Question of the Week: What are you planting in your garden this year?
by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to Question of the Week, a weekly news column that poses timely questions about life, politics, culture, economics, health, and more to people out and about in our communities. Our hope at CCC News is that having this space dedicated to being curious about other people’s experiences can help us to deepen our understanding of people from all walks of life.
This week’s question of the week is a timely Spring themed question that asks us people in our community: What are you planting in your garden this year?
Gabe Morales age 52, White Salmon
CCC News Reporter Cole Goodwin (myself) interrupted Gabe Morales and Alex Ealley digging post holes for a new fence. They took a break and chatted with me about what they’re growing this year. And Gabe revealed he’d just turned 52 on Thursday.
“Happy Birthday Gabe!” I said, followed by “How long have you been a horticulturist?”
“Since 2005. We grow grapes. We grow cherries. We have a Pinot Noir, Cabernet and Gewürztraminer. We grow bings and vans.”
“So you have a commercial operation to take care of. Do you grow anything just for yourself?” I asked.
“Yes we do garden. We have a 20x20 area. We made raised beds. We grow potatoes, jalapeños, peppers, and tomatoes. We make hot sauce.”
Alex Ealley age 37, Visiting White Salmon from Northern Virginia
“I planted some pot.” Alex said, laughing a little.
“That’s about it. We have a different climate in Virginia. Weed is so easy to grow, just throw it outside, and take care of it.”
“What strain are you growing?” I asked.
“Whatever I had, cause I’m just starting out. Purple Punch I think it was.”
Alex came to visit the Gorge for a month to help Gabe Morales build a new deer and bear resistant fence around his vineyard and orchard.
Dan Smith age 78, White Salmon
“Most of what I got is already planted,” said Dan.
“What are you waiting on to come up?” I asked.
“Well there’s coneflowers. A lot of snapdragons. Daffodils. Tulips. I have a pretty big yard. It keeps me busy.” says Dan.
“I like your trees.” I said, pointing at the three enormous ponderosas that shade most of the yard.
“The trees are a pain, I’ve probably hauled off fifteen pickup loads of pine needles and leaves and junk I cleaned out of the flowerbeds. My wife’s got a garden out back and she usually plants tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and radishes and whatever.” Dan said, laughing fondly.
“Do you eat a lot of salads in the summer?” I asked.
“I’m a diabetic so I eat a lot of vegetables.”
“I’m a vegetarian so I eat a lot of vegetables too,” I said with a laugh, Dan laughed too.
“Yeah, we have vegetables every day,” said Dan.
Then Dan and I spent a good fifteen minutes identifying different flowers that are starting to poke up out of the ground in his yard.
“Do you have a favorite flower?” I asked.
“I like the foxgloves. They’re tall and they get this big bloom of flowers. And I like snapdragons.”
“I like snapdragons too!” I said. “I like squishing the base of the flower so it looks like a dragon mouth opening and closing.”
“Do you have trouble with the deer eating your garden?” I asked.
“I covered up the tulips and roses and a few other plants. They’ll eat anything they can get. But They don’t like the daffodils. And they don’t bother the foxgloves. We’ve got some blackberries in the back. They can have them,” said Dan.
Chris age 40, Brandon age 7.5, and Dylan age 5.5, of Hood River
I ran into Chris and his two boys walking their three month old puppy, Daisy in Hood River.
“We moved here recently from Olympia,” said Chris.
“What are you planting this year?” I asked.
“Everything. That’s at least what you’re planting. Everything,” said Brandon, age 7.5, looking up at his Dad.
“Did you plant puppy seeds? Is that how you got this puppy?” I asked.
“No!” said Brandon, looking scandalized.
“There are some poisonous flowers for dogs,” said Brandon.
“Do you help your Dad in the garden?” I asked.
Yeah!” said Brandon.
“We’re putting in some fruit trees. We’ve got plum, peach, and a couple of Japanese Maples,” said Chris as Brandon and Dylan work on training Daisy to ‘sit’ and ‘shake’.
Nicole 38, Kira 2, Mike Ceratto 32, Hood River
“That’s a good question,” said Nicole.
“Kale, Chard, Celery, whatever we can find,” said Mike.
“Sweet potato,” added Nicole shooting a look at Mike.
“We have a greenhouse and I thought we could grow sweet potatoes but-” Mike said and flashed a conspiratorial smile at Nicole . “They need a lot of warmth.”
“We particularly like the purple sweet potato but it grows in tropical climates so it doesn’t grow well here,” said Nicole laughing a little.
“Well not when you grow them in the greenhouse.” said Mike, still smiling.
Karen age 68 and Steve Murray age 65, The Dalles
“Oh!” exclaimed Karen laughing. “How much time do you have?”
“All the time in the world!” I said, “I love gardening.”
“We normally grow marionberries.” said Karen.
“And blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries.” said Steve.
‘A little bear would be so happy in your garden,” I said. “So many bear-ies.”
Neither of them laugh.
“We’re buying more strawberries to plant. We’re gonna plant peas, beets, lettuce, Romaine lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, English cucumbers, Straight A Cucumbers. Jack Harmon our neighbor loves the cucumbers so we try to keep him stocked.” said Karen.
“Red and yellow onions, bunching onions…” said Steve.
“And we grow whatever comes up in our compost pile. Usually great big pumpkins.”
“And avocados. We don’t ever get any avocados, but the plant grows.”
“And zucchini and tomatoes, and yellow neck” said Steve.
“We took out our lawn. To heck with lawn, we’re doing garden boxes.” said Karen.
“We have 13 garden boxes that are three and a half by ten feet long.” said Steve.
“When we have leftovers we take it to the Senior Center or St. Vinny’s food pantry. Or just feed it to our neighbors. I’ve been known to stop cars on our gravel road and say, you’ve got to take a zucchini,” said Karen. “We do a lot of sharing.”
“What do you love about gardening?” I asked.
“I love to watch it happen. See things grow. And you like to eat it.” said Karen looking at Steve. “I like to eat it. But it’s fun to see everything come up. I baby the aspar-guys. We planted purple asparagus last year.”
