Spring 2015 in the Garden

Winter was very mild here in Oregon this year and the green house shows it with a profusion on blooms on the nasturtiums and the geraniums. We were able to harvest salad greens all winter and only had to use the rocket heater once and it worked great! 

Late May 2015 and the monster nasturtium, it overtook the walkway and started climbing up over the potato boxes. Not only veggies love aquaponics but flowers also grow amazingly huge.

I've tried many different plants in this system and have found that greens and herbs grow best. Tomatoes grow great but they tend to take over and shade out everything else! Melons, squash and cucumbers get mildew so bad in the moist environment it's not worth the effort.

Kind of a dark picture but the Jerusalem artichokes are starting to take off and the globe artichokes in the background are on their second year and  we have already enjoyed a few yummy snacks off of them.

With the growing season just starting it still looks a little bare but just wait...in a short few weeks it will be a jungle and there are more terraces in the master plan to fill the rest of the hillside.

A short few weeks later...

After a two week vacation I came home to a jungle in the greenhouse! I was so shocked at the overwhelming growth that I just dug in and cleaned it out before I thought to take any pictures. Below is the garden and greenhouse after the clean out and new planting the second week of June.

Oregon sugar pod snap peas absolutely love aquaponics and they produced for a couple of months last year, definitely looking forward to another long harvest of my favorite veggie! Below the peas and in some of the other beds are this years greens: kale, chard, perpetual spinach and lettuces along with a selection of herbs.

The monster nasturtium needed to give up its space for  newly seeded greens so it is gone :(  but it will be back as it produced tons of seed and the geranium is still going strong. The flowering plants seem to do best on the lower level beds in the slight shade. I've tried some veggies on the lower level but they always get leggy and don't produce well so this space is reserved for bee magnet plants.

I am stocking up on plenty of small fruit trees and perennials to fill up the upper terraces when I get them done. Apple, pear and paw paw trees, stevia, yakon, ashitaba and sorrel to name a few, I tried some mini banana but they didn't make it, i'll try again cause it seems if it's warm enough in the greenhouse for the avocado, lemon and lime that the banana should do alright too.

The Jerusalem artichokes must have grown 4 feet in the two weeks I was gone! They do best in full sun but I've had them here in these boxes under our huge Sycamore tree for three years now and they produce tons of tubers even though they don't get as tall as ones in full sun.

Onions, peppers, cukes, tons of tomatoes along with a couple of volunteer squash from last year are soon going to make a jungle out of these terraces.

I've laid down a bunch of new wood chips this year thanks to a neighbor taking out two trees and getting all the chips and also  upgraded this section with a path making is much easier to get around. To the left of the picture you can kind of see one of the new terraces,  more pics later but in them I've planted gogi berry, blue berry and potato to start. To the right are hardy kiwi, regular kiwi, Bolivian cucumber, squash and amaranth just sprouting.

Growing season has just started and already I've harvested pickling cukes, artichokes, radishes, rhubarb, peas and tons of greens. Looking forward to a good gardening season as long as the water holds out!

The Parable of the Sower - Mark 4

4 And again He began to teach by the sea. And a great multitude was gathered to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. ² Then He taught them many things by parables, and said to them in His teaching:

³ “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. ⁴ And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. ⁵ Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. ⁶ But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. ⁷ And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. ⁸ But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
⁹ And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”