I hope you are well this new year 2020. Actually, I am delayed in wishing you a happy new year as it is February 1st. My attention has been very focused on my health and my job at Portland Community College.
This weekend marks the one year anniversary of the Donohue family moving out of our beloved rental home and garden of 8 years and into our transitional home with a friend. This time last year we dug up close to 200 plants from our garden, potted them up, and moved them to our transitional home. We have managed to keep the majority of them alive in their containers for this year. Watering all those potted plants has been no small task!
What does your garden hold for 2020? Have you begun planning yet? I have received all of my favorite seed catalogs and love longingly flipping through their pages while sipping tea and dreaming of spring. This year our garden will be very small. We will continue to nurture the massive potted plant collection until we find a permanent home. Only one raised bed will be planted up with some easy care vegetables and herbs. We won't plant the massive container vegetable we had last summer. I am focusing my time and energy on my job at PCC, my teaching, the publication of my book, and moving towards home ownership. We should have some very exciting news this summer about homeownership.
All of my gardening energy is going into the learning garden at PCC's cascade campus. In my role as the cascade learning garden coordinator I am having so much fun planning out the vegetable crop rotation plan that begins in March and aims to produce food year-round. Gardening on this scale is a new adventure as I have never had a home garden this big! This spring we have several large scale projects to undertake-a culinary & medicinal herb garden, a pacific northwest native plant garden, a compost demonstration, a seating area, building 3 more raised beds, and planting additional fruit trees.
Many of you have asked about my edible gardening book. I'm sorry I don't have a concrete publication date for you. I am in hopefully the final round of revisions and am in the process of taking self-publication in a new direction. More to be revealed by March.
The wheel of the year continues to turn and here we are at another February. That means the beginning of my gardening teaching season. From February through June I teach gardening classes and see garden consultation clients nearly every Saturday and Sunday. This weekend is my deep inhale before being plunged into the frantic energy of spring. I hope to see you soon at a class or at your home for a consultation. Spring will be here before you know it!
Happy Gardening,
Jolie
