Summertime Gardening

Repost from August 2015:

This past week, the daytime temperatures have ranged from 95-105F, humidity under 30%, gentle breezes, and terrible air quality due to the many fires west of us in the Yolly Bolly mountains and Trinity range.  Three fire fighters have lost their lives while battling these terrible forest fires.

Our summer garden has been productive this year in terms of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, kale, zucchini, herbs, and cantaloupes.

We have been pulling up vegetable plants in our sunny garden that have run their course and are now fading away.

The daytime heat has stressed all the plants despite reasonable watering.

The Spirit of Gardening:  Over 3,500 Quotes, Sayings, Facts, or Poems.  Compiled by Mike Garofalo.

The Month of August

 

Gardening in Vancouver, Washington

Gardening Information

Understanding your gardening environment is essential to success.  What are the climate conditions in your area during a year's cycle?  What is the soil like?
What kinds of plants are grown successfully in your area?  What nurseries are nearby.  

Vancouver, Washington, USA, Zip Code: 98662

Hardiness Zone:  Zone 8a: 10F to 15F

Average First Frost:  October 21 - 31

Average Last Frost:  April 1 - 10

Koppen-Geiger Climate Zone:  Csb - Warm-Summer Mediterranean Climate

Ecoregion:  3a - Portland Vancouver Basin

Palmer Drought Index:  Extremely Moist

Average Annual Rainfall:  43.55 inches

Heat Zone Days:  Rare Over 86F 

Elevation:  171 feet above the Pacific Ocean

Soil:  

Nurseries:  Yard and Garden, Shorty's, Tsugawa in Woodland, Lowe's and Home Depot.  

General Geography: 

The Pacific Ocean and Astoria, Oregon, is 100 miles to the West from Vancouver.
The south side of the City of Vancouver is the Columbia River, and across the river is Portland, Oregon.  The Cascade range and Columbia Gorge is to the East.  Looking north: 165 miles to Seattle, 494 miles to Vancouver, Canada; 105 miles to Olympia, and 45 miles to Mt. St. Helens.  

January Average: 33F low, 46F high, 6" Rain

February Average: 35F low, 50F high, 4.99" Rain

March Average: 37F low, 56F high, 4.38" Rain

April Average:  40F low, 60F high, 3.28" Rain

May Average:  45F low, 67F high, 2.67" Rain

June Average:  50F low, 72F high, 1.88" Rain

July Average:  53F low, 79F high, .8" Rain

August Average:  57F low, 82F high, .5" Rain

September Average:  49F low, 75F high, 1.91" Rain

October Average:  42F low, 64F high, 3.41" Rain

November Average:  38F low, 52F high, 6.49" Rain

December Average:  34F low, 46F high, 6.68" Rain

Yearly Averages:  42F low, 62F high, 43.55" Rain


The Spirit of Gardening

Gardening in Red Bluff, California

Colors in the Garden: Vancouver, WA

From the Front Porch 2

Creating A Raised Bed Garden Over Grass

On the west side of our home, there are a few pruned shrubs near the house, then there is unwatered grass in the side lawn down to the street curb.  There are no trees or shrubs in this area of the west side lawn to block the direct sunlight all afternoon.  I wanted to convert some of this unused sunny ground into a raised bed vegetable garden for future planting.    

I started working in 9/2019, and created the raised bed you see me sitting on below.  I've been working in 11/2020 on expanding that first raised bed garden.  Thus far, I have added 52 square feet of new raised bed garden space this month.  

How?  Method?   I lay down the concrete blocks (16"x8"x8") in the pattern desired.  Then I lay cheap doubled cardboard over the grass.  On top of the cardboard I add, at various times in the year: small wood chips, leaves from our sweet gum tree, grass clippings, composted cow manure, kitchen vegetable garbage, bags of raised bed soil, back yard soil from digging, bags of vegetable and flower soil, 16-16-16 fertilizer, , etc.- in short, organic materials.  I get my blocks and bags of organic material from Ace Hardware or Lowe's in the nearby Orchards' neighborhood.

Here is how the west side raised bed garden looked in August-September 2020.  We enjoyed eating many tomatoes, squashes, peppers, zucchini, garlic, onions, and cabbages.  We also enjoyed sunflowers, nasturtiums, marigolds, and other summer annuals.  

 

September 2020

There are a few pictures below that show some of the ongoing process of creating an expanded raised garden bed in 2020-2021.  

"We seem to have lost contact with the earlier, more profound functions of art, which have always had to do with personal and collective empowerment, personal growth, communion with this world, and the search for what lies beneath and above this world."
- Peter London, No More Second Hand Art, 1989 

For me, this gardening project involves my personal empowerment: gets me moving, keeps me physically active, provides for regularly scheduled enjoyable work assignments, and allows me to create something useful pretty much on my own.  Family members help a little and we all share in the beauty and productive output of the new raised bed garden.  I always have personal growth in my knowledge and appreciation by doing, by refining my planning skills, by using good judgments to balance means and ends, and in creating something beautiful.  Gardening generally brings people into closer communion with fundamental aspects of our world- a communion of touch with the soil and the spirits of the seasons.  Here I searched beneath the new fertile soil; and, from above, maximum sunlight.  Here I searched with my own hands and body by nurturing fertile soils; integrated with a few aspects of the scope of the mind of gardening language and gardening tradition far above me.  

"Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden."
- Sir Walter Scott

Gardening and Art

The Spirit of Gardening

Gardening in Early Autumn

Karen and I added new vegetable and flower garden beds on the west side of our home in Vancouver, Washington.  We both enjoy gardening.  There is always lots of work to do in any garden in the months of September and October.  One keeps busy in the autumn season.

10/15/2019, South Side of House

10/15/2019

mums flowering, 

zinnias drying-
me wondering

7/2019, 36 sqft new planting bed, west exposure

8/2019, 90 sqft new planting bed, west exposure

10/15/2019, Finishing up on around 216 sqft of new planting beds

Beds emptied on 10/5/2019, manured, amended, and expanded

Mostly the area is rested, amended, and weeded through the winter

Our winter crops might include swiss chard, radishes, cabbage, and onions

This area is on the west side of the house in full midday sun

10/15/2019, south side of the house

Hey, it is all in the Spirit of Gardening

10/15/2019, Our font bay window, south side

Winter Gardens Started

Behind me is a veggie bed in the sunshine.  It contains two small grape vines, kale, Swiss chard, snow peas and onions.

Spirit of Gardening Website

Spring Planting in Vancouver, WA

Karen and I will be busy with home improvement and gardening projects all during the month of March.  We are adding new fencing and improving old fencing.  We are going to be planting ground covers, ornamental evergreen shrubs, trees, mowing, fertilizing, and finishing paving our nursery area.  We are adding and improving garden trellis framing.  We also have many indoor home improvement projects.  

I planted four camellia shrubs in our backyard, and many smaller evergreen shrubs and ground covers.  

When to Plant Vegetables in Vancouver, Washington

From the National Gardening Association


The Spirit of Gardening by Mike Garofalo

Notes about Gardening in Vancouver, Washington

Because You Can Loose It

Here are some photos of our backyard gardens in November a few years ago.  Back then, we were harvesting all of our remaining pepper plants.  

Our winter vegetable crops are coming along fine: Swiss chard, lettuce, cabbages, onions, garlic, and kale.  

Back then, we must of had some beneficial rain.  The weeds and grass were quite a lush green.  Daytime temperatures were then from 50F to 65F.  

"Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed."

-  Walt Whitman
 

"I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, 'Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.' "

-  Jim Carrey

 

"Everyone can identify with a fragrant garden, with beauty of sunset, with the quiet of nature, with a warm and cozy cottage."  

-  Thomas Kincade

 

"Complexity excites the mind, and order rewards it.  In the garden, one finds both, including vanishingly small orders too complex to spot, and orders so vast the mind struggles to embrace them."

-  Diane Ackerman

 

"Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it."
-  Rumi

 "Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are."
-  Alfred Austin


A Winter Vegetable Garden in Northern California

The Winter Vegetable Garden in Warm Climates

The Spirit of Gardening:  Quotes, Sayings, Poems, Information.  Over 3,500 quotations arranged by 200 topics.  Compiled by Mike Garofalo. 

Months and Seasons: Quotes, Sayings, Poems, Information.  Compiled by Mike Garofalo.  

November: Quotes
 

July Gardening in Zone 9

July - Quotes, Poems, Sayings for Gardners

Months - Quotes

High Summer Feast Day, August 1st

July Gardening Chores 
For Red Bluff, California, USDA Zone 9


Water plants: take advantage of cool morning hours, use daytime shade.
Water plants deeply and less frequently.
Water potted plants carefully on very hot days.
Mow lawns, but don't mow low. 
Mulch and compost: straw, cuttings, leaves, twigs, chips, shredded paper, garbage.
Water compost pile areas.
Manage cutworms and other garden pests.
Weed around vegetables and shrubs. 
Plant for autumn vegetable crops. 
Use straw mulch to help control weeds and cool soil.
Maintenance on lawn mowing equipment.
Pick and save or eat fresh vegetables and fruits.
Dry fruit in sun. 
Water plants.  Use irrigation ditch water efficiently and effectively. 
Get up early to work in the cool morning hours. 
Thin out excess fruit on trees.
Mulch with straw, chips, compost.
Train vines on support structures.
Read, listen to music, relax and sleep in the shade.
Tend to and enjoy annuals in bloom. 
Control wasp nests in the eaves of the house and porch and outdoor sheds.
Control ant invasions in our home.
Maintain evaporation cooler and house fans.
Cover all windows with shades on the outside, keep interior blinds and curtains closed.
Use indoor fans to move cooler air from cooler to office area.
Water trees and shrubs  slowly and deeply.
Stay hydrated at all times while working outdoors. 
Use shade for cooling, wear hats, wear light white long sleeved shirts.
Don't water the leaves of plants from 10 am to 8 pm - water roots. 

"Gardening helps us realize somatically, viscerally, the laws of growth and gradual unfolding.  We can't pull the plants up to make them grow, but we can help facilitate and midwife their blooming, each in his own way, time, and proper season.  I have learned a little about patience and humility from my gardens.  It's so obviously not something I'm doing that creates this miracle!  I also like to reflect upon and appreciate the exquisitely, evanescent, transitory, and poignant nature of things in the garden. 
If you love the Dharma, you have to farm it.

Go to a garden
And just stand in it.
Breathe in the air, the fragrances,
the light, the temperature,
the music of the different plants, insects, birds, worms,
   caterpillars, grasshoppers, and butterflies.
Inhale the prana (cosmic energy) of all the abundantly
   growing things.
Recharge your inner batteries.
This is the joy of natural meditation."
-  Lama Surya Das, "Awakening to the Sacred," 1999

    

The colorful gate pictured above is located at the entrance to our Sacred Circle Garden in Red Bluff, California.  The color green symbolizes Earth, yellow symbolizes Air, red symbolizes Fire, and blue symbolizes Water. This photograph was taken in 2009.  Most of the plants have nearlytripeled in size since then.