Seeds for Next Year's Garden

This week we all met at the Interpretive Center for a favorite indoor activity - seed packaging!  As you know, one of our goals for the garden is to produce seeds for sharing with the public, and for planting in next year's garden much as the pioneers would have done.

We took all our bags of dried seeds, labels and packaging and spent two pleasant hours filling envelopes, and catching up with each other.  (The conversation is really the best part!)

If you are interested in collecting your own seeds take a look at the Clackamas County Master Gardeners 10-Minute University handout -  https://cmastergardeners.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/2014savingseeds.pdf   This should give you a good start towards collecting and sharing seeds from your own garden next year!

Sugar Pea seeds 

Scarlet Runner Beans 

Calendula Seeds 

Love in a Mist Seeds - so tiny! 

The box is filling up, ready to be stocked at the gift shop in the interpretive center.  

Goodnight, Garden....

We put the garden to bed this morning.  We cleaned up the beds and spread straw to help weed suppression during the winter.   

Calendula 

Rose hips 

The pink rose is still blooming - a memory from summer  

Hauling the bales ^^ to spread in the garden

Screening the compost, getting it ready to spread in the garden

Up next - some seed packaging and maybe some rose pruning before the weather gets too wintry.  See you again soon!  

Fall Color

What a beautiful fall we are having here in Oregon!  After a wet beginning to the month we have been enjoying a long stretch of warm, dry weather - with even more in the forecast.  

Our garden crew had our annual Harvest Party today celebrating the end of the summer.  We feasted on stews and soups made from veggies harvested in the garden this summer. Afterwards I headed to the garden for a few snapshots. 

Hops vine showing it's fall color 

Calendula is blooming all over the garden, and horehound is coming back after being cut down earlier this summer (below) 

Zinnia in the sun

Grapevine on the fence turning yellow 

Have good harvest season, we will see you later in the year when we start packaging the seeds we harvested a few weeks ago. 

Seed Collecting

Today was a beautiful day for gardening. We had an energetic crew for harvesting seeds, weeding and general late summer chores. 

Our Hollyhocks are stately this time of year, and mostly bloomed out.  

Seed heads on the Hollyhocks form early in the year and dry on the stalk. 

Hollyhock Weevils appeared after we had the seed collected in a paper bag.  We placed them in the sun and they began to escape. Later we will warm them in the oven to kill the remaining pests.  

Sweet Pea and pods on the vine. 

Calendula seed head with blooms in the background. 

The cabbage developed many heads while we were not looking.  

Rose hips on the Sweetbriar Rose, so cheerful in the garden this time of year. I am sure the birds will make good use of this fruit this winter. 

Four O'Clocks bloomed late, so no seed pods yet.  

Heritage Days in the Garden

This weekend the Interpretive Center celebrated the 175th Anniversary of the Oregon Trail.  We had many visitors to the gardens, including a few from the past!  

Father and daughter 

Taking a closer look 

Two garden explorers

We played at vegetable game - matching the seeds to the vegetable.  

The visitors didn't seem to disturb the residents of the garden, they were busy doing their work all day long.

Beautiful rose hips, almost ready for harvest

Speckled Moon and Stars watermelon with Calendula 

Watermelon blossom and lobed leaves 

Almost ripe! 

The corn is just not growing, probably because of the watering issues earlier in the summer. 

Leek seadheads

Short Cleome

And my camera just can't stay away from the Zinnia's!  They were the star of the garden today as the subject for many photos from our visitors

Things should start to quiet down in the gardens with fall approaching in just about a month or so.  Enjoy these last days of summer in your gardens, and we will see you soon. 

Just Checking In

We arrived in the garden this morning to discover that the irrigation system hasn't been working. Luckily the parks department was there taking care of it and turning the water back on. On the bright side, there wasn't a lot of weeds to pull, and we were able to harvest lots of seeds today. Now we just have to wait and see how the rest of the veggies do over the next month or so.

Cabbage and Calendula 

Four O'Clocks 

Visitors in the Garden - Oregon City Festival of the Arts

Today was the Three River's Artist Guild summer art show at the Interpretive Center.  We had artists set up all over the grounds and in our little garden.  Visitors walked through the gardens taking pictures and asking questions about our little project, and asking advice about their own gardens too.  We talked about veggies, fertilizer, pests, roses, herbs, soil ....  really about any and all things garden related.  If you didn't make it out today we will all be there on Sunday too. 

And if you missed it, here are a few photos from the garden today.  

Orach gone to seed. 

Amaranth. 

Pink Hollyhocks. 

Insect visitor on the lavender. 

Scarlet runner beans. 

Encore bloom by one of our Moss Roses. 

Pink Mallow. 

Sweet Peas. 

Feverfew and Love in a Mist.

Cabbage and Calendula.

Squash bloom - look closely and you will see a bumble bee in the throat of the flower. 

And last but definitely not least - a few of the beautiful Zinnia's we have in the garden this year.  So photogenic!  

Soon I will be sharing photos of our harvest, so be sure to check back.