed-linked site that I will use to catalogue the pepper trial data and I have gathered good numbers on the germinations rates for each shishito variety.

Germination Rates:

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

The recording of these mentorship-reflections has been very valuable to me but it also showing me that I struggle with talking about the pride I have in my work and complying with the overpowering urge to remain humble. For instance, I struggle with merely mentioning to people that I am mentoring some of my peers through this project as I feel like mentorship sets me apart from them. Objectively I know that we all have different things we specialize in, and I just happen to have the opportunity to pass on my specialized (but limited) knowledge of producing vegetable in the PNW. Yet, I still worry that I may come off as pretentious as I talk about this work.

I do have a lot of pride in my work – I LOVE seeing the progression of seeds into plants, plants into crops, and crops into meals; I could talk about it for hours. It is wild to me that plants have the power to go from a seed, rarely any larger than a marble (often much smaller), and eventually turn into massive, beautiful and complex organism! It helps me to remind myself that I am not the lord of the plants but rather I am a mere steward, trying to serve them in their infallible journey of growth.

I have been focusing on this idea of myself as a mentor, role-model, boss, etc. as I know that I will soon be running my own farm and I will need to have help from others. What traits make a good boss? Clear communication? Calm Delegation? Gentle Enforcement? How will I know when it is the right time to use any of these concepts?

I want to be capable of clearly stating what it is that I need done and still allow for the individuals to tackle those tasks however it makes sense to them. And yet, I still want to have the confidence to speak up when something isn’t going the way I think it ought to…(doesn’t that sound pretentious??).

I find some relief knowing that these questions can continue to tumble through my head before they must be wholly confronted. Until then, I will continue to humbly grow food that I hope others will enjoy, all the while learning much through the entire journey.

Week 4 theme: Potatoes, Weeding, Irrigating, Transplanting, Fermented Plant Juice (using) & Sunscreen

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

Readings for the week:

• Transplants chapter (pp 141-160) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Chapter 16, Reducing Tillage (173-186) – Building Soils for Better Crops
• “Growing Potatoes: How to Grow Potatoes” – https://www.gardendesign.com/vegetables/potatoes.html
• pp 51-64 – Letters to Young Farmers

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

The weeks are going to continue being jam-packed, for every bed that we prep, and seed we put in the ground, our responsibilities grow.

The weather is getting hotter and the days continue getting longer. With the new seedlings being so small, irrigating has been a twice daily chore that can’t be missed. Weeding, too, has now become a priority, so as not to allow the seedlings to be smothered out; I believe that weeding done early (young) is much easier than weeding done later (old).

Having started some seedling trays ahead of the quarter, we are going to have some plants that are ready to be put into the ground, and the fermented plant juice ought to be ready to use. We have one bed prepped and ready for plants or seeds, but we will also need to prep a few more this week to hold some potatoes, as I saved a bunch of fingerling potatoes from last season to be used for seed! I love potatoes and potato plants.

Lastly, with the sun higher in the sky, sun damage is a real threat. Be sure to plan some way to protect yourself from the sun – I use a full zinc sunscreen a couple times a day, depending on how long I’m out there. Love thine skin!

~Tuesday (4/20)~ National Lima-Bean respect day, among other things.

Tuesday will be best spent if we can divide and conquer a few different tasks. We will need to prep at least one more bed and we ought to start tackling the un-tilled half of the planting space. While someone works on this, we will need to have someone else begin weeding the beds that already have seeds; with all the watering that we have been doing in the beds, the weeds have, too, begun to thrive! If we are able to prep a few beds and rid ourselves of weeds (ha!) we will be perfectly set up to make our potato beds and transplant some cabbages on Thursday!

With everything still so small, we will want to be sure to know what plants are our crops and what plants are the weeds, especially since many of the weed seedlings may look identical to some of our crops. We will definitely cover this before we get into it.

~Thursday (4/22)~

If everything goes according to plan for Tuesday, we will be ready and able to seed our potatoes and transplant some cabbages.

For the transplants, it is ideal to put them in the ground on a cloudy/cooler day, or at least not at the hottest point of the day. As soon as they are in their new home, they will be watered and then it is out of our hands. It is common for transplants to look a little weepy for a day, but they soon settle in and get the hang of things. If it is possible, we can try to put the transplants in as soon as we get into the garden on Thursday morning, then we can watch them through out the day and keep them nice and moist.

For our potato bed(s), I like to prep them similarly to what we have been doing up to this point. Once the bed has been formed and amended, I put my potato seeds directly on the soil surface and then bury them with soil dug from the pathways. I believe that this allows for easy rooting up and down, I think that it usually leads to more potatoes, and the trenches help with drainage!

More taters, the merrier!

1:2 Tending and managing (what we did)

I am happy to report that it was yet another productive and fulfilling week in the Community Garden. Not only were we able to go above and beyond the work that was planned for the week, but I also got to speak with a few of the other community garden members that tend to their own plots. In these conversations I received a lot of validation for the work that we are doing, numerous offers of support, and encouragement to continue utilizing the under-used community garden plots. Even further, I have been able to connect with individuals that have been trying to reach out to the community garden coordinator with aspirations of filling an unused plot, and to find them an empty space to tend to and grow within!

At the end of this week 4 of the Spring quarter, my peers and I have filled just about half of the ‘mega plot’ that we have signed up to manage and care for throughout this growing season. Spinach, peas, turnips, runner-beans, green onions, salad mix, radishes, carrots, cabbages, head-lettuce, and potatoes are all in the ground and they all look so incredibly happy and healthy! I am so pleased with the work and the progress that we have made in such a short amount of time and I know that this is only the beginning of a long and fruitful growing season. With the space that we have claimed, we will be producing a bountiful quantity of produce that I look forward to sharing with all that I can.

~On Tuesday, we were very successful in our goal of creating enough beds to hold the incoming transplants and seeds. With Steve’s help, we prepped 2 more beds, weeded the entirety of our established plots, and talk through the importance/necessity of prepping for the incoming weather – no matter what it may be. To be clear, with young plants and newly germinated seeds whose roots are only just beginning to travel deeper into the horizon, different weather events can have dramatic (and possibly devastating) effects. While our soil can hold water for a good long time, the manipulated soil-surface, that has recently been disturbed and then planted/seeded into, is prone to drying out more quickly. If seeds begin germinating during hot, sunny, and/or windy days, they are at a high risk of drying out, and so frequent irrigation is needed until the roots have spread deep enough to remain moist even during the hottest of days.

It is not uncommon for all community gardens to be home to many different weed issues; with many people coming and going, the weeds common to an area are often left to go to seed, thus perpetuating the weed-cycle. In our own Evergreen Community Garden, we are confronted by a few different pernicious weeds: morning glory, comfrey, ranunculus (buttercup), and … kale. The morning glory, comfrey, and ranunculus most commonly propagate through spreading rhizomes and root division, where as the kale spread by seed. I am a bit flabbergasted by the sheer amount of kale seedlings that have begun sprouting in our bed, but once you look around the gardens and see all the flowering kale plants, it makes some sense – luckily they are easily identified and are easy to weed out of the beds.

~On Thursday, we all got to transplant the first seedling trays of the season! On this day perfectly suited for transplanting (overcast, humid, and cool), we got to plant some very healthy looking pointy green cabbages, butter-head lettuces, and sugar-snap peas. Due to the different rates of maturity, we decided to interplant the head lettuces in with the cabbages assuming that the lettuces would be ready to harvest before the cabbages begin to crowd out the entirety of the bed, leaving us with two entire beds filled with cabbages and lettuce! (thanks for the idea Steve!)

1:3 Shishito Pepper Trial

I am so very excited to report that the shishito peppers have begun to sprout! Each of the varieties have germinated remarkably and I am confident that we will have more than enough plants to fill the trial’s needs. Of the 168 seeds that were started, 157 have successfully germinated! I have always struggled with getting peppers to germinate because of the amount of heat that it takes to kick them into drive, but I am proud of myself for ensuring that these were taken good care of through their inception…keep up the good work (**said with bags under the eyes**).

Aside from caring for the pepper plants, I have been working through the experiment-design, trying to make it fit the project’s needs, and into the total plan for the shared space that will hold the trial. I have also been communicating with the Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network, working to set up the shishito trial’s seed-linked page so that I can keep everyone up-to-date on the specifics of the trial (such as germination rates!!).

Now that I have laid eyes on the little green plants, my excitement has been renewed and I cast my mind to a time filled with little wrinkled, green, delicious peppers.

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

I do enjoy finishing off my week by reflecting on the progress that we have all made, and on the work that I put into the planning and preparation. At risk of losing some humbleness, I am proud of my ability thus far, to have plants, tools, maps, etc. ready for each week’s meetings. I have noticed that there is a natural progression to flow of work that must be done through a growing season; with this being the case, it makes my job a little easier as I don’t have to put too much effort into planning what to focus on in the coming weeks. What better way to learn about the flow of farming/gardening than to do it in real time! It is how I learned much of what I know, and I think that it works well for everyone else involved as well.

At this point, though, we have just about covered the building blocks of getting a garden plot up and off of the ground and now we must wait for the plants to soak up some sun, soak up some water and begin making their sugars so that they can grow. I imagine that the next few weeks will be focused on prepping the un-tilled section of the field and keeping the established beds clean and weeded.

I feel like we have all fallen into a nice rhythm and are starting to flow with a bit more ease. Everyone that is helping manage this plot already has some good foundational gardening knowledge and is willing to put in the time and do the work – so I am happily filling in the gaps and trying to point more at the ideas and theories behind why we are doing the things we are doing.

An area that I want to begin focusing on is asking for some support in the everyday mundanities of caring for plants, such as watering, spot weeding, and general observation. As is stands, I have been traveling to the garden, often twice a day (an hour round-trip drive), to water and check on the plants. I think that I am going to try and do a weekly watering sign up to try and relieve some pressure on my schedule. That being said, I like checking on the plots regularly as it gives me some peace of mind and can be very calming.

Well, I guess that is it for this week – I am looking forward to some cooler weather and for a chance to start tackling the un-tilled half of our plot. Send some love to our little vegetables!

Week 3 theme: Seedling Care, Irrigation, Fermented Plant Juice (making).

(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)

NOAA – click for weather

AGweatherNet – click for weather

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

I now consider the beginning of any farming/gardening season to be a mad rush in which we growers are all trying to gather some momentum to carry us well into the summer; preparing beds, seeding as many beds as we can, setting up irrigation, applying sunscreen, etc. This mad rush can be exciting AND stressful as it feels like there are so many exciting things that must be tended to, loved, protected, and not forgotten. As the season progresses, and those seeds establish themselves, then there is a bit of time for a few deep breaths.

With all this in the back of my mind, I imagine that a majority of this week 3 time will be used to prep more planting beds, get seeds in the ground, and be sure that we care for the seeds that we have already put into the ground; we will want to be sure to also have some beds prepped for the transplants that are getting closer and closer to being ready to transplant (as you can see in the image above!). While this can seem like a daunting amount of things to get done in a short span of time, once that momentum has been gathered, life gets a bit easier…until the next round of plantings.

It seems fitting to me that the theme for this week 3 to be centered around irrigation and seedling care (which go hand in hand), as we now have a responsibility to the plants that we have started. I have also added Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) to the week’s theme as it is perfect time to start making a plan for further nutrient management that may be needed. FPJ is a natural concoction taken from Cho’s Global Natural Farming by Han-Kyu Cho, that can be used as a nutrient source and pest ‘trap’ that is made from specific plant materials that are native and/or suited to the climate that we grow in; the ingredients are common, and should already exist on your property. For more information, you can download the full text of Cho’s GNF right here: https://ilcasia.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/chos-global-natural-farming-sarra.pdf .

Some useful readings for this week include:

• Fermented Plant Juice – pg 24-26 – Cho’s Global Natural Farming (link above)
• Chapter 5 – Water – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
• Chapter 17 – Managing Water – Building Better Soils for Better Crops
• JADAM Liquid Fertilizer – pp 185-188 – JADAM Organic Farming

~Tuesday (4/13)~

Throughout our time Tuesday, I am hoping that we can all split up and tackle a few different tasks: we’ll continue building beds, seed a few more seedling trays, direct-sow more seeds, begin tackling the un-tilled section of our plot, AND care for the plants and seeds that we have already started. If we make some progress on all of these fronts by Tuesday afternoon, we will have made some serious leaps and bounds forward!

Seeds to be sown this week (if you want to read up on them ahead of time):

• Brassica-heavy salad mix (direct seed)
• Bunching/Green Onions (direct seed)
• Radish (direct seed)
• Carrots (direct seed)
• Beets (direct seed)
• Kale (transplant)
• Cabbage (transplant)

~Wednesday (4/14)~

While this isn’t a normal meeting time, I am encouraging anyone that is interested to join me in finalizing a crop-plan and approach to the season! I will make myself available for a Zoom meeting on Wednesday at around 12 or 12:30 for as long as we feel necessary. If you have questions about this, please let me email me!

~Thursday (4/15)~

Thursday will look very similar to Tuesday, most likely continuing to work any jobs that we started and weren’t able to finish, but I would like to start out our time on Thursday morning to talk about the making of the Fermented Plant Juice, why I enjoy using it, where the concept comes from, and then actually starting our own bucket of the stuff. Once the FPJ has been mixed and covered, we can then split up to do whatever jobs we would like to continue to work on within our plot!

I am hoping that by Thursday we will be able to see some of our peas poking up through the soil and have that monumental moment of welcoming the first emerging seeds of the season! As we move into this week, start thinking about what you know about irrigation, supporting happy-plant conditions, changing weather expectations and how we may be able tie these all together. (The readings will help immensely)

1:2 Tending and Managing (what we do)

Woofta, what a week, its hard to know where to even begin; I am softly sat down and writing this out, covered in aloe-vera, tending to the first sunburn of the season. It must be time to get some sunscreen.

With the invaluable help of my peers, we were able to get so much done this week: we dug and weeded 3 new beds, started a bunch of new seeds, made sure to keep the newly sprouted seeds watered and happy, began addressing the un-tilled half of our field, and started a batch of Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) to use as an amendment.

It was very exciting to show up to the plot on Thursday morning and see that the first of our directly-seeded plants had sprouted over night. The white turnips and lacy phacelia have emerged!

We also started many different types of seeds: we direct-seeded 3 rows of carrots ( yellow, orange, and purple), salad mix, radishes, green onions and flax, as well as set up transplant trays of kohlrabi, cabbage, cucumbers, summer squash, and eggplant. We have just about used 1/4 of the entire bed and will have plenty of space to put in the different transplanted crops that are very nearly ready to be relocated.

Last season, in my own personal fields, I began experimenting with using Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) based off of a recipe from Cho’s Global Natural Farming. FPJ is made from fermented plant matter that has been gathered from areas very near to where the crops will be growing. The idea is that by fermenting plant matter, thus leeching out the sugars, lactic acids, and nutrients into solution, we can reintroduce that which was removed from the soil. By using plants known for their early and vigorous growth, gathered from around your own field margins, we are creating a solution made by our local micro-biota, specially suited to our soils. The FPJ must be diluted with un-chlorinated water and then can be sprayed on the soil around the base of the plant, or directly on the leaves if a sticking agent (such as yucca extract) is added to the solution.

We started our own batch of FPJ made from bamboo shoots, comfrey, nettle, grass and angelica, with brown sugar added as a catalyst and to pull the water out of the plants through osmosis. Here is Ashley packing the punch bowl.

It feels quite nice to be truly tired and a bit sun-fatigued. I really do enjoy being covered in dirt and utterly exhausted, knowing that the work that I just partook in is going to lead to gorgeous food. I am looking forward to next week when there will undoubtedly be more seeds popping from the soil, and more plants to care for.

1:3 Shishito Pepper Trial

It was a slow week for the pepper trial but not completely un-remarkable. The seeds in their trays have not yet sprouted but I do expect that it will all begin any day now, and I did find out some interesting information about the position of the sun, and whether there will be any effect of the tree-line on the trial’s availability of direct sunlight.

While the picture above is a little hard to follow on it’s own, it does attempt to give a visual aid to how the trial will be set up in reference to the tree-line. At 50ft south of the beginning of the planting bed, the angle from the soil to the tree-line is 48 degrees, at 60ft the angle is 49 degrees, and at 70ft the angle is 51 degrees. This means that when the altitude-angle of the sun (when the sun is at it’s highest point) drops below the angle of the soil/tree-line, everything south of that point will be in the shade. Using SunCalc, an online app, I was able to find out what the sun’s altitude angle will be on April 1st, July 1st, and Sept 1st (angles taken from when the sun is at its highest.

Sun altitude-angle at different times throughout the season:

• April 1st, 2021: 48 degrees
• July 1st, 2021: 66 degrees
• September 1st, 2021: 51 degrees

Since the pepper trial will hopefully be all but wrapped up by September 1st, I don’t expect that the tree-line will have a dramatic effect through the life of this trial.

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

Aside from breaking the jar that was going to hold the FPJ, this week felt like it had some good and natural rhythm. It helps having a steady stream of tasks that need to get done, and with sunny-weather like we had this week it is hard not to feel rejuvenated. I think that rejuvenated is the perfect word to describe how I have been feeling lately; my energy is renewed and the hearth is full.

It may be an assumption, but I feel as though everyone that is involved in this garden is there because they enjoy learning by doing, and so we progress. I have realized (or am realizing) that my role in this project makes the most sense to me if I continue ‘teaching’ by doing, through prepping, seeding, weeding, etc. If the timing feels right, or if someone has a specific question, then I can go into an explanation. In turn, I end up learning so much about how to talk through these concepts, and am forced to ask myself: ‘why do I do this, this way?’ It might not always make sense, but there is usually some reason behind the way we do things and it changes from one person to the next.

We have so many little seed babies that we are taking care of, about to have some transplants to put in the ground, and we have some great weather to look forward to. As I think about all these things, I am drawn back to my last growing season where I was learning by doing, having jumped into the deep end with starting a small CSA farm. There were many times that I would think to myself: “I wish that I could just hit reset button and do that over again, but different.” Then I would remember that there is always next season, and already I feel like I have been able to address some of the mistakes that I made in prior growing seasons. For instance, my greenhouse set up last season was miserable, the plants never got enough sunlight, there wasn’t enough space for everything that I had, and it was a 30 minute drive from where I lived. This season I was able to plan ahead and build a greenhouse on my property, all out of reclaimed supplies, and the plants are thriving and happy!

My point to all this is that, by jumping in feet-first and doing the work, learning may be inevitable and I am overjoyed that we all have this space to learn together in.

Week 2 theme: Bed Preparation, direct seeding, seedling flats.

1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)

This will be the first week that we will be meeting in the community garden plot and I am so excited to see all of your faces! At 9:30 on both Tuesday and Thursday, we will gather outside of the SAL building next to the farm and farm office where we will debrief and check for our COVID badges, please fill out the COVID health verification before arriving to campus.

For some pertinent readings this week, read the following:

• Chapter 5 (pp 49-56) of Better Soils for Better Crops (which can be freely downloaded here).
• Seeds Chapter (pp 119-140) of Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades

There are a few supplies that we could all bring each week to be prepared for the day:

• Field Notebook and pencil (preferably water proof)
• Gardening Gloves
• Trowel or Hori-Hori (if possible)
• Weather appropriate clothing and shoes (please no sandles/flip-flops.)

It might be helpful to check the weather the night before we arrive at the garden space to be up-to-date on the projected weather – I like to use NOAA for weather updates: click for weather. Another great weather resource is the AgWeatherNet of WSU, you can find that here.

~Tuesday (4/6)~

Since this Tuesday will be the first day that we spend at the garden, I expect that the majority of our time will be spent with introductions and guidelines, as well as taking a tour of the space and asking/answering questions. This will be our opportunity to talk about our individual learning goals for the Spring, and perhaps we can come up with a tentative plan to try and meet those goals! I will also give you all some structure of my own vision for the community garden as I will be continuing to manage the plot once the Spring quarter has ended – that being said, anyone that has the desire to stay involved in the garden throughout the Summer and Fall, is very welcome to do so! If there is any time left to put some work into the space, we will start the season off with some seeding and bed prep!

I will make myself available for any questions that you have, I am here to support our individual projects so please reach out if you think that I can help. See you there!!

~Thursday (4/8)~

With introductions and guidelines out of the way, Thursday will be the first day that we can actually start making some serious progress in our plot!

If you look in my week 1 post, you can see that I have tilled half of the planting bed, and I left the other half undisturbed. Having half of this space mostly cleared of weeds, we can quickly prep the beds and start putting seeds into the ground. There are many many ways that farmers/gardens prep their planting beds, and I encourage you to read and learn of as many as you can; I will try and cover the basics that usually lead to success, and point out what I enjoy about my own method.

There are two common ways to approach starting the seeds that will eventually mature into our crops: transplanting and direct seeding. Transplanting is done when a crop must start off within a greenhouse and wait until they are strong enough to transplanted into the field. Direct seeding is usually reserved for crops that are capable of handling the extremes of our region’s days and nights, and also for crops that require large amounts of seeds to be sown. For instance, by starting our tomato seeds in a greenhouse, they can be started before the conditions outside would allow for tomato growth, and they can be pampered so that each plant has it’s best chance of surviving. This is not to say that tomatoes can be started by direct seeding, but transplanting allows for much more control of the plant’s health, while giving us a jump on the season.

Another way to look at it is that, one tomato plant holds far more value to a grower than one radish plant because of the drastic difference in harvest yields between them – a single tomato plant can produce many pounds of fruit, but one radish will always be one radish. On the flip-side of this, it would take an enormous amount of greenhouse space to hold enough radish seedlings to have a good yield of radishes. I use this example to show that there are many possible ways to go about growing crops (some better than others) but it is up to you to do the research and then do what works for you.

It is my hope that by the end of our time on Thursday we have united on a crop-plan movement, prepped a few beds, directly seeded into those beds, and started some seedling trays.

1:2 Tending and Managing (what we do?)

What an incredible week.

For the first time in over a year I was able to gather with a class, face to face, rather than over a Zoom video call. The weather was great, and it was nice to stand in the sun, on the campus, with my peers to talk about the coming quarter and what work we were looking forward to doing. We spent Tuesday introducing our individual projects and taking in the lay of the land; we got to see the layout of the Community Garden space, as well as what we are going to working with in the Medicinal Herb Garden.

As we stood next to our communal plot, I took some time to talk with my peers about how we might structure the crop plan with the land that we have access to. I went over why the beds are laid out the way they are, talking about how by orienting the rows north to south allows for sun light to hit both sides of a row, given our location on the planet. We also talked about the crops that we are excited to grow, and how we are going to start making that happen. It seems that we will meet once a week over Zoom to work through the crop plan and talk through any questions or desires that come up, this will also offer an hour or two that can be logged for credits.

With now having visualized the space, we were prepared to show up on Thursday, ready to do some work and get some seeds in the ground!

Although I ran out of gas, I was just able to make it to class on Thursday, loaded down with tools and seeding supplies. It was my personal goal to pull the plastic tarp off of a portion of the tilled bed and get to work on preparing a bed. With massive help from Ashley, Ali, and Sarah D, we were able to mark, amend (with Steve’s class-made compost), and form a bed that could be directly seeded into. One of the particular issues that we will be facing in our planting space is the pervasive Comfrey and Ranunculus (or Buttercup) that has taken over our bed from years of disuse. By broad-forking and double digging the beds we were about to get deep into the soils and loosen up some compaction, all while removing as many Ranunculus and Comfrey roots as we could find. Once we had made an entire pass over the 15′ bed, we had a beautiful, light and friable space that would be able to put seeds into…

…and put seeds into it we did! The first crop that we sowed in our communal garden space were peas that had been inoculated with nitrogen-fixing rhizobium.

Once the peas had been tucked in, we all switch gears to seeding some seedling trays that we will eventually transplant into the field. To start, we mixed our own seedling mix using aged compost, coir, peat, perlite, and some gypsum. Once the mix had been mixed, we filled our trays and seeded 3 varieties of tomatoes (Afghan, Sungold, and Damsel), larkspur flowers, mixed straw-flowers, and some curly endive. I am so excited for these crops!

To close out the week, I came back on Friday morning to prep one more bed that would hold the inoculated Scarlet Runner Beans, and I also added a row of spinach and turnips on opposing sides of the peas so that the peas would be flanked by two lower growing crops. Since I soaked the peas until they germinated (among other reasons), the peas should have a good head start and have no issue getting up and above the spinach and turnips.

1:3 Shishito Pepper Field Trial

With the seeds put in their pots, I am going to have some time before they germinate, especially with the nights reaching below freezing on a regular basis still. Yet, there was plenty of planning to do.

The space that the peppers are to be trialed in is a shared space with other field trials run by other individuals and a majority of my work for this project this week went into corresponding with everyone involved to try and agree on a field layout that worked for everyone’s needs. I think that we were able to agree on a layout and so I began planning the pepper trial’s own layout. Since the pepper trial bed is quite close to some very tall trees, I wanted to see whether the the shade would become an issue later on in the season, when the sun begins to lower in the sky. To determine this, I rented out a clinometer from the school so that I can look at the angle of the tree line in reference to the angle of the sun’s light and the planting bed to see when the trees will begin shading out the southern most part of the trials. The angles of the sun for our particular region, at all parts of the year can, be looked up online, and I will use this info to know at what date the sun will dip below the tree line at a given spot in my field. I will tackle this during week 3.

Aside from those things, there was only the tending/watering of the seeds and some minor greenhouse repairs. I am looking forward to seeing the peppers begin to sprout and will be sure to get it up on this blog as soon as it happens!

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

This was the first week of meeting in person and I knew there were going to be some kinks to work out in the system. I went into both Tuesday and Thursday hoping to try and do less talking and to do more listening. It is hard for me to know exactly how deep to go into certain topics that I am covering. I want to try and pass on the reasons behind why we are doing some of the things that we are doing but I don’t want to overload or take up too much time with information that my peers don’t necessarily want/need to know. On top of that, the time that I take to explain some of these things ends up taking time away from the work that needs to be done.

I have decided to try and do some very brief overviews of the main reasons why we do certain tasks in certain ways, and leave it up to the others to ask more specific questions when they find something interesting. When we do some workshops on topics such as composting or making liquid fertilizer, these can be times to go into detail on the intricacies of how these systems work. Hopefully this will allow for a nice balance between some good old fashioned hard work, and some interesting learning.

Already, after just two days of working together, I know that we are all going to have a blast and grow some great food. Once the routine falls into place, we will be unstoppable, and we will all be able to count on one another for help and support.

Week 1 Theme: COVID-safety, Supplies, Tools, and Field Prep

**For the remainder of the quarter, I am going to break up my weekly posts for the work we do in the Demonstration Garden into 2 parts: #1 being the planning and preparing for what we will do to within the garden for that week, and #2 being the tending and management that actually took place for that week. In addition to the 2 parts, each week will consist of a theme that will attempt to encompass some directed learning and workshops.

When we are wanting to know what is planned for the coming week, we can look in the planning and preparing section of the demonstration garden weekly posts.**

1:1 – Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?):

We will not be meeting in the field for the first week but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some work to conceptualize together!

~Tuesday 3/30 & Thursday 4/1~ Aside from the week 1 introduction, as well as the COVID training courses, we will go over the crop planning document that I (caleb) created during the Winter quarter; I will attach that below. It is common for a crop plan to change throughout a growing season but it is wise to have some sort of idea of the types and amounts of certain crops we would like to have. We will work together through the making of this crop plan so that we are all on the same page.

In addition to the crop plan, it is also important to know what we are up against with regards to the field space we plan to grow in: how much total space do we have? What weeds are present? How are we going to prep the beds so that we can plant into them? – Knowing the answers top these questions can make it quite straight forward with what works needs to be done.

Below are some photos that I took of our Community Garden plot before, during, and after tilling half of the space. I wanted to have some semi-prepped bed space ready for us ahead of time so that we can get some plants and seeds into the ground as quickly as possible. For the 2nd half of the field, I thought we could do a complete no-till system, meaning that half of our space would be tilled and the other half would be no-till; having both a tilled space and a no-till space can allow us to draw some comparisons between the two.

• 

• 

• 

As we move forward, I encourage us all to really think about whether there are any specific aspects of regenerative vegetable growing that we would like to learn about throughout this quarter. As we begin to meet and work through this, I can be sure to try and focus the weekly themes towards topics that will interest everyone involved.

Lastly, the bibliography and foundational texts page of this site have a list of books that give amazing detail on what we can expect as new-ish vegetable growers, I will be pulling some readings from these books throughout the quarter so it may be worth getting your own copies.

1:2 Tending and Managing (what we do):

Being week 1, my peers and I didn’t meet in the community gardens but rather met over zoom so that we could iron out the details of our individual projects, and go over our COVID safety protocol for working in-person, within the gardens.

Having gotten a portion of the field prepped last week (week 0), I was able to use this week to visualize what we will cover during our first meet-up in the garden space. When we do begin regularly gathering in the garden, there will be a seemingly endless amount of projects and activities that we can start tackling to move towards beautiful and mature vegetables.

I wanted to have some initial ground work put into the crop plan, as well as a vision for the plot-layout, but I also want this to be done in collaboration with the other students that will be helping me in the garden. To meet this end, I have a draft of a crop plan ready to share with other students that we can all work on, and a ‘blank’ plot map that we can complete together. I believe that it will be necessary to try and meet over Zoom once a week with any willing students, outside of the Tuesday and Thursday meet-ups, to unite on a collaborative crop plan. I am hoping that by having a central plan that we can all keep tabs on, we will all have an understanding of the work flow for the season.

I am so excited to get out into the sun and spend time with other humans, growing food, and playing in the soil! I am confident that we will have a thriving and diverse garden in no time!

1:3 Shishito Pepper Field Trial

~Some Context~

I have been participating in Organic Field Variety Trials for the last two years and have really enjoyed and embraced the significance they can have for local consumers and growers. A centralized goal of conducting these variety trials is to continuously work to breed regionally adapted crop varieties that perform well for the farmers and gardeners that produce them, and the social/cultural/environmental benefits of having regional varieties to grow are boundless. Throughout the Winter 2021 quarter, I began the process of reaching out to organizations, and talking with the Evergreen Farm’s manager, to ascertain whether I could conduct a variety trial through an independent research project for college credits. In the past, I had been awarded a fellowship, conducted the variety trials for undergraduate research experience, and through the connections that I made through those years, I was able to have seeds sponsored by the Culinary Breeding Network (CBN) of Oregon State University. Through meeting with Beth, the Evergreen Farm Manager, I was also able to carve out a space on the Evergreen Organic Farm to hold the trial.

The CBN is very closely affiliated with the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative (NOVIC), and it is for NOVIC that I will be gathering data from my pepper trial that will contribute to a national data base with information on hundreds of crop varieties.

~Seeding!~

Varieties:

Having just received the seeds in the mail during the Spring Break, and having a solidified location to hold the trial, it would appear that I am right on schedule to begin the process of designing the experiment. And not only that, but I built a greenhouse on my property over the Spring break, so I can keep the seedlings close to home, greatly reducing my travel time!

• Ise
• Mangangi
• Fushimi
• Mellowstar (f1)
• Takara
• Highmowing (Shishito)
• Osborne (Shishito)

From NOVIC and CBN, I received 24 seeds for 7 different varieties that were provided by numerous different seed companies of the Pacific Northwest. On 3/31/21, I seeded all the seeds provided in trays that will remain in the greenhouse until they are ready for transplant, thus beautifully marking the beginning of the this Shishito Pepper Variety Trial. I will post some photos below to commemorate the beginning of the trial!

• 

• 

• 

1:4 Mentorship Reflection

I know that many of us are eager to break free of constant Zoom schooling, and actually meet outside, in the elements. I cannot wait to be working with other, presumably smiling, faces in our own collaborative garden space. I am hoping that all of the students involved will garner some pride and ownership of our plot, just as I know I will. I am honored to have the opportunity to work with my fellow peers to grow tasty vegetables, and I am excited that I will get to assist them, and show them some of the ‘tricks of the trade’ to growing veggies. I know I will find this whole project endlessly fulfilling if even one person walks away feeling like a confident, responsible gardener.

I think it is natural for me to have some apprehensions as I prepare to finally meet in the garden with other students. I have always struggled with confidence and I am attempting to confront my concerns towards my own ability in advance. I am uncertain whether the process I have set-up for this season’s garden planning and managing will actually prove useful to the other students. I have always struggled with asking people for help, telling people what needs to be done, and delegating tasks to people that want to help; I think that this is because I question whether I am qualified to do those things, or if I can tell others what should be done. Many of these concerns go far beyond my role as a garden mentor, and I know that I will be able to compartmentalize them once we actually start moving ahead. It helps knowing that I am there to assist the students in their own learning objectives, facilitating the specific learning they are interested in, and it also helps that I am finally beginning to feel confident in my ability as a farmer/gardener.

In preparation, I have been thinking a lot about how to structure this co-curricular garden space so that it is a fun and beneficial project for everyone involved, while also being sure that I don’t put more work in than is necessary. For instance, I would usually be well on my way to planting and seeding, but I want to be sure that students are as involved as they want to be, even if this pushes the season back a couple of weeks. As Steve said in one of our conversations: “..we aren’t a garden in competition for the early-season market”, meaning that we are not in a big rush to have mature crops. By waiting for students, I also will also have their help in completing the jobs that need to be done, saving me some time by having many hands there to help.

I wanted to find some balance in knowing what tasks I should do alone and what tasks I should save to do with the students. Several ideas that I had were to till only half of the space so that it could be quickly prepped and planted into, but leaving the other half as it was so that we could all work together to clear that and get it ready. I also started some seedling trays so that we could eventually all do some transplanting together, but I didn’t seed all the transplanted crops so that the students will have an opportunity to do that as well.

As I said above, I know that much of this season will be a balancing act, but I am excited to have the help of both faculty and students to meet our goal of tasting our own home-grown vegetables!