Garden Update: It's Alive!

It's been two weeks since Planting Day 2015 here on our hill in Lyle, Washington, and in our garden the seeds have taken root and sprouted our first leaves of the season. Every box is showing signs of life, some stronger than others, but all in all it seems we're off to a solid start.

The corn is on the rise, standing a couple inches above the topsoil already. We planted the corn in the box at the northwest corner of the garden. Because of the direction our yard faces - ever-so-slightly northeast - and the slope of our hill, this was the best spot to sew it to ensure it wouldn't spend too much of the day casting shadows over the other crops in its box. There were eight kernels planted, and all eight have sprouted. Provided they survive the summer and the wind up here, and if last year's crop in Portland is any indicator, we can expect 2 or 3 good ears per stalk, roughly a couple dozen all told.

One of those crops we're careful not to overshadow with the corn is the zucchini planted right next to it. We only planted a few seeds this year - last year things got, well, let's just say "out of hand" - and all three are above earth and thriving. Cory loves zucchini, and I, Perry, love Cory so tolerate zucchini. She makes it easy on me by sauteing it in olive oil and butter and dusting it with grated Parmesan. Cheese solves everything. 






In the southeast-most bed where the lettuce-Mesclun mix dominates, it's the green beans that have jumped out to an early lead, with all 12 plants sprouted. We'll thin them down in another couple weeks, trellis them soon after that. The lettuce and Mesclun are showing signs of life, and the jalapenos that sit in the other available quadrant are slow starters but it's still early. The heat hits Lyle at the end of this week - three 90+ days are projected - so we expect that to kick the reticent peppers into overdrive.

Heck, things are growing so good out there, even the three grape vines we planted at the beginning of the season and had all but given up for dead have sprung to life and are each displaying leaves. We're going to give these guys the season to see how they do, but our suspicion is the clay quality of our native soil here on the hill might not be the best for them. Next year's micro-vineyard might have to be in a long and slender raised bed.

But the real star of the garden thus far is without a doubt our potato box. Now granted, the potatoes went in the dirt about a week before the rest of the garden, but despite that they're still leaps and bounds ahead of the other crops. Each of the nine plants is already standing between 3 and 6 inches high, and the idea of all those ripe little white, yellow, and purple potatoes waiting in the dirt has us salivating. Conventional wisdom says potatoes need about 10 weeks before they're ready to harvest, depending on the date of your last frost. Ours was mid-April, so the potatoes went in the first of May, meaning our spuds should be ready around mid-July. Another method some folks use to determine when to harvest is to wait until you see flowers, because it means the plant has shifted its priorities from developing the tuber to developing seeds. We're going with whichever happens first, because that's the shortest path between us and taters.

The cherry trees shorn bald by the wind are still pretty much leafless, but there are fresh chutes all over them, so the roots are at least finding purchase and giving it a go. In another couple of weeks, once the 3 remaining garden boxes are built and the gravel has gone down and the fence has gone up, we'll plant another pair of trees - peach perhaps this time - and see how they fair. Until then we're in a waiting game, waiting and watering and weeding, and hoping the wind doesn't blow it all away.

So that's our garden as of Memorial Day. But that's not all we got up to over the holiday weekend. Check back over the next few days for posts about our most recent Saturday Morning Hike, and the picnic table that nearly broke Perry's back.

Good gardening!

Saturday Morning Hike: Labyrinth/Li'l Maui Loop Base

Some weeks are tougher than others, and some weekends are busier than others, but no matter how much we have going on or whatever's in the background of our lives, Cory and I like to take time together, even if it's only half an hour, to get out and hike one of the area's many, many, many trails. Seriously, there are an impressive 100+ trail heads in the Columbia Gorge - according to the wonderfully-useful and forgivably-punned guide Curious Gorge - leaving us in no short supply of dusty trails to escape down. Saturday mornings are usually our best shot, and so far we've been out on a different trail every weekend the weather has allowed, which has been most. That said, I don't want to give the wrong impression of we Hortons as surefooted mountain goats; we're as used to hiking as we are to waking up to turkey calls, so it's not like we're scaling rock faces or even spending hours at a time on the trail. Mostly we're taking spirited strolls, pushing ourselves a little more each weekend, working towards the bigger, more skilled excursions.

This weekend, with only a little time to spare, we went out to a trail that's been on our list from the beginning, as we drive by it most everyday. Officially it's known as the Labyrinth/Li'l Maui Loop. There are two access points to the trail, both off Washington State Highway 14 east of Bingen, and we went with the first one we came across driving west out of Lyle, right around mile marker 70 beside the rich cobalt waters of Rowland Lake, a popular fishing spot freshly stocked for the season with rainbow trout big as your arm, or so folks say.

Rowland Lake as seen from the trail head

The first stretch of the trail - from either access point - is an abandoned paved road, its asphalt cracked by patches of weeds and its shoulders lined with piles of fallen rock, clutches of bright orange wildflowers, and more dill than you can shake a bushel of cucumbers at. On one side there's a sheer wall of craggy stone twenty, thirty feet high, while on the other side there's the narrow gray stripe of highway and the much wider, much more vibrant Columbia River, and Oregon beyond.

The road climbs unimpeded for a few hundred yards then narrows to a slender path through larger collections of discarded rock - or "ripe rattlesnake grounds" as I refer to them in a voice trying but failing to mask a fearful vibrato, to which Cory typically rolls her eyes and pushes me onward - that winds a short way and deposits you beside a small if unexpected waterfall maybe fifteen, twenty feet high. The water it deposited in the small pool below was crystal clear and inviting, even on a moderately warm day, and the mist it sprayed caught the light just so, painting the air with a trembling rainbow. It was freaking beautiful, and worth the flouncy description I gave it, plus some.

From there the road crosses another patch of open terrain before running through a cut in the rocks directly beyond which is the trail head that splits into either branch of the Labyrinth/ Li'l Maui Loop. The Labyrinth, which is the split to the right, runs a more wooded if direct course to the top of the vista, while the Li'l Maui branch on the left is more of a switchback through grassy fields and slopes of wildflowers. All told the loop goes for five miles, more than we had time for on this outing, but gauging the climb as we continued down the road, definite plans for a longer excursion were forged.








All in all, it was a brief but pulse-spurring hike, not too hot and not too breezy, and most important, it provided us with the change of perspective that's central to any reinvigoration. Sometimes it's the smallest things that make the biggest difference, I guess. Til next time.