How Many Green Tomatoes Does a Man Need?

Alas! Poor Uncle Leo always gets the short end of my jokes, but this year I do indeed feel likely to be buried in green tomatoes unless we're graced by a bit more sun before the cold comes.

I've been eking out a pot of tomato sauce here and there, but mostly nowhere, snitching instead and hoping for enough of an Indian Summer surge to enable some canning in earnest. We'll see.

Squash and peppers limp along similarly this year. I expect maybe a bushel or two of winter squash. Even the zucchini have been reserved this year...I'm almost keeping up with them.

Beans are another story...after a very slow start and several re-plantings early on, they're yielding nicely...all of my varieties. And, probably owing to the cool wet weather, the scarlet runners have been especially tender. My 20 year old son, in an inexplicable burst of homesteader-like energy, canned up 13 quarts of them one day. He did a fine job of things and even cleaned up after himself. I'm still scratching my head and wondering if I should perhaps have a doctor look at him.

Fall is always a sweet sort of panic for me. All things come ripe and demand attention mostly by threatening horrible waste if ignored. The winter rains loom too, reminding me of all the chores left to do. Almost as if summoned, 'work work' also seems to heat up come September or so. I buckle down, pull late nights, cram tasks into every nook of the day, meanwhile stealing as much of the waning summer fun as I can hiking or kayaking, and try not to worry too much or just go plain crazy. It never works, and then it sort of does, and then the rain comes and I am happy for what I managed to finish and cross with myself for what I did not. A better settling of scores is always warranted I think looking back over years of the same restlessness.

Green tomatoes this year are bound to break me. No matter how many old boxes I unearth in my garage, I cannot image there are enough empty Ball jars in my possession to hold the probably hundreds of pounds of wannabe Roma's, Early Girl's, Purple Cherokee's, etc. bearing down upon me. I'll do what I can, but am wondering if maybe it's possible to somehow make biodiesel, or perhaps settle the national debt with the remainder, or somehow get the IRS to accept them in lieu of taxes next year.

I went to a wedding last weekend, an Oregon wedding (in the rain), for a couple of true farm geek friends. They were tying the knot and simultaneously celebrating their acquisition of a lovely patch of land with an old farmhouse on it and a barn or two where they will make their life together. It was a good wedding, the best I can remember, and for reasons not much to do with the extravagance of the preparations. Bride and groom were simply dressed: baggy pants and a new pair of workshoes for the groom and a pretty cotton wrap for the bride. They performed their own ceremony on the porch of the farmhouse and offered a blessing to each other, to the land, and to the guests in attendance all of whom stood and watched adoringly in the slow Oregon rain. A small tribe of children composed and sang a song to seal the deal. I hope they're happy for a long time to come. I suspect they will be. I know they made a lot of other people happy that day at least and things like that tend to come around again. I thought about giving them green tomatoes as a wedding present, but in the end could figure no sober way of convincing myself of the notion and so offered up a new beehive for their place instead.

I'll check back with them later and at least give them an opportunity to trade the hive out for tomatoes...just in case.

My own bees, happily, came through with a bounty this year. After the cold start to the summer, this was an unexpected pleasure. I took about 70 lbs from the two hives and left them more than enough to see the winter through.

Certainly, there must be at least one recipe out there consisting mainly of honey and green tomatoes.

Packing It In

Long time, no post. Fortunately, there's been a lot more gardening happening than blogging...at least here.

My bee blog has been getting more attention and because it follows our efforts to create a new bee co-op, also explains the lack of focus here.

Anyway...this season is starting out strong. We have beans, peas, collards, kale, strawberries, squash, basil, tomatoes, onions, garlic, beets, cress, spinach, lovage, poatatoes, artichokes, and more all in and/or producing already.

We're packing something good into every nook and cranny, even building up (hop poles and bean tunnels) and out (into my neighbor's yard) at every opportunity. It's going to be a good year by all signs.

I'm super grateful this season to enjoy some help from a few U of O students who have taken an interest in the garden. They rock! Some are learning about bees, others about gardens, etc. It's really wonderful.

Fork In the Road

I've been decidedly torn about one of the tree species that inhabits the lot where my garden exists. When I arrived, there were several European White Poplar trees already here, some quite large. I took one (which was growing into my house and fence) almost immediately. No regrets there. The other two have given me years of pause.

I have no love for these particular trees. European White Poplars (Populus Alba) propagate roots aggressively and have invaded nearly every garden bed I've tried to create, in some cases so badly that beds had to be abandoned or completely dug out. Each spring they also spend about three weeks dropping copious amounts of white, fluffy seed everywhere.

On the plus side, they are trees. That's a basic bonus in my book. They also have a nice sound to them in the wind, as many cottonwoods and poplars do. In summer time the breeze rattles the leaves nicely and if I can forget about their encroachment on my gardens for a moment, it's lovely to hear them. The trees also provide good shade for my house and now after considerable pruning on one of them even look pretty good.

I'm at a crossroads with the smaller of the two remaining trees, however, which is planted in the narrow strip between sidewalk and street on the north side of my garden. It's sending shoots again, seemingly everywhere and nearly wiped out a bed of raspberries last year. It's also buckling the sidewalk, which doesn't irk me so much but will at some point attract the attention of the City maintenance folks who will require the tree to be removed.

Truth be told, the real driver for my discontent for this particular tree is that I'd very much like to put a couple of plum trees in that spot to broaden the variety of fruit the lot produces.

So, my quandry involves the decision to replace one tree with another. It's a weighty choice in my book and I've considered this situation now for more than a year. I remember once taking out a neglected and fairly unattractive laurel hedge, not thinking much about it, only a few days later finding myself in a cafe looking at a lovely set of venerable laurel shrubs that had been carefully and artfully shaped into small trees. I was immediately struck by the contrast between how long it took the laurels to grow and how quickly I had been able to remove them. My own lack of vision and creativity also confronted me inescapably in that encounter.

I don't think my poplar has anything like the aesthetic potential the laurel hedge might have. It's a badly shaped tree despite the fact that I've already done all that I can to improve its shape. Nonetheless, this poplar does have standing. It's probably almost as old as I am. The burden of proof seems to me to be mine.

Rationally, gardeners like me replace one species with another all the time. We make choices based on productivity, taste, aesthetics, etc. on a regular basis...acting as judge, jury, executioner, and midwife simultaneously. But, the price of that arrogance is easily seen all around us in our depleted soils, wasted streams, and ravaged forests. Deciding quickly and only in consideration of utility predictably yields short term results and weakens the bigger communities which both consist of and support the things we decide are useful.

Trees may or may not make choices in the way we understand choice, but they do behave in varying ways and, as is the case of my poplar (an introduced species), often interact aggressively with their surroundings (the other introduced species of my garden).

This story's clearly not over, but I'm out of time for now.

Water Works!

I'm most gratified to report that my water solution for the lot seems to be working well in this first wet season. Everything drains nicely, but not off the lot itself, which means I'm steadily hydrating the soil beneath my garden. Fantastic!

The concrete-sided raised beds also seem to be draining as needed, even given my design choice not to equip them with weep holes on the sides.

Of course, the acid test for all of this will come later this spring as planting begins and I need to get into the soil. But, for now, I get a provisional pass!