Growing: My Plot at the Community Garden
Burien is really starting to heat up and that means it’s prime planting season!
I’ve had my community garden plot for a couple months now, and I think I was a little over-ambitious back in April. When I first got my plot, I mixed my compost in right away and planted a few starts that were given to me by a family friend at the Bel-R Greenhouse. In April, I planted red sail lettuce, romaine lettuce, beets, red cabbage, broccoli, spinach, green onions, carrots, yellow onions, and peas. For the most part, these plants are all hardy (meaning, they grow well in early spring when it’s still cold) and have been able to survive the cold and wet weather we’ve been having… all except the peas. I bought sweet pea starts from and thought I would get a head start on growing peas. That would have been just fine if we had a warmer, less wet spring. Unfortunately, the cold was much too cold and my peas did not fare well.
Here’s my peas when I first planted them...
And here they are a couple months later!
As you can see, they are not doing so well.
Meanwhile, my neighbor across the plot planted her peas from seed and hers far outshined mine. I was able to harvest about 10 peas from my plants and I’m not expecting many more.
After talking to more of my garden neighbors, I learned that in Burien it’s probably best to wait until after Memorial Day to seriously plant. On Memorial Day weekend, I planted new pea seeds next to my current scraggly stalks and hopefully they’ll grow well and I’ll take out
The good news is that my spinach, red sail lettuce, and romaine lettuce are flourishing. I harvested an entire grocery bag of all three just in time for our Memorial Day barbecue. My broccoli and cabbage are beautiful and healthy. I’m expecting that with the good weather will come plenty more vegetables.
So far I’ve learned that gardening can really be hit-or-miss, especially in our climate that can be unpredictable. But the good news is that there are plenty of knowledgeable gardeners in Burien who have much more experience than I do.
What have you planted in your Burien gardens? What works well and what doesn’t? I’d love to hear about it!
Catherine Dupre is a Burien Daily columnist who is writing about learning to garden in Burien. Most of her gardening is done at the Burien community garden known as the B-Patch. Catherine is a life long Burien resident, a geography student at UW, and a world class barista at Burien Press on SW. 152nd St.
You can read her articles as they are posted on our home page, or you can see them alone by clicking this link.
You can read her articles as they are posted on our home page, or you can see them alone by clicking this link.
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