Vegetable gardening in Portland

I've taken the leap into vegetable gardening this year. My motivation is simple -- eat something I've grown myself and show it to my father when he visits us in Portland. He'd get a big kick out of that. My first foray into the exciting world of vegetable gardening was planting some seeds indoors. I soaked the seeds in paper towels for ~2 days and many of them sprouted right in the paper towels. I asked around  the neighborhood and  finally settled on seeds from the  Territorial Seed Company. I can't say enough about quality this outfit and the knowledge level of their staff and gardening in the Pacific NW.

Here is a shot of my sugar snap peas and cucumber starts at about 2 weeks. 

From Life in Portland

The next challenge I am facing is the lack of great sun at my home and well Portland in general. I found a spot with 3-4 hours of sunlight southern exposure on our property; There is one small problem -- it is on my driveway and there is no good place to garden.  Enter a raised bed or accept defeat. This is getting complicated. So with some help from the Chicken Gardener (yes..that is what I said), I put in a 4x6 cedar bed. I added some river rocks for drainage and the location is on a slight incline so I don't anticipate allot of problems. I build a cold frame out of pvc pipe and a 2mm plastic tarp to get an early start on the season and filled her with dirt.

Here is a shot of the bed and the cold frame without the tarp.

From Life in Portland

After consulting with Joan across the street (a very vegetable savvy person), I planted my sugar snap peas and a tomato plant this afternoon and covered the structure with a translucent 2mm tarp. I hope the last of the frost is behind us. More updates to come. Happy gardening.

From Life in Portland