June 2021 – Becoming A Gardener

A Wednesday Bouquet of Daisies and Lavender

Portland’s Record-Breaking Heatwave

It was 113°F in our part of Portland yesterday. Records were shattered! I stayed inside for most of the day. I found it tolerable outside only for about 5-8 minutes at a time. The plants were not happy.

The potted plants on the porch at around 2:30pm yesterday (111°F) were pretty wilted.

I gave them some more water soon after this. Some of them perked back up, but the terminal leaves of the tomato plants (on the right side of the photo) in particular are toast.

Garden Log 2021: Week 9

See Week 8: here

This is the garden in 110 degree heat. Not too shabby.

The Last Tour of the Palo Alto Garden (and The End of Nine Years of Medical Training)

By the time this post goes up, I will (hopefully) be back in Portland, OR. As I write this (on Friday) I have just finished my last day of fellowship training. This is the end of nine years of medical training. Holy moly.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since I began all of this. It definitely doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

I took a break outside today in Palo Alto. The weather was a perfect 70 degrees. I will be driving into 114 degree heat! Yikes! Here are the final photos of the Palo Alto garden for posterity’s sake.

The mint. It started to show signs of mint rust (I think), so I decided to let it die. I won’t take it with me back to Portland. I cleaned the pot out well too.

The tomatoes I grew from seeds sown directly in the ground in February. Haha. They haven’t been getting any water since…April? I’m surprised they’re still alive.

Pineapple sage grown from a cutting from Dr. Kong.

Foraged Foods Friday: Daylily

The daylily is the next foraged foods bucket list. And they’re growing right in front of my house!

There are actually many in bloom all over Palo Alto at the moment – they’re hard to miss.

Raspberry Production On Clipped and Unclipped Raspberry Canes: A Case Study

INTRODUCTION: According to various sources on the internet, snipping back the tips of raspberry canes (a.k.a. “tip-pruning) may encourage secondary or lateral branches to grow from the main cane, thereby increasing raspberry yield. Furthermore, some say that the berries on these lateral branches will be bigger bigger than berries grown from the main cane on un-tip-pruned raspberry canes. However, this advice on tipping raspberry branches is not uniformly rendered. Many reputable gardeners make no mention of tip-pruning. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of tip-pruning raspberry canes.

Book Review: Nature’s Best Hope

The first book on my Summer Book Reading List that I read was Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy.

I was expecting this book to be somewhat of a downer of a book: we’ve destroyed the planet and we’ll need to make drastic changes to re-direct the train we’re on! Conservation books or documentaries all seem to have the same doomsday message, and it gets disheartening to hear it again and again.

Garden Log 2021: Week 8

See Week 7: here

It is going to be HOT in Portland this coming week. The tomatoes and squash should enjoy it.

Lettuce Whitefly

I have a small lettuce plant that grew from one of the starts Dr. Kong gave me. (Most of them were killed by squirrels, but two survived. The other surviving plant bolted a few weeks ago, so I am left with one.) I eat a few leaves from it every few days.

Foraging Friday: Purslane

While most of the apricots at the apricot orchard were underripe….

…there was plenty of purslane ready for picking!