Garden Plans

I throw my dimes and quarters into a recycled mason jar that has the intention of funding my own piece of land to cultivate in the latter years ahead. I toss the spare change with such pride and am never tempted to dig my fingers into the metals to fund some impulsive desire. With this jar adding up slowly but surely, I have also found the Oregon valley in which I reside is a prime area for growing fruits and vegetables and foraging otherwise. As a college student, I feel blessed to have two 3x8 raised garden beds in my sideyard. With the ample annual rainfall, irrigation is far from an issue. However, the impending work load and part-time jobs are. They limit time spent in the soil and instead, my knees only greet the carpet floor as I search for books housed on the low, dusty shelves of the campus library. I am angered, frustrated, and inspired by this to change my daily life- to somehow incorporate more grown vegetables and fruits in my own yard vs. buying the produce at the grocery supercenter. More and more, I am quickly losing patience with having to buy food being I could actually be growing it myself. With this, I have decided to plant the gardens and make time to tend to them... even if it means cutting back work hours by a couple hours. I am starting with seedlings for a few lettuce varieties, carrots, and parsley in my windowsill and will also be planting a variety of pees and asparagus come February. I am very happy with this future endeavour and am hoping for the best! Below are some photos of things I've either foraged, grown, or traded for in the past. Blackberries grow like weeds around here so I take advantage of their deliciousness in early Autumn and make preservatives while still freezing Tupperware's full of whole berries. Along with blackberries, plums grow free! My friend, Rachel, an environmental chemistry and toxicology major, owns chickens and is never selfish in all the eggs she accumulates each morning so I am blessed with free-range organic eggs weekly. Lastly, I have found various herbs growing around campus and have cut countless sprigs of rosemary and lavender so far for cooking. 

Not pictured: the abundance of apple trees, pear trees, raspberries, wild strawberry, mushrooms, and much more I am sure I'm missing!!

Updates coming on the garden life.