No Dog Days of Summer Here: Gardening in Gresham, OR

64 degrees, friends. 

That's the current temperature here in Gresham, Oregon, at 1:30pm PT on Monday, July 2. 

This southern-born transplant is in awe. Yesterday while reading on our patio in mid-afternoon, I donned a long sleeve because of a light, cool breeze. If I was back in Charlotte right about now, I'd be removing as many layers as legally possible.

It's a transition that's a welcome change. No more sweating off sunscreen or makeup, and goodbye frizzy hair that can claim it's own zip code? (Well, the hair is still kinda big.) I'm in! And Scott is no longer having summertime humidity Nicolas Cage-style freak outs.

Yet when it comes to gardening, the cooler temps and surprisingly dry weather so far are perplexing. After a bit of wrangling, we secured a large 20'x20' plot at Gresham City Hall community garden, which is walkable from our apartment. It took a full day to hack weeds out of the very rocky soil and hand-turn/till with a shovel and rake, but we prepped the bed with some purchased compost and chicken manure. 

Garden security lead Loretta Lynn Adams approves of the weather

On Sunday, June 3, we planted a large range of vegetables and herbs purchased at farmers markets, Al's Garden & Home nursery, and Grower's Outlet (an intriguing place that deserves its own post) -- eggplants (Feng Yuan and Black Beauty),  Thai Basils, Blue Lake 274 bush green beans, tomatoes (San Marzanos, Mortgage Lifter, Sweet Million cherry, Early Girl, Red Pear, Oregon Spring), cucumbers (National Pickling and Pick-A-Bushel), cantaloupe (Hales Best Jumbo), zucchini (yellow and green), bell peppers (North Star red), squash (Yellow Crookneck), and Okra (Clemson Spineless). We planted seeds of zinnias (Thumbelina and Persian), Marigolds (Firecracker) and Nasturtiums for borders around the veggies. Later we snuck in some beet seeds. 

Scott tried to coax the local Master Gardeners at the downtown Gresham Farmers Market into telling him he can grow okra here, but they informed him it's "unsuitable" for Pacific Northwest gardens (we're officially in 8b of the USDA Planet Hardiness Zones.) Nevertheless, he persisted! With two rounds of seeds planted, there's hope yet that we can successfully sprout some okra, 65 degree weather be damned. 

It's odd for it to be July, and I haven't even unpacked my canning & preserving equipment from our move -- there's nothing to pickle or can! Our tomatoes are starting to come in but need to ripen, our cucumber plants are probably 2-3 weeks away from producing cakes, and well, who knows if pickled okra will be a thing this summer.

Patience is key, I know. But I see photos from friends back east who've enjoyed their harvests for weeks already, and I feel little pangs of envy. Is the dry and cool weather a fair trade off? 

In addition to weather adapting, we're also working with another garden challenge of the furry variety: voles. 

Something's sampling our squash

A fellow community gardener warned us of these critters. The little rodents dug several tunnels in our plots and while I am relieved those aren't snake holes, I do not like finding our baby squash nibbled off. Scott bought some repellant yesterday that will hopefully banish these intruders.

We're watering every other day, and today I added fish fertilizer to many of the plants. The bell peppers look pretty puny, the cantaloupe seeds haven't even sprouted, and our eggplant is struggling. My best bet: we'll wind up with decent tomatoes and cukes. The rest may be a total gamble.

A fun thing about community gardening: bonus "volunteer" plants. Apparently the renters before us grew dill and cilantro, as we have a few unexpected herb plants coming up between our green beans. Maybe dilly beans are in our future? There are also several young tomato starts coming up in our beet patch. 

Coming up soon: a post about garden freebies, and how we turned someone's trash into our treasure. 

Please send your garden pics or comment below on your garden successes or tips for PacNW gardens. We'll take what we can get!