Incredible Edibles Plant Sale -- May 4, 2013

In case you don't follow my cooking blog, I just put a post there about the Incredible Edibles Plant sale coming up May 4, 2013. I'm looking forward to it and will post more about the plants I get here.

Garden update

I harvested some salad greens from the garden tonight. The garden has been enjoying the warm weather. I have finally had to start regular watering. Now I need to figure out when to harvest the fennel.
Plants were purchased at the Incredible Edibles Plant Sale and were planted in May.

The italian parsley seems particularly happy and the squash has some nice large dark green leaves. The basil was not doing well, so I picked up another basil plant from Trader Joe's.

Incredible Edibles Plant Sale 2012

Happy volunteers selling raffle tickets at the Incredible Edibles Plant Sale on May 5, 2012. They did a nice job dressing up the jars for the raffle tickets -- one jar for each prize.

A couple volunteers ready to take your questions at the help table.

Shopping for plants during the sale with a veteran Master Gardener on hand to field questions.

 A young gardener in training?

 My wife helped out on the team of volunteers checking people out once they picked their plants.

 Beyond the sale proper, we had places to get food, hang out, shop for garden related stuff ....

... including some fun music from a ukulele band.  For me this did a lot to give the day a nice festive feel.

Near the end of the day we had been nearly wiped out of plant. At some point we got everything down to one row of tables. At least that meant we didn't have a lot of plants left over to find homes for at the end of the day.

Incredible Edibles Plant Sale -- May 5

This weekend, on May 5, the Multnomah County Master Gardeners are putting on an Incredible Edibles Plant Sale,10am to 3pm, on the grounds of All Saints School, 601 NE Cesar E. Chavez Blvd (formerly NE 39th Avenue).

Pittock Mansion Pruning

I went to volunteer at the gardens at Pittock Mansion this morning with the intention of doing battle with the re-emerging Vinca, but it turned out to be pruning day.

We had a nice array of weaponry at our disposal to address the DDDDD's of pruning: Dead, Dying, Diseased, Damaged, Disoriented.

The tools were pretty new to me, but it didn't take long to get the hang of them. Pole mounted tools sure beat having to use ladders to get close to everything. Though they also had some nice 3-point orchard ladders for getting up high enough to clean up the crowns. A chain saw on a stick is a beautiful thing.

After working on three of the cherry trees, I spend a little bit of time starting to clean up a pretty scraggly little fellow....

Gardening at 1860s Kitchen Garden

I volunteered for the first time at the 1860's Kitchen Garden at Champoeg State Park. It has a lovely rustic arbor covered with hops.
The garden has several prepared beds. Most of the bed is typically in one crop with a little patch at the end need the path planted in something different.

I liked the use of cloches (glass bell jar) to give some plants a head start.

There were some terrific trellises made from apple tree trimmings. Some had the buds bloom after they were planted.
Here is a nice arrangement for beans to climb on...
I worked on making a large trellis that we took to calling trellizilla that will obscure the modern electrical box once the plants grow up.

A view of the garden with the threshing barn beyond.
I liked the look of their compost bins as well.