These stories come to us from the spectacular herb, fruit, and veggie gardens created at home by folks here at Mountain Rose. Plant-lovers prepare to feast your eyes, have a laugh, and maybe shed a tear of sweetness for the tales shared below. Special thanks to our awesome staff members Carol, Peggy, Ashlee, Karla, and Elvira for these wonderful gifts...
In my Mountain Rose profile, I say that I grow everything from apples to yucca. As there’s too much to name or picture here, I’ll just say that I’m an eclectic gardener growing both food and medicinal plants. I don’t bother with Latin names and I don’t pay attention to soil pH. My partner kindly calls my style “haphazard”. My motto is, “Let’s poke ‘er in the ground and see what happens” ~ which is also what I want on my tombstone!
Tomatoes….I never understood the unbridled enthusiasm that other folks had for this vegetable. My grandma and my mom used to pour over the seed catalogs in the dead of winter looking at DRAWINGS of tomatoes that they wanted to TRY to grow. DRAWINGS! I never could understand their behavior. Let alone the fact that we lived on the Oregon Coast where the wall of cold, gray fog was constant, and nothing grew if you lived in town where the fog hung through most of the summer. Tomatoes, to me, were ornamental, red, tasteless additions to salads.
After I re-married and moved to Oakridge, my husband Pat said, “let’s grow some tomatoes this year!” and I thought okay, I will try it even though I have NO experience getting them to grow. We planted four varieties of tomatoes in our front yard in a spot that had sun all day. My husband watched the tomatoes with childlike fascination as they grew. He told me all about tomato sandwiches, his favorite late summer meal that his mom made for him growing up. Hmmm...a sandwich with tomatoes only...I wasn't too sure about this! Pat explained how you thickly slice the freshly picked tomatoes, place them on some really great whole grain bread with mayo and sprinkle with black pepper. I still couldn't get my head around the “tomato only” scene.
To my surprise, the tomatoes grew and grew and grew. We finally picked our first harvest and Pat ran into the house to make my first sandwich. He made it with great excitement and sprinkled the black pepper on the tomatoes as the finishing touch. With much skepticism, I took my first bite...what was that? The flavor was astounding. It must be the fancy black pepper I brought home from work. I took another bite. The bread maybe, since it was a different kind than we usually buy. But no, it was not the pepper or the bread - it was the TOMATO! I couldn't believe it! All of a sudden I wondered which variety was this? I ran outside to see the plant marker… Brandywine…whew….okay, I will need to remember this. No, WAIT… I need to learn ALL of the varieties of tomatoes! All of a sudden the tomato world became clear to me. Looking at drawings of tomatoes in the seed catalog…even the song Home Grown Tomatoes that John Denver joyfully sang to us one summer at the state fair, well, it all made sense to me now!
That first summer of tomato sandwiches will always be one of my favorite memories with Pat. We ate sandwiches, made spaghetti sauce, and salsa. My grandma would be so proud. My mom is thrilled because when they visit Oakridge during the summer they can park their camper right next to our tomato patch and eat to their heart's content.
Yep, I am a gardener and I grow tomatoes. I wait impatiently for my seed catalog with DRAWINGS in the dead of winter!
Here are some photos of my lovely garden that we started in May. There is something so special and amazing about growing your own food. The love, time, and effort you put in, you most certainly get back when harvest time comes. We've been reaping some sweet rewards for a few weeks now. One of my favorite parts of growing veggies and fruits is being able to share with family and friends.
This year we have cucumbers, onions, carrots, assorted greens, watermelon, raspberries, strawberries, yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkins, corn, assorted peppers, and tomatoes. Ours is an all organic garden with no herbicides or pesticides of any kind used to help us along, just a lot of love and attention.
My love for plants started at a very young age on my grandparents’ property just off of the southern Oregon coast. There, my grandparents taught me the importance of utilizing the land and being self sustainable. They gave me pumpkin seeds and assorted flower seeds to plant myself at the age of three. All summer I patiently waited and watched as they grew. For them, it was a beautiful experience to share with their first grandchild, to see my reaction and excitement of watching these little plants grow. For me, this experience would lead to a lifelong passion that I will always hold near and dear to my heart. Now that both my Granny and Papa are passed, I carry this love and knowledge with me to share with future generations in hope that they will pass this love and passion along too.
My love of gardening started during childhood. It connects me to our Earth and the cycle of the turning years.
I learned by working beside my grandparents in their large backyard garden every summer. As an adult I've utilized whatever space I've had, large or small, to participate in the cycle of planting, growing, harvesting and resting.
My current garden started as a heavily shaded tangle of ivy, blackberries, weeds, and lots of very large rocks covering a dense clay soil. Digging, pulling, and chopping through the mass has provided sufficient room for a variety of vegetables, herbs, and flowers.
With the creative use of space, intensive companion planting, and my husband’s knack for turning recycled lumber into raised growing beds, our efforts are rewarded with a wonderful bounty.
Fresh, frozen, canned, and dried, our kitchen is well provided for from our own backyard. This year’s harvest includes, among others, beans, peas, tomatoes, potatoes, leeks, corn, eggplants, and artichokes, as well as culinary and medicinal herbs.
In winter the soil will rest, composting will return to the Earth what it gave us, and the cycle will begin again in spring.
The last submission is a beauty! Here is a stunning collage featuring a mere handful of the plants grown on Elvira's organic homestead, where she tends hundreds of medicinal herbs, ornamental flowers, fruits, and veggies, as well as a flock of happy chickens.
