Hi All, Lane County Extension Service Master Gardener John Fischer here with KLCC's Good Gardening.
I mostly grow my garden to produce vegetables. The freshest anywhere (get the water boiling honey - incoming zucchini), pesticide free, and about one tenth the price of the store - maybe less with the store prices I'm hearing about.
But of course my garden gives me so much more. It's cheaper than a gym membership, allows friends and family to share its bounty, is as beautiful ( to me) as any formal ornamental plot, and it helps me to predict the future.
The walnut and catalpa trees won't leaf out until after the last frost - they were perfect again this year. A blooming peach in January means a mild spring. If they wait until March, winter might linger a bit longer. Both those extreme years produced a bountiful crop - how did they know?
Being outside also makes you much more likely to see the first robin, tiger swallowtail, hummingbird, or cabbage moth - get out of here. Interestingly, a hummingbird flew up to me during a heavy in-town snowfall a few years ago - maybe they never leave. And being outside with your plants gives you an opportunity to learn signs of the seasons for your locale in a way that only years of observation can provide.
On the practical side, your garden may still have
vegetables to give from last year. The massive leek harvest was expected, but there were also a good number of beets, carrots, and potatoes that got missed last fall, but made it to the table this spring. I even found a quarter - from 1996 - while planting zucchini seeds.
I currently have a four inch inch broccoli plant with a one inch head on it. I'll harvest when it gets to be one and a half inches. But the plant will stay in because harvest one is just the beginning, and subsequent crops will likely be much larger than the first - we'll see and eat and learn and eat some more.
I'm John Fischer with Good Gardening.
