WW copy editor Sarah Smith knows everything about plants and gardens—at least, compared to the rest of us around here. So, in honor of the sun reappearing in PDX this past week, we asked her to let us in on some veggie garden intel and upcoming green thumb events in town.
Made In The Shade: So my hair artiste, Barb, has been on the ridiculous waiting list for a city of Portland community garden plot for four years. (I’m so glad we have a megamillion-dollar tram and are getting a billionaire bridge and two more swanky sports stadiums, while folks wait years to rent a humble garden plot in this town. Where am I, Seattle?)
Imagine her joy when she learned she would finally get her square-o-dirt this spring. Now imagine her disappointment: She went to meet her new farmlet—and it’s shady.
Conventional wisdom is you need 6-9 hours of sunshine a day to grow fruits and veggies. But I’ve conducted a backyard science-fair project on this very challenge the past three years.
Here’s a list of the delicious and reasonably easy stuff I’ve grown in a light-shade corner of my yard, which gets just 3-4 hours of sun daily: lettuce, spinach, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, snap and snow peas, garlic, cucumbers, asparagus and zucchini (North Portland’s food-centric Livingscape Nursery is a good place to go for plant starts). Also raspberries, and strawberries so good that my Cali-native gardener father bit into one big one and declared it the best strawberry he’d ever had.
A little Web surfing yields more possibilities, like bush beans and root veggies, for part-shade plots. Find ore info on that here and here.
You will get smaller yields than in full sun. But seriously, do you eat more than two zucchinis a week?
Be Helpful: Guerrilla gardener Jenna Barnett wants your recycled perennial plants. Barnett, who subverted 4-foot weeds into flowers around the Bridlemile School sign on Southwest Hamilton Road, is also the sustaina-sprite who turned curbside hellstrips into heaven strips at Hillsdale Library over the past four years.
After two weeks of killer December snow, she’s seeking donations of sun and especially shade-tolerant plants for the community project, which is all volunteer and donation-based. “A lavender plant that died was an integral part of the garden design and its replacement would be a treasure,” she says. “As you divide those crowded beds this week, instead of tossing to the compost pile, set aside these gems for the Hillsdale Library Garden.” Email jennabarnett@hotmail.com. She will be happy to pick them up.
Destination, Plants: Tomorrow and Sunday is Portland’s plantapalooza, the Hardy Plant Society spring sale at the Expo Center, Hall E-2. Admission is free, but parking is spendy so you might ride the MAX Yellow line there, instead. For foodies, it’s mostly herbs and berries, but flower-wise, pure nirvana, with more than 100 of the region’s top growers.
Photo of the Hardy Plant Society sale 2008 courtesy of the Hardy Plant Society.
- Stanford Rolls to Victory at Medical Cannabis Awards Former WW
- Live Review: The 2009 Yard, Garden & Patio Show What kind
- Free Trade: Daimler to Close Portland’s Freightliner Plant Daimler,
- City Hall Garden Yields 50 Pounds of Tomatoes One could
- Hardy Myers Chalks up a Final Victory in US Supreme Court Newly ele
