Truly, I can think of little more satisfying than watching a tiny seed grow into a small seedling, then on to a thriving plant and finally into produce to consume with gusto. For instance, a juicy tomato still warm from the sun, sliced and salted on the summer’s first tomato sandwich. While my path to that bliss has been filled with obstacles this year, we are finally watching our full garden grow.

Moving from California to Washington, I knew my gardening methods would require adjusting. I just didn’t realize how much! Despite following local gardening guides, I had several unsuccessful starts. Here were some of my biggest problems:

Weather

Whereas in California I had no trouble starting my seeds in a greenhouse in February, here I had bad luck even in April. Still too cold. Our current greenhouse is very small and the temperatures swing back and forth. Going forward, we plan to get a larger greenhouse that will hopefully stay warm longer.

However, I may need to look into other solutions, as well. Even after ordering a few seed warming mats and painstakingly watering with lukewarm water, I had to restart many of my tomato seeds once and all the peppers and eggplants twice. And the peppers never did a dang thing. So this problem requires more thinking before next year.

Pests

• Slugs — While I was all too familiar with slugs in San Leandro, the ones here get much larger (yuck). It would take way too much beer to drown the masses, and they don’t seem swayed by broken egg shells around plants. So I will keep picking them off and wait for the day we have ducks to feed them to joyfully. But for my more vulnerable baby herbs which keep disappearing, I’m going take a roll of short hardware cloth and cut it in half lengthwise. I’ll make little collars for the seedlings, keeping the jagged edge up— kinda like an unwelcome mat.

• Rabbits— When we moved in last August, my newly sprouted beans and peas were soon munched down to nothing by Peter Cottontail and the gang. This year, I think between the dogs and the cat and me chasing off every rabbit I’ve seen, they somehow got the memo.

• Deer— Luckily, our home garden is fenced in, so this will become more of a concern as we expand. When that happens, I’ll try to surround the perimeter of row crops with deer-resistant plants like marigolds, zinnias, lavender, and rosemary. Added bonus, those are good for bees.

• Gophers/Moles— I keep finding evidence of tunnels in several of the raised beds. The store-bought repellent containing castor oil hasn’t seemed to work too well. But I recently read that human hair, coffee grounds, and garlic powder scare them away. So I will get on that.

• KiKi— Our cat seems to think the entire garden area is her personal litter box, so I often have to shoo her away from my plants. I came out the other morning to find a tomato plant broken at the base, quite a devastating moment. I’m pretty sure it was KiKi darting among the rows looking for the purr-fect spot to do her business. Bad kitty! But at least she’s keeping the rodent population in check.

Produce Expansion

Our garden repertoire increased a bit this year.  Some of the new-to-us items did better than others. Some, the verdict is still out.

• Garlic— Last summer we harvested a ton of garlic that John, the previous owner, had planted. Bryon took a few dozen bulbs and planted them clove by clove in late October, covering the bed with cut grass. They started sprouting in February and by June we were enjoying the garlic scapes (long flowering stems) sautéed in olive oil and salt. Hopefully, we’ll have another banner garlic harvest this year, since I cook with it almost daily.

• Corn— We halfheartedly tried corn once in San Leandro with no luck. This time around, I had a better idea what I should be doing. However, the task of germinating corn seeds in wet paper towels, then moving to 4 inch pots, then moving to the ground was more complicated than I could handle while juggling a job, home remodel, and all other farm stuff on my plate. Our neighbor Sandy told me that corn should be “knee high by the 4th of July” and apparently, it should be even higher than that old saying indicates. Well, that didn’t happen. But we’ll be happy with whatever we can get in, assuming it’s before the first frost. In addition to sweet corn, we are growing dent, which is a starchier corn good for animal feed. And we are growing several varieties of popcorn, including some in shades of blue and pink. What fun… if they actually grow.

• Onions— I had some old onion seeds in my seed box but don’t remember ever planting them myself, at least not to fruition. But we pulled lots of onions from the garden last summer, again thanks to John, so we figured we could carry on the tradition. I purchased three boxes of onion sets— which are small, dry onion bulbs—in red, yellow, and white varieties. Plus, I started a dozen or so green onions and leeks from seed. Everything is looking good, so far.

• Rhubarb— This plant doesn’t seem to require too much care. Just a little water and forget about it. Last year, it was near the end of its lifespan by the time we moved in. But this year, I cooked with rhubarb for the first time, in a custard pie. Yum!

• Horseradish— Read Bryon’s excellent journal entry for more.

By nature, I am not a patient person. So it’s been difficult waiting longer than I ever have to put plants in the ground, and therefore longer until I can gobble up the fruits of my labor. But at least now we are enjoying berries (strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry), radishes, kale, and finally some fresh peas! With hopefully lots more variety in our future.