My community garden plot has plants that overwintered (garlic, leeks kale), there are also some annual plants... I call them Blueberries, although an egghead botanist might use the term Cyanococcus within the genus Vaccinium. As a result, tilling the soil in one swell effort is not really in the cards. Apparently the garden now has a tiller... which of course will be broken in a few weeks when some hammerhead puts the wrong kind of gas in it... but that's another story. You have to be fluid. That sounds good too, I can see a book on "fluid gardening"... it caters to the idea of dealing with the various things that happen... and that is so totally now. Perhaps statements like "Now I don't want to force my plants into being something they are not so i am just going to be open to the changes that they present to me over the course of this varied growing season" could be presented in a group setting and then discussed. Selling points are everything, but i never cared for them myself.. mind , body and garden need to keep fluid.
You see it's still Man gardening... focusing on techniques like "savage attack weeding", combined with fluid thinking... allowing nature to guide you. What is this fluid thinking our man is dancing around? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? I'm getting there...
Now your Onions and Garlic and Leeks and such are plants that transplant very well... you need to get them in the ground (often to over winter), and that's OK.. it doesn't mean they have to be in that defined spot forever... you can move them to a spot in the garden where perhaps you need them once you have decided how your garden wants to Flow... get it! For the record, you can't transplant peas.. they need to go where you want them, but you can transplant Beets with some success, carrots not so much.
Ideally it is best not to transplant... in a perfect world the plant would grow where it needs to grow with the right space around it. But due to circumstance that can't happen right now, so you do the best you can and you get things in the ground and growing. You know get the flow happening... start the process... just by getting the process flowing you will do yourself more good than you could ever comprehend from your static viewpoint. Even if you went in and made a bunch of mistakes, you would do yourself more good than bad because you would be involved. Just like a molecule of water flowing down the river drawing ever closer to the waterfall... but the waterfall can't hurt you... you are together with your kind and you will all fall together. OK lets stick to fluid man gardening and keep away from fluid existentialism gardening.
I started a bunch of beets indoors and put them out in my garden by the house and that little insufferable squirrel ass hole came and ate the tops... so i might have to start again with chicken wire all over that box... Fluid eh! The squirrels and I are on better terms ever since the peanut feeding stopped, and although i was thursting to avenge the attack I'm OK with it. I put the plant out there without proper protection, i need to be smarter, more fluid in my thinking. I hit a block, it could be a rage trigger but perhaps i need to ride this river and flow to another avenue.
So you see, perhaps beets are the thing to grow at the community garden where the squirrel population is less absurd... fluid thinking... don't jam a round peg in a square hole... notice the energy, feel the flow. So I threw about 50 beet seeds in a square area in front of the peas.. we need to get the beets going. Now i am not sure if that is the ideal place for them but if it is not i will move them later when i get that sorted. Most likely i don't move them but since i have embraced fluid gardening i am not afraid to plant them there given i am able to contemplate moving them if need be. Sometimes think of your garden as one of those plastic tubs you buy vegetable starts in at your local store. You take them out of the box and put them in your garden.... well get things growing. I have some Tomatoes started but they will be a while before they get in the ground... perhaps a yield of spinach before that spot gives way to tomatoes... that could be planted in a field of spinach for that matter. When you have a fluid gardening mind anything is possible.
Should we spend some time ridiculing the opposite... why not. Probably better than raging on about the asshole cat that has been digging up my peas and then shitting on them. Imagine that... say i go wandering into the house of that cat and into the kitchen where that cat has it's food bowl and i just take a shit in it... maybe i wipe my ass and drop the toilet paper in the water. I bet you those cat owners will miss the irony and try to call me crazy and have me arrested or shot, rather than taking responsibility for this outrage.
The opposite of fluid might be rigid, good for a tool brand but not for a farming mindset. As the old saying goes "things often don't go as planned" so if you are rigid in your gardening you are bound to miss opportunity. So many people wonder why certain things they plant don't produce, and they try and try again. There is a mindset that say's "i want to grow this", but if it's not working why box yourself like that. The plants and the season's particular climate don't give a rat's ass about some vision you have about your garden... get things going and observe what is working and let those observations guide your process.
Fluid... what is the key fluid? Please tell me you just shouted WATER at your computer screen. Yes you need to water you garden like an obsessed badman. Soak it down early every day. Remember that is my secret... my secret that i typed in CAPS. The secret that i have been telling people for years, but they manage to forget... It's OK i like being good at something, so thanks... a little thing called garden dedication.
Before we forget lets go over a few things from the previous years on Northwest gardening... Now I'm not saying it can't be done but these are 7 things i have observed from many plots, my own included.
1) All Brussel Sprout plants infested with aphids... never seen a yield
2) Densely packed squash family plants overcrowded and covered in powdery mildew
3) Too many fucking zucchini
4) Bullshit avant guard forms of zucchini that suck
5) Water starved cabbage plants sickly and covered in aphids using that plant as a base to attack the garden.
6) Tomatoes rotting on overcrowded plants
7) Portland is a Bean and tomato town
I just throw this out because i happen to be a scientist at heart, and maybe you know a way to grow brussel sprouts, that i don't, but i want you to know it and not just think you remember somebody saying something about it one time. Well of course you can do what you want, i just happen to want yield, and i hope you do too, and think about how nice it would be if the produce for people got some good beets rather than a 9 foot zucchini. I know, i have been really giving it to the zucchini... I'll give you a tip. Grow the yellow zucchini and when it get's ripe shred it and then salt it and let it sit... this will bring out the water... then squeeze it out and mix it with Emmental cheese and bake it on a pizza shell as you would a pizza... It's a winner.
So yes be open to your garden, react to the climate of the summer we will have... we don't know that answer yet... it's OK. Get some oars in the water and some bets on the table, plant things you think you will use, or would be nice to give to somebody... you can never have too many tomatoes if you have the balls to do some mad canning come summertime. I still make curries and soups with my tomatoes from last year... lots left still.
one more note... the massive kale plant in the left... has the yellow flowers. The yellow flowers are awesome on salads... also a good thing to have to bring bees into the garden... i saw 5 bees on that plant today.
You see it's still Man gardening... focusing on techniques like "savage attack weeding", combined with fluid thinking... allowing nature to guide you. What is this fluid thinking our man is dancing around? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? I'm getting there...
Now your Onions and Garlic and Leeks and such are plants that transplant very well... you need to get them in the ground (often to over winter), and that's OK.. it doesn't mean they have to be in that defined spot forever... you can move them to a spot in the garden where perhaps you need them once you have decided how your garden wants to Flow... get it! For the record, you can't transplant peas.. they need to go where you want them, but you can transplant Beets with some success, carrots not so much.
Ideally it is best not to transplant... in a perfect world the plant would grow where it needs to grow with the right space around it. But due to circumstance that can't happen right now, so you do the best you can and you get things in the ground and growing. You know get the flow happening... start the process... just by getting the process flowing you will do yourself more good than you could ever comprehend from your static viewpoint. Even if you went in and made a bunch of mistakes, you would do yourself more good than bad because you would be involved. Just like a molecule of water flowing down the river drawing ever closer to the waterfall... but the waterfall can't hurt you... you are together with your kind and you will all fall together. OK lets stick to fluid man gardening and keep away from fluid existentialism gardening.
I started a bunch of beets indoors and put them out in my garden by the house and that little insufferable squirrel ass hole came and ate the tops... so i might have to start again with chicken wire all over that box... Fluid eh! The squirrels and I are on better terms ever since the peanut feeding stopped, and although i was thursting to avenge the attack I'm OK with it. I put the plant out there without proper protection, i need to be smarter, more fluid in my thinking. I hit a block, it could be a rage trigger but perhaps i need to ride this river and flow to another avenue.
So you see, perhaps beets are the thing to grow at the community garden where the squirrel population is less absurd... fluid thinking... don't jam a round peg in a square hole... notice the energy, feel the flow. So I threw about 50 beet seeds in a square area in front of the peas.. we need to get the beets going. Now i am not sure if that is the ideal place for them but if it is not i will move them later when i get that sorted. Most likely i don't move them but since i have embraced fluid gardening i am not afraid to plant them there given i am able to contemplate moving them if need be. Sometimes think of your garden as one of those plastic tubs you buy vegetable starts in at your local store. You take them out of the box and put them in your garden.... well get things growing. I have some Tomatoes started but they will be a while before they get in the ground... perhaps a yield of spinach before that spot gives way to tomatoes... that could be planted in a field of spinach for that matter. When you have a fluid gardening mind anything is possible.
Should we spend some time ridiculing the opposite... why not. Probably better than raging on about the asshole cat that has been digging up my peas and then shitting on them. Imagine that... say i go wandering into the house of that cat and into the kitchen where that cat has it's food bowl and i just take a shit in it... maybe i wipe my ass and drop the toilet paper in the water. I bet you those cat owners will miss the irony and try to call me crazy and have me arrested or shot, rather than taking responsibility for this outrage.
The opposite of fluid might be rigid, good for a tool brand but not for a farming mindset. As the old saying goes "things often don't go as planned" so if you are rigid in your gardening you are bound to miss opportunity. So many people wonder why certain things they plant don't produce, and they try and try again. There is a mindset that say's "i want to grow this", but if it's not working why box yourself like that. The plants and the season's particular climate don't give a rat's ass about some vision you have about your garden... get things going and observe what is working and let those observations guide your process.
Fluid... what is the key fluid? Please tell me you just shouted WATER at your computer screen. Yes you need to water you garden like an obsessed badman. Soak it down early every day. Remember that is my secret... my secret that i typed in CAPS. The secret that i have been telling people for years, but they manage to forget... It's OK i like being good at something, so thanks... a little thing called garden dedication.
Before we forget lets go over a few things from the previous years on Northwest gardening... Now I'm not saying it can't be done but these are 7 things i have observed from many plots, my own included.
1) All Brussel Sprout plants infested with aphids... never seen a yield
2) Densely packed squash family plants overcrowded and covered in powdery mildew
3) Too many fucking zucchini
4) Bullshit avant guard forms of zucchini that suck
5) Water starved cabbage plants sickly and covered in aphids using that plant as a base to attack the garden.
6) Tomatoes rotting on overcrowded plants
7) Portland is a Bean and tomato town
I just throw this out because i happen to be a scientist at heart, and maybe you know a way to grow brussel sprouts, that i don't, but i want you to know it and not just think you remember somebody saying something about it one time. Well of course you can do what you want, i just happen to want yield, and i hope you do too, and think about how nice it would be if the produce for people got some good beets rather than a 9 foot zucchini. I know, i have been really giving it to the zucchini... I'll give you a tip. Grow the yellow zucchini and when it get's ripe shred it and then salt it and let it sit... this will bring out the water... then squeeze it out and mix it with Emmental cheese and bake it on a pizza shell as you would a pizza... It's a winner.
So yes be open to your garden, react to the climate of the summer we will have... we don't know that answer yet... it's OK. Get some oars in the water and some bets on the table, plant things you think you will use, or would be nice to give to somebody... you can never have too many tomatoes if you have the balls to do some mad canning come summertime. I still make curries and soups with my tomatoes from last year... lots left still.
