One day last April I stopped by the little country store on the highway to pick up the local weekly newspaper, and noticed a flyer announcing a new community garden. With the family farming DNA that I inherited from my Dad, something inside of me said, "that's for me!" So I gave them a call, paid $15 for a ten by four foot plot, and began planning the garden layout. After I got back from my trip to Dallas in late May, I commenced planting my crops ... baby carrots, mesclun salad greens, golden zucchini (summer squash), tomatoes, sweet onions, fingerling eggplant, and several varieties of peppers.
This community garden is operated by a county agency and is located on the county fairgrounds in a south-facing area that gets full sun all day during the summer. At present, the garden is only operating from May through October. The growing season in the western Columbia Gorge is short, with relatively mild weather -- daytime temperatures were in the 60s and 70s through the end of June -- and I had no idea how my adventure in farming at the 44th parallel would turn out.
The community garden is located next to a creek that empties into the Columbia River a few hundred yards to the south, after passing under the state highway and BNSF railroad bridge. The cliffs in the background are on the Oregon side of the river. What a glorious setting for a garden.
Yep, I've been learning new ways to cook zucchini.
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