2023 garlic harvest

This year's garlic harvest about triples prior years' !!

Soft-neck total is 630 so a share is 19 bulbs.

Hard-neck total is 166 so a share is 5 bulbs. (have longer stems for ID, foreground)

200 Years of Great Writers and Artists on the Creative and Spiritual Rewards of Gardening – The Marginalian

Spiritual Rewards of Gardening

Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Oliver Sacks, Rebecca Solnit, Bronson Alcott, Michael Pollan, Jamaica Kincaid, and more. 

BY MARIA POPOVA

Something happens when you are in a garden, when you garden — something beyond the tactile reminder that, in the history of life on Earth, without flowers, there would be no us. Kneeling between the scale of seeds and the scale of stars, touching evolutionary time and the cycle of seasons at once, you find yourself rooted more deeply into your own existence — transient and transcendent, fragile and ferociously resilient — and are suddenly humbled into your humanity. (Lest we forget, humility comes from humilis — Latin for low, of the earth.) You look at a flower and cannot help but glimpse the meaning of life.

Perhaps because the life of a garden is also a vivid reminder that anything of beauty and radiance takes time, takes care, takes devotion to seed and sprout and bloom, gardens have long been living cathedrals for the creative spirit. 

Here, drawn from a lifetime of marginalia on great writers' and artists' letters and diaries, essays and novels, is a florilegium of my favorite exultations in the rewards and nourishments of gardens:  https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/05/07/writers-artists-gardens/?mc_cid=5ff6bcba7c&mc_eid=c105bd900f

First day of gardening 👩‍🌾

Hello Higher Ground,

Here are some pictures from our first day of gardening. It was nice to see your faces today!

Thank you gardening committee for coordinating this 👩‍🌾 👨‍🌾 🧑‍🌾
Thank you Julie for preparing such a nice opening ceremony 🪶
Thank you Kira for the beautiful song you shared with us today 🎶
Thank you to today's chefs for the nurturing food 🍪🍊🍎
Thank you all for your work today ❤️

May this season bring an abundance of growth and beauty to our gardens, filling our hearts and souls with joy and community. 🌱

Carol Cathey

Garden Blessing this morning, ChrisK

Knowing as we do, that all things relate- 

And that all of life mutually contributes;

Let us invite blessing on the soil, from which the goodness comes- 

 

 

Dark earth, awakening from winter... be abundant.

 

Unseen Microbes of life, thriving and coaxing.. be abundant.

 

Worms and wiggling things, aerating and making room.. be abundant

 

Minerals and Nitrogen, elements of energy.. be abundant.

 

Essence of life previous lived, 

now richly composted and giving itself to be our new garden, . . be abundant.

 

 

Rich soil, ever present reminder of generous hospitality;

Rich soil who welcomes our seeds and starts

(And wayfaring weeds equally) . . be abundant

 

Rich soil, steady, patient presence

 of life and death and renewal .. be abundant-

 

  and host well our garden.

 

Amen.

HG garden drone photo

Here's a HG Garden drone photo, click for full size.  Taken by Tim Cotter, mid-Feb. 2021.

Managing Diseases and Insects in Home Orchards

A newly updated guide from OSU on tree fruit disease management……Tom

 

In this guide, you can learn best pest management practices for your home orchards. Suggested materials and times of application should have activity on the indicated pest. There are many fungicides and insecticides that are effective for managing the diseases and insects listed on the label when used according to the label directions. For more information, see the PNW Pest Management Handbooks, at https://pnwhandbooks.org.

 

https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/ec631/html

Dancing in the garden for STOMP