This is my first year gardening, so I'm doing a lot of experimenting to see what grows well here (tomatoes), what is a good ROI (peas), what gets destroyed by bugs (broccoli), and what is not worth the hours of shoveling endless dirt onto giant vines (potatoes).
Successes*
Tomatoes - We have 20-something plants, and even the ones in mostly shade are doing better than expected. Look at these beasts, two months apart:
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Peas and pole beans - Fresh snap peas are the best, and the pole beans are 8 or 9 feet tall. We had to extend our trellises to the roof.
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Potatoes - They have grown crazy high despite my active neglect and rough transplantation into shade. Hilling is a pain in the ass, especially when they're planted on a slope.
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Corn - at least so far, they're growing despite shady spots. (Shade is a common theme in this garden.)
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Kale - again, so far. Some plants are looking strong and avoided total destruction.
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Lettuce - I've been able to harvest enough for a few side salads. This is success relative to the rest of the greens.
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Our gardening group - Their generosity has made up for quite a few failed plants.
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Oregano - Oregano eeeeverywhere.
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Scallions - We've been able to harvest for a few meals, including chilaquiles yesterday:
Fails Learning Experiences*
Cabbage and broccoli: aphid central, I had to pull our biggest plant today. I've been meaning to spray neem for weeks, but I've either been too lazy or used the chance of rain to justify my laziness. This is Portland, there's always a chance of rain.
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Bush beans - none have sprouted. I was so excited about the orca beans, too... The bush beans that did sprout turned out to be a pole version, necessitating an emergency trellis operation.
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Peppers - Oh god. This overcast, rainy weather made them moldy and stunted. Out of maybe a dozen attempted plants, we currently have two baby peppers on one plant.
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Spinach - growing super slowly, one bolted, and another is brown and shriveled.
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Beet tops - I should've kept them in water, they died in the soil.
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Catgrass - The cats could care less.
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Oregano - I didn't plant any oregano. Please someone come take our oregano.
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Onions- we "harvested" three baby onions with gigantic tops that grew out of one grocery store onion bottom. It is... an underwhelming amount of onion considering how tall they got. 'm holding out hope for the Walla Wallas grown from sets.
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Garlic - planted these at the wrong time and didn't let them grow before a test harvest over the weekend.
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Celery - the stalks are thin, but they grew taller than I hoped for.
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Bok choy - produced slowly but reliably, and didn't get munched or infested. A few dry, hot days killed if off. The baby bok choy regrowing from a grocery store base got moldy.
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Squash/cucumber - some plants got munched to death, but some are starting to flower.
@Jon_Snow - same thing happened to our snap peas. We took too long to secure them to the trellis when they were tilting
and they fell over.
They're still alive, at least, and seem to be growing.